Abandon all you thought you knew- under Hickman’s pen, nothing is safe.
We’re going to be discussing some crazy stuff that went down in Jonathan Hickman’s Powers of X #2- so if you haven’t gotten around to reading it, this is where you should get off this train. But come back later once your brains stop smoking.
*Warning Spoilers for Powers of X #2 Below**
If you’ve been reading my rants for a while, then you’ve heard me talk about the Phalanx once or twice here. By far, they are my favorite X-Men antagonistic force. In my opinion, they’d make the ultimate adversaries for an onscreen adaptation. If you’re not too familiar with them, I can give you a quick rundown of what I thought was the origin of the Phalanx. Years ago, the New Mutants came into contact with the member of an alien techno-organic race. His name was Warlock, and it turned out, he was also a mutant, of sorts. His race was called the Technarch and he was the son of their ruler, Magus.
The Technarch spread through the universe absorbing matter into their mass and feeding off of their life-force. Warlock was unlike his brethren and sought refuge on earth. Eventually, Warlock would be captured and experimented on by a rogue government looking to use his abilities as a weapon against mutantdom. The experiments resulted in the creation of the Phalanx (or so we thought). These were an amalgamation of human and Technarch made possible through what became known as the transmode virus. The Phalanx sought to integrate the Earth and all its inhabitants. They also wished to attract the Technarch collective by signaling them through the use of a beacon (Tower of Babel).
Since the original conflict occurred during the Phalanx Covenant, the X-Men would encounter the alien force every so often in different forms. The transmode virus concept would be repurposed by their enemies several more times (read Necrosha-X and Uncanny X-Men [2019]). The X-Men clashed with another outbreak of the Phalanx when they were whisked away to the Shi’Ar Empire. With all that said, what if I told you that this was all a lie?
In Powers of X #2, amongst other X-Men goodness, we learned something groundbreaking and mind-blowing. So much so, I had to reread this portion several times before I understood it. I doubt lesser fans will be able to grasp the gravitas and implications upon a single read-through. Jonathan Hickman has, well, can I call this a retcon? Or is it a reveal? You be the judge. Anyway, the Phalanx, as we know them, is not what we thought. According to the dossier included in this week’s edition of PoX, the Phalanx aren’t a derivative of the Technarh Collective. It’s the other way around.
Acting much like the Galactus of universal knowledge, the Phalanx created the Technarch to act as cosmic janitors of lesser evolved species. Once they come in contact with a candidate, the society is judged. If they are worthy of assimilation (very Borg-like in this) then they are absorbed into their being. If not, then the society is infected with a transmode virus which will spread, construct a Babel spire and bring the Technarch to essentially dispose of them. Yep, they’re recognized as intergalactic refuse. In essence, this is exactly what happened in the Phalanx Covenant. The earth was judged and found unworthy!
This would just be an interesting turn of events, but that’s not how Jonathan rolls. Not at all. All this is revealed as part of the ‘Year 1000’ portion of Powers of X #2. It appears that our mysterious blue ‘librarian’ and his people are seeking to be ‘ascended’ by proving themselves worthy of Phalanx assimilation. How desperate is the situation on earth following a 100+ year human/mutant war that the citizens of Earth 900 years later look at the end of all they know as a step up in life?
What do you think about this revelation? Let us know below!