Marvel’s House of X: Who Will Be on the Council of Krokoa?

As Jonathan Hickman’s re-invention of the X-Men is entering its final stretch, with the penultimate issues of both House of X and Powers of X now on sale. In the case of the latter book: Powers of X #5 provides some much-needed backstory on House of X’s reveal of Xavier and Magneto’s true vision for Krakoa as a new mutant nation, including details on how the nation’s mutant government will function. Now that we know Krakoa will be ruled by a council compromised of twelve members, there’s only one real question left to answer: which X-Men characters will be part of the Council of Krakoa?

We could go through all sorts of speculative rundowns, based on the many X-Men characters that have now come to Krakoa; however, the answer to this question may have actually been revealed already – by Marvel itself:

(Photo Credit: Marvel Comics)

This teaser for Marvel’s House of X event was put out before it launched, and Marvel fans immediately had questions about why this seemingly random collection of X-Men characters were all being grouped together. Well, now that we’re almost all the way through the story, it’s hard not to notice the number of characters that are depicted here: there are eleven:

1. Professor X
2. Apocalypse
3. Magneto
4. Jean Grey
5. Storm
6. Nightcrawler
7. Sebastian Shaw
8. Emma Frost
9. Mr. Sinister
10. Exodus
11. Mystique

There’s clearly a literal seat that’s completely empty, which always suggested that there was a final character who had yet to be revealed for this image. A lot of Marvel fans that have been reading HoX/PoX may want to assume that the final seat would be Moira Mactaggert (rebooted here as “Moria X”). That’s a good guess, but thanks to the current wave of Marvel Comics solicits, we now know it may not be the correct guess:

Early previews of the Marvel’s “Dawn of X” launch of the new Marauders book has pretty much revealed that the new “Red Queen” of the Hellfire Club is Kitty Pryde. Judging by Marauders‘ premise (a mutant pirate squad that liberates mutants from oppressed countries), plus the lineup of characters on the empty chair in the House of X teaser photo, it seems clear that Kitty Pryde will be the final member of the council of Krakoa.

Now take a look at how the Council of Krakoa is divvied up:

Now, let’s assume the picture above is saying even more than it initially seems. We could be seeing not only which characters are on the Council of Krakoa, but also how the various factions of the council are grouped (based on the chart above):

Autum

• Professor X
• Magneto
• Apocalypse

Summer

• Jean Grey
• Storm
• Nightcrawler

Spring

• Sebastian Shaw
• Emma Frost
• Kitty Pryde

Winter

• Mr. Sinister
• Exodus
• Mystique

The only caveat here is that we don’t have full confirmation of which characters belong to the “Summer” faction and which belong to “Winter.” However, given that the final grouping is Sinister, Exodus and Mystique, we’re going out on a limb and assuming that the colder, darker, season is where these former X-Men villains belong.

House of X 1 – 5 and Powers of X 1 – 5 are all now on sale.