How X-Men's House of X Has Realigned the Marvel Universe

The Mutant Nation

The main plotline of House of X saw Professor X and Magneto establish a new mutant nation on the living island of Krakoa. Unlike previous mutant havens (Genosha, Utopia) Krakoa is not only a fully recognized sovereign nation, it's a nation with serious economic leverage over human nations of the world. The Flowers of Krakoa allow mutants to sell miracle cure drugs to humanity, curing diseases of the mind, extending human life, or providing super-adaptive antibiotics. The same flowers allow mutants to create gateway portals on or off Krakoa, or grow habitats connected to the island. Moreover, mutants have been granted full amnesty from the human laws, in favor of being ruled by their own set of mutant laws (more on those later).

In short: the X-Men are not just a team anymore, they're a nation. And as House of X showed in its very first issue, during a showdown between Cyclops and the Fantastic Four, the other heroes of the Marvel Universe aren't going to easily adapt to this new reality. They same can be said for all the nations that didn't accept Krakoa's terms of sovereignty, and are now socio-economic hotzones for mutants (Wakanda, Madripoor, etc.).

Immortal X-Men

Krakoa wasn't just established as a stronghold safe haven for mutants (that trick has been tried before, and failed everytime). Instead, Krakoa is also a laboratory of sorts, where Charles Xavier and Magneto are experimenting with combining mutant powers together to achieve truly miraculous results. The first major union of powers has resulted in the anointing of "The Five," five mutants (Proteus, Goldballs, Tempus, Elixir and Hope Summers) whose combined powers allow them to regrow the body of any mutant that dies, with their full powers intact. Charles Xavier is keeping an entire psychic database of the mutants on Krakoa, and using Cerebro, he can download a dead mutant's mind into their regrown body. We've seen the process work on some of the main X-Men who were brutally murdered (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Wolverine...), and it firmly establishes that death is no longer a concern for mutantkind. It remains to be seen if other heroes of the Marvel Universe can benefit from that - or what other kind of dark turns this resurrection process could reveal.

Mutant and Proud

The revelation of the mutant resurrection protocols hasn't just shaken up the order of the Marvel Universe - it's changed everything within the mutant nation as well. Seeing some of the biggest X-Men legends return from the dead has brought together the nation of Krakoa in a major way, giving mutant culture its own form of religion, and anointing both The Five and the Resurrected X-Men as saint-like figures within that culture. With a nation, culture, religion and even a language of their own, being "Mutant and Proud" is now the standard, rather than x-ception. House of X has already teased that mutant - human - superhero relations are now going to be very different thanks to this turn.

New Mutant Laws

The mutant nation of Krakoa also has its own set of laws, which were created and are maintained by the Krakoan "Silent Council" that acts as the island's government. The Council establishes three main laws, which are meant to reflect mutantkind's new position of dominance and superiority in the evolutionary order - i.e., greater than human laws ever were.

1. Make More Mutants - Population growth and avoiding extinction are mutants' greatest obligation. Survival.
2. Murder No Man - With mutants given amnesty from human laws, it's decided that they must reflect that higher moral position by not killing the lesser beings the share a world with.
3. Respect This Sacred Land - Since Krakoa is actually alive, and also a mutant, it must be respected as one, and never treated as property.

What happens if/when outside forces of the Marvel Universe violate the island or its connective habitats in any kind of way, remains to be seen.

Race for Dominance

The establishment of Krakoa, and the new protocols that mutants have established for resurrection and rule, have made a significant change in how this species views itself, and is viewed in the world. As Magneto declares to some human delegates right from the start, mutants are no longer the scared minority trying to outrun extinction: they are finally seizing their right as the dominant species on the evolutionary chain. This has drastically changed how mutants view humans (as their inferiors) and, not surprisingly, it's also inspired a drastic fear reaction from humanity's hard-liners.

Human Opposition

Mutants taking a major dominant step forward has sparked equal opposition from the human sector. The Marvel Universe has many clandestine organizations working for ends both bad, good, and everything in-between. It used to be that peacekeeping organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. stood firm against evil organizations like HYDRA and A.I.M. - but with mutants' rise spelling humanity's end, those old lines of separation are now gone. Humanity's best black-ops warriors and scientific minds are now banded together, and Powers of X has revealed that their machinations to combat the mutant threat give rise to an artificial intelligence that threatens the futures of man and mutants alike. Orchis has proven to be more lethal and cunning than any of the human-supremacy groups that came before it, and proved so by killing an entire elite strike force team of X-Men.

The Uncanny Threat of Moira X

House of X establishes several characters that could eventually become major focuses of larger Marvel Universe crossover storylines. The first one is "Moira X," the retcon of X-Men's Moira Mactaggert in which its revealed that Moira is the mutant with the power of reincarnation. Moira starts each new life Groundhog Day style, with full memory of her previous life. She can essentially reboot the entire Marvel Universe timeline, with critical knowledge of possible events and futures that no one else in existence possesses. Right now, Moira X's secret is known only to a few in this timeline (and then, only as much of that secret as she's been willing to show); the situation could get drastic if other factions of the Marvel Universe (heroes or villains) learn that such a being is now hiding in the shadows of Krakoa.

The Ultimate Man and Machine

Most of X-Men's run up to this point has been focused on the competition for dominance between man and mutant. However, in House of X Jonathan Hickman points out that machines and A.I. have also entered that competition. The biggest twist in the Powers of X finale to the storyline is the reveal of a previously unknown new species that ends up outlasting humans, mutants, and machines, alike. Known as "Post-Humanity," these beings are created through genetic engineering that combines biological and technological elements into one superior race. In Moira's longest life (her 6th), it's shown that Post-Humanity rises up to claim the world and eventually seeks to achieve godhood. Needless to say, hints of that dark future taking shape in the current Marvel Universe will lead to a major fight that all heroes may need to enlist in.

House of X is now complete, and Marvel Comics X-Men Re-Launch "Dawn of X" is set to start hitting shelves this week. Are you liking this new vision of the X-Men?