Jonathan Hickman's next X-Men crossover is 15-part mystical 'X of Swords' series

After fan-favorite X-Men writer Jonathan Hickman mutated the comic series into two killer tales, House of X and Powers of X, he kicked off a whole new world for the ever-growing band of mutantkind in the Marvel comic world. Now, with some new books — like Giant-Size X-Men — flowing from his pen after the Dawn of X broke, the author's X-focused panel at C2E2 2020 broke down the future of mutantkind — manifesting as the next step in Hickman's grand X-plan: X of Swords.

The panel — which also featured Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski, Senior Editor Jordan D. White, and other X-men creators like Jerry Duggan, Tini Howard, Benjamin Percy, Vita Ayala, and Leah Williams — touched on plenty of other X-stories and their gorgeous covers, but Swords was the big draw.

The crossover storyline, which will affect the entire X-Men line, follows in the wordplay (letterplay?) tradition of Hickman's previous series, with another meaning referring to the Ten of Swords tarot card that symbolizes a destructive situation pinning down the subject — something that could be quite potent for a team of mutant superheroes.

The 15-part crossover led by Head of X Jonathan Hickman will show how 10 mutants become the heroes who must defend their home of Krakoa. Armed with swords from all over the Marvel universe — past and present — they fight, slice, and stab toward mutantkind's ultimate, mystical destiny as this series looks to inform the future of the X-Men line at large. Rather than being segmented, these will be "chapters" that grew out of Hickman and Howard's work. Those two will be writing "big chunks of it" that will be landmarks, while the rest of the creative lineup is still under wraps.

Just check out this first art from Mark Brooks:

X of Swords begins this July.