Jonathan Hickman Reveals He Almost Wrote Two Beloved DC Titles Instead of X-Men

Jonathan Hickman has become something of a comic book writing legend for the way he’s invented major Marvel properties like The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and The X-Men. However, Hickman’s work on the X-Men’s “House of X” reboot event apparently came at the expense of the two DC titles he could’ve taken on: 

“There’s a version of reality where I wrote New Gods and Legion of Super-Heroes instead of House of X,” Hickman said while appearing on Cerebro, the X-Men podcast hosted by Connor Goldsmith. 

Indeed, it looks like Jonathan Hickman had an offer on the table from DC to do New Gods and Legion of Super-Heroes, instead of shepherding the entire X-Men Universe into a bold new era. 

Obviously, the next question on the minds of legions of fans will be what Jonathan Hickman would’ve done with both New Gods and Legion of Super-Heroes if he had gone that route. The interesting thing is that like X-Men, Legion of Super Heroes and New Gods are both comic books about unique communities of superpowered people – the Legion being a team of heroes from a variant future of the DC Universe, and the New Gods being the cosmic-powered beings of New Genesis, who maintain an uneasy balance against Darkseid and Apokolips. 

Both groups have the kind of genre staples and thematic underpinnings that Hickman has gravitated towards in the past: The Legion is a sci-fi-heavy tale full of time travel and timeline variances, with young heroes tied to the modern-day DCU. New Gods is a mix of sci-fi, old-world mythology, and Shakespearean family drama centered around High Father and Darkseid’s rivalry. Both DC properties are arguably ones that could’ve used re-invention in the late 2010s – especially since they’re also properties DC has been considering for adaptation for the screen in the last ten years or so. No doubt Hickman could’ve set either or both titles up with interesting new spins on lore that could’ve filled the creative wells for years to come. 

What Is House of X? 

If you haven’t been keeping up: Jonathan Hickman relaunched Marvel’s X-Men Universe in 2019, with the two-part “House of X” and “Powers of X” miniseries. It re-invented much of the X-Men mythos from the ground up, while also establishing a bold new status quo, where the X-Men established a mutants-only nation on the living island Krakoa and conquered death itself with a method of resurrection using mutant powers in coordination. 

Currently, the X-Men are battling time and fate, as several key players (Destiney, Mr. Sinister, Moira Mactaggert) have begun battling across timelines to determine destiny in an inevitable war between humans, mutants, and machines that extend a thousand years into the future. 

You can read Jonathan Hickman’s work on both Marvel and DC.