Marvel’s Most Acclaimed Writer Is STILL Criminally Underrated, And I’ll Tell You Why

Marvel Comics There’s no shortage of great writers, but somehow its biggest name, Jonathan Hickman, still has tricks that surprise me when I think about him. I can’t fully quantify how he keeps doing it or getting away with it, but it’s a skill I’m very envious of and deserves its flowers.

Hickman is one of Marvel’s biggest stars and has more than deserved his praise. Between reinventing the X-Men for the Krakoa era and his work with the Avengers, he’s been in some of the biggest corners of the Marvel Universe – and that’s not to mention Ultimate Spider-Man. But if there’s a part of your narrative that is somehow underdiscussed and underappreciated, It’s your skill as a provocateur.

Hickman’s books demand to be talked about for their wild moves and spark passionate discussions among fans over and over again. None of this is accidental. Hickman knows what will make readers angrybut manipulating readers’ emotions is never the main goal. The books wouldn’t work if they weren’t great anyway.

Hickman’s Era of X-Men Is Provocative in Overt and Subtle Ways

House of X and X’s powers Changed the franchise forever

The perfect case study for Hickman’s skill is the Krakoa Era of the X-Men, which began with 2019 House of X / Powers of X by Hickman, Pepe Larraz, RB Silva, Marte Gracia and Clayton Cowles. Of House of X #1 onwards, readers felt uncomfortable. The mutants had achieved a paradise, but were in direct confrontation with humanity, with Xavier declaring the dream of integration a failure. Less charitable readers have basically declared the X-Men villains, or worse, fascists. Five years later, I’m still amazed that Hickman made a comic where everyone who read it came away with a strong opinion about the politics of a fictional nation-state.

The sometimes cultist bent of Krakoa’s resurrection also contributes to this mood. The best example occurs in X-Men #7 by Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu, Sunny Gho and Cowles, which establishes the Crucible, the arena where depowered mutants fight and die to be reborn with their powers. Every emotion the problem invokes is wrong. I feel a mixture of horror at seeing Melody Guthrie, the young Crucible fighter, brutally killed, undermined by the almost religious reverence and joy with which she was later reborn. Shouldn’t we feel happy? However, like Nightcrawler in the issue itself, we sit uncomfortably, and that’s exactly the point.

Hickman’s Marvel Characters Are As Conflicted As His Readers

Panels New Avengers #6 by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting, Rick Magyar, Frank D’Armata and Joe Caramagna

Another perfect example is Hickman New Avengers with artist Steve Epting. This series has put Marvel’s Illuminati in variations of the classic trolley problem over and over again. Would they kill an alternate Earth to save ours? Even if they did, could they do it again? Forever? Hickman’s work at Marvel constantly pushes its heroes to the edge of their moral event horizons, and their emotions reflect ours. Hickman’s heroes are conflicted and uncomfortable, and so are we. This is not easy to achieve. The emotions and stakes of the story need to feel real, and there are many comics that fail to do this.

However, Hickman doesn’t have to worry about making readers uncomfortable to be subtly provocative, as demonstrated by his latest Marvel project, Ultimate Spider-Manwith artist Marco Checchetto. Instead, this book uses Hickman’s powers in a different way. Ultimate Spider-Man is partially built on the tension between what readers expect from the canon and what will actually happen. Uncle Ben is around, so he’ll die soon, right? Green Goblin is a good guy, but he’s certainly getting bad, right? Hickman is stirring fan theories and discussions in a completely different way, just as skillfully when his heroes are making terrible decisions.

Hickman’s creator-owned work offers something a little different from his Marvel fare

The Black Monday Murders Cover #1 by Tomm Coker

In some ways, Hickman bears more similarities to writers like Mark Millar, another provocateur whose weapon of choice is ultraviolence and general edginess. Hickman himself isn’t immune to edginess, often toeing the line of good taste in ways that recall the excess of 2000s comics like Millar’s. The difference is that, for the most part, Hickman has a level of restraint, and your nervousness is never the main point of a story. This line is most obvious in Hickman’s creator-owned work, which often toys with alternative histories with a sense of great irreverence.

For example, one of Image’s best urban fantasy comics, The Black Monday Murders by Hickman, Tomm Coker, Michael Garland and Rus Wooton, invents a conspiracy of magical bankers who rule the world’s finances, which notably includes the Rothschilds, a super-rich dynasty targeted by real-life anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about domination global. Hickman isn’t giving credence to these theories, but he doesn’t no I want readers to make the connection. Again, he is on the verge of bad taste. Maybe it’s too close for some, but it’s impossible to ignore despite it being just a small part of the comic as a whole.

How does Hickman stay atop the Marvel Bullpen?

What his job says about him

Part of Hickman’s success is that he is so deliberate with his technical artistry and, more often than not, has some of the best creatives in the industry collaborating with him. Ultimately, Hickman’s provocation only works because of intentionality of every decision, and this is something that has gone unnoticed, despite its enormous Marvel Comics successes.

The next installment of Hickman’s Marvel single, Ultimate Spider-Man #11is available November 20, 2024 from Marvel Comics.