Marvel’s latest X-Men event is well underway with the “Age of Revelation” once again giving fans of the mutant team a glimpse at a dark future where things aren’t exactly as they seem and while this one is presented as a mutant utopia, there are much darker secrets just below the surface. While the details are different, it’s a familiar theme for the X-Men: a dystopian future or alternate reality in which one group — human or mutant — is oppressed by the other and rebellion and a fight for survival bubble just under the surface. It’s a formula that Marvel has used numerous times in the past, with “Age of Revelation” in particular being a follow-up of sorts to one of its best stories to ever do it, the iconic “Age of Apocalypse”.
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But while looking into dark futures and realities is familiar territory for Marvel when it comes to the X-Men, therein lies the problem. By continuing to turn to them to tell stories of oppression and rebellion, Marvel has trapped the X-Men in a repetitive status quo that doesn’t really allow the beloved team to grow or develop. Instead, we’re just getting the past taken out of the box, dusted off, and put in new packaging. While “Age of Revelation” is switching things up with the former Doug Ramsey as the heir of Apocalypse and being responsible for establishment of this new, brutal mutant utopia following the devastation of most of humanity, everything else feels very familiar. Marvel is merely repeating itself with stories for the X-Men at this point — and that’s a problem.
The X-Men Have Been Telling The Same Stories For Years (And It’s Boring)
Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with a dystopian alternate reality. As we’ve seen in past X-Men stories, they can be really interesting and very well done. “Days of Future Past” and even “Age of Apocalypse” are classics for a reason, but the thing that makes both of those stories work is they are different. In a sense, they are two sides of the same coin. “Days of Future Past” is a very short glimpse at a future where mutants are hunted while “Age of Apocalypse” is a bit more complicated in that it’s more of an alternative timeline that sees humanity on the pointy end of the genocidal sword.
The problem comes in when you keep revisiting the concept. We’ve seen futures where mutants are oppressed. We’ve seen realities where humans are oppressed by mutants. “Age of Revelation” isn’t that far off from either of them. In fact, “Age of Revelation” even dips into elements of “Days of Future Past” to make its story work — specifically the projection of consciousness from one time period to another to aid in the fight. “Age of Revelation” isn’t really doing anything different with its story and while it’s not a bad read, particularly in some of the tie-in books, it makes one wonder what the point really is. There’s just no “there” there.
The X-Men Need to Get Back to Smaller Scale Storytelling Rather Than Line-Wide Relaunch Initiatives
Going beyond the repetitive feel of “Age of Revelation”, there’s a larger issue art play with the X-Men and that’s the lack of smaller scale storytelling. For the past several years, everything has been big. There was the Krakoan Age that kicked off with House of X and Powers of X in 2019 and, while not my personal cup of tea, was probably one of the most innovative storytelling initiatives for the team in a long time. That was immediately followed by a relaunch with X-Men: From the Ashes, which is now going through “Age of Revelation” and will be properly followed by yet another relaunch in 2026, “X-Men: Shadows of Tomorrow”. It’s a constant churn of big stories and “relaunches” which ultimately means that there’s no time for anything to actually marinate and develop.
It’s that constant need for new that presents Marvel with its biggest opportunity to fix the X-Men. Right now, it feels like the X-Men are running from big thing to big thing with no real time to breathe or function as characters. “From the Ashes” is a solid example of that. The relaunch was intended to give the mutants a new status quo and move away from Krakoa (admittedly to line them up more with what would set them up for their launch into the MCU) but while it started out well enough, the instant things stopped being exciting, it’s on to the next. But small, quieter stories are where you get real character development. It’s where you develop the groundwork for the big stories on a larger scale to come much further down the line.
Marvel has a real chance to do that and get it right after “Age of Revelation”. With “Shadows of Tomorrow” set up to pick up some of the threads left behind when the X-Men hard-shifted into “Age of Revelation” and also individually deal with some of the fallout for the characters whose consciousness was sent forward into that bleak future, Marvel has at least set up the X-books to dig into more individual and smaller stories. If the publisher sticks with it and lets those characters and stories fully bloom and resists the temptation to push them towards another event or relaunch right away, readers might just get something that they can really latch onto, rediscovering the characters they’ve long loved and finally getting a chance to really grow with them rather than constantly cycling back into old status quos. It’ll make it all the more exciting when everyone comes back together again for what will hopefully be a truly fresh big threat down the road.
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Image courtesy of Lucasfilm
