X-Lapsed, Episode 6 – House of X #3 (2019)
X-Lapsed, Episode 6
House of X #3 (October, 2019)
“Once More Unto the Breach”
Writer – Jonathan Hickman
Art – Pepe Larraz
Colors – Marte Gracia
Letters – VC’s Clayton Cowles
Design – Tom Muller
Edits – Bissa, White, Cebulski
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: August 28, 2019
Who’s ready for some Hot-Takes? Because, as we reach the halfway point of the HoX/PoX event, your fumblin’, stumblin’ humble host has got a bunch of ’em!
Your paranoid pal has started to worry about the man in the Cerebro helmet… and the potential disposability of his favorite mutant heroes! It’s all wickedly off-the-cuff… and hopefully unfounded… but, in the interest of passing along the thoughts that are rushing through my head as I read this… they’re all here for you to laugh at!
In House of X #3, Cyclops leads his team to the Orchis Protocol Satellite to deal with the Mother Mold problem… and we learn a bit more about Krakoan diplomatic immunity. It’s a great issue… and hopefully it inspires some fun conversation. Be gentle!
I feel like I need to step in and defend the various data pages.
First we need to accept that Marvel quite regularly charge $5 for a 20 page comic these days. They don't feel the need to add any extra value to their more expensive books. Every issue of HOXPOX contains at least 20 pages of comics with the data pages replacing house ads.
Like you I'm old school and I would prefer to see the background info folded into the narrative like it was when Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson were the only X-Men writers but I think our time has passed. Younger writers and readers see that as artificial and outdated. It also seems to me that a lot of current comics professionals found their way to comics fandom via RPGs so they accept data pages as a natural storytelling device. As you say some of these are useful and some really only exist to briefly pause the action.
It's fascinating hearing your predictions as someone who has read HOXPOX in its entirety. I'm interested to see how far you get with Dawn of X. I was exceptionally excited to read on after HOXPOX and bought the first issues of all the DOX books but soon started dropping them. At this point I'm down to only buying Marauders having realised I wasn't enjoying the other books enough to continue paying through the nose for them. I wonder if you'll hit the same wall.
Thanks again for the podcast. I'm really enjoying rereading along.
Damien