Best of 2019 (Comics): House of X/Powers of X

You know you've got something special when you can make someone who's out of the comics loop in a long while come back to it.

And that's what I got with House of X/Powers of X, Jonathan Hickman's 12-issue event that not just rescued Marvel's not-so-merry mutants from stagnation, but also brought them out from the shadows and into the spotlight they long deserved. House of X/Powers of X sees Professor Xavier and Magneto joining forces to finally bring together mutantkind as one sovereign nation, an act that brings with it a lot of excitement...and a lot of danger from all sides and across the millennia. What a way to relaunch the X-Men!

It feels weird to sing praises for Hickman considering how much I loathed his previous work, but it looks like he brought down his cryptic hysterics down a peg or ten in House of X/Powers of X and it made for a more enjoyable and infinitely less frustrating read. There's an actual story here that I didn't have to sit through mumbo jumbo to get the payoff! It's not often we get an event book that's both written AND drawn well, but Pepe Larraz, R.B. Silva, and Marte Gracia came together to bring the X-Men to life on the comics page in a big way.

From shocking revelations to surprising retcons to even more surprising hints of what's to come, House of X/Powers of X wastes no time in making the case for the X-Men being the species to watch this 2020. This is an incredible feat for Hickman and company, and I for one can't wait to see what happens next.