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Welcome back to the latest edition of The All-New Uncanny X-Piles! Where it’s all about the Children of the Atom all the time. If you’ve been keeping up with their exploits lately then you know some huge revelations have hit the X-Men courtesy of Jonathan Hickman’s House of X and Powers of X. And now we enter the mutant’s first big event of the year with X of Swords! Here we take a look at Chapter 11 and see how the event holds up so far.

X of Swords: Stasis
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Jonathan Hickman & Tini Howard
Art: Pepe Larraz & Mahmud Asrar
Colors: Marte Garcia
Letters: Clayton Cowels
Cover: Pepe Larraz & Marte Garcia

We’ve arrived at the midpoint in X of Swords and as great as this one is it’s that same greatness that exposes some issues with how the event has played out so far. Especially after reading issue after issue of the Krakoan mutants gathering their swords and here we get an official introduction to their enemies and their blades by this book’s end.

Now when Stasis is on point it hits hard as Hickman and Howard move us into the next phase as we focus on the mutants of Arakko. They mirror the Krakoan’s but with a bit of a darker twist. A theme that’s been hinted at from the beginning but is prominently displayed throughout in this issue. From the preparation around the summoning circle to the various combatants the similarities are subtly put into the story and flow organically with the narrative. The interplay between Saturnyne and Apocalypse is probably the best part of the issue as the tension and utter dislike for one another is on full display but Apocalypse must show restraint. Even when Saturnyne drops a surprise on her guest it feels like a huge moment even if you guessed it earlier on. However, this may be a game that Saturnyne looses control of at some point and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. I’ll also add that characters that talk in a rhyme cadence usually get annoying but for this issue and his big introduction, Pogg Ur-Pogg was downright fun to read!

Visuals are handled by Larraz and Asrar who knock it out the park once again. You know what you’re getting with them separately and even here when the transition happens it’s subtle and doesn’t jar the narrative. Garcia’s colors are the constant that holds it all together from beginning to end. The realms of Otherworld have an entirely different feel and are a huge contrast when we move to Saturnyne’s citadel. And among the many great looking pages in here, that reveal shot at the end is fantastic!

Overall, a really solid issue here even if it’s efficiency hadn’t pointed out the fact we might not have needed all of those other issues of sword gathering. Some fans might yell “cash grab” and with events like this and those that came before it’s easy to come to that conclusion. However, only time will tell if all of them were necessary. Now, there’s still several questions left unanswered but perhaps the biggest one is: WHO IS THE X-MEN’S 10th MEMBER? Guess we’ll be waiting on that answer too. 4/5

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