Just as the X-Men franchise as we know it is about to end in the movies, Marvel Comics is rebooting the Children of the Atom on the page as well. It was announced back in March that writer Jonathan Hickman would spearhead a revitalization of the X-Men line, beginning with two miniseries titled House of X and Powers of X, and now, this new piece of artwork to promote the series tells us the event that may kick off the reboot: the death of Professor X.
The artwork was first unveiled on the latest episode of Marvel’s Pull List. As you can see below, it depicts a sort of Lincoln Memorial for Charles Xavier, sculpted wearing the Cerebro helmet. The epitaph written into the wall behind the statue makes clear that the Prof will be dead in the reboot, as it reads: “In this temple/ As in the hearts of the people/ for whom he saved mutantkind/ The memory of Charles Xavier/ Is enshrined forever.” As for the red alien-looking plant-life that’s growing around the memorial, your guess is as good as mine.
Of course, fans may be wondering if a similar move might be pulled off on the big screen when Marvel eventually gets around to rebooting the X-Men in the MCU. No doubt, the studio would want to move away from Xavier, who’s been such a major part of Fox’s franchise. You couldn’t edit him out of the team’s lore completely though, so having him already dead in the MCU may be the way to go.
In any case, the covers for House of X #5 and Powers of X #5 were also revealed in the video, confirming that two of the X-Men’s greatest foes would return: Apocalypse and Mister Sinister. Here’s how Hickman’s explained the purpose of the two series:
“One, House of X, is a story about a pivotal month in the history of the X-Men where everything changes for mutants on Earth, And the other, Powers of X, is a story about the history of mutants in the Marvel Universe. It works as a series of reveals and revelations where each issue of HOX that follows POX — and vice versa — makes you reinterpret the issue you had previously read. And then, obviously, at the end they crash together in a way that propels us forward into a new X-Universe.”
House of X and Powers of X will relaunch the X-Men when their first issues release on July 24th.