If you ever told me that there would be a time where Hickman would have the opportunity to reinvent the X-Men like he did with the Avengers? I would have probably laughed it off because Marvel has never been too keen on taking the X-Books as seriously as they should. Between Powers of X and House of X, I was simply stunned by what he has been able to accomplish so far. THIS is what it looks like when you actually do take a corner of the universe seriously like what we are getting from the X-Men right now. They say that this is all going to lay the groundwork of the X-Men’s stories for years to come, and I honestly hope that this is the truth!

This conclusion to Powers of X begins with Year One. This was the only part which confused me because for all that should be concluding, what we got out of that first scene was more of a rehash of what we have already seen multiple times between both books. Of course I tried not to think too hard about that since this is a book where it seems that everything has a purpose. You only have to pay attention to where it might led down the road. What we needed to see in this finale was what came after. Where Moira’s story ended, and the next chapter began which took us to the world we see now.

Next came Year One Thousand. I was glad to see something concrete unfolding from this timeline. As I’ve said before, this part of the story didn’t captivate me as much as everything happening in other points in time. We have this race which found a way to make it to the end and ascend through merging with the Phlanax, but we weren’t seeing too much of the importance of what this was serving in our understanding of the mutant’s future. Obviously their numbers dwindled down to a group that could be contained within a dome. So I guess this was their way of showing us where there was only so much that the mutants could get away with through their Krakoan experiment. However, we needed to see that there was something more to this than an emphasis on what survival looks like at the end of the road for everyone on the planet. The truth to what this life of Mora was trying to reveal to us took some time to absorb, but I found myself satisfied with the understanding it granted us by the end.

What Hickman succeeded in doing more than anything else was showing us what we were getting excited for. Powers of X and House of X are now done, so now what matters is what comes after. We got plenty of that to take from this finale between the things that Xavier and Magneto would do differently, and addressing the eggshells they are going to have to walk on in order to maintain what has now been built. We have already gotten hints that things aren’t going to be perfect, so there was no better time than now to have someone say it out loud that this isn’t it for their fight. Krakoa has been built, the mutant’s place has been earned, but this is all just the foundation for the world that they now have to live in.

As I said with House of X #6, it was appreciated up p the bitter end that we could experience the numerous pages of research notes which found their own way to add depth to this story. In the case of Powers of X #6 i enjoyed most diving into the journal of Moira. This said so much that would have taken much longer if images were needed to accompany her accounts of actions taken towards building this better world for the mutants. Some things we knew, much more was new information, but all of it was engaging to read from her perspective.

Till the very end there wasn’t a better art team they could have chosen for Powers of X than RB Silva, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia, and David Curiel. This team created the most visually pleasing experience we have had with the mutant world in a long time. Beautiful renders of their new home, the wonders of the mutants living a life where they are now in control, and the beauty of resources they have never been afforded like what they have now. There was not too much which stood out in this issue that we didn’t only see from different perspectives, but you loved everything your eyes absorbed for the same reason as each issue before. Part of me almost wishes these four could just draw all of the X-Men books, and that says more than enough for the impression that they were able to leave on just me. I hope there are plenty other readers out there who feel the same.

The inevitable truth came, and it was quite the tough pill to swallow. Will that be the case with this timeline? Or this be the timeline where the mutant race conquers the truth which holds a grip over their future? Who knows! But that is what now captivates us to this new dawn of the X-Men. Powers of X #6 gave us a lot to look forward to when the X-Men have now have their future in their hands, and everything will come down to what they are willing to do to keep it.