I wasn't a fan of the Bendis era of X-Men. I absolutely hated what he did with Avengers Vs X-Men. I also wasn't really a fan of the Young X-Men being pulled forward into the current timeline. It was a really lame idea that hung around way too long.

One of the characters Bendis has introduced that I found to be extremely goofy was Goldballs. He was given a ton of attention but seemed to be more of a favorite of the creator than the fans.

If you told me that Goldballs would be immensely important to the House of X storyline I would have told you to GTFOH but Hickman makes it work. Hickman also brings other lesser-known characters to the forefront like Elixir, Tempest, Hope Summers. He also brings classic villain Proteus into the mix. Collectively these mutants are known as "The Five". Their job collectively is to resurrect fallen Mutants.

Goldballs "Balls" are now revealed to be eggs that aren't viable. Proteus uses his reality-warping abilities to make the eggs viable. Mutant DNA is injected into the eggs and Elixir fertilizes them. Hope keeps the other mutants in sync ensuring that the resurrections are successful.

The Five are able to bring back the Mutants killed in the previous issue.

The second half of the issue features the mutants celebrating the return of the heroes and the destruction of the Mother Mold. During this segment of the book, we also get a number of callbacks to classic X-Men moments. All of the callbacks made me smile as Storm has the resurrected X-Men verify that they are the returning heroes that had died.

This aspect of the comic has been divisive. Many have called out that the behavior of the characters during this segment as cult-like and somewhat off. It left me with more questions than answers.

I've spoken to various fans in the community. I'm in the minority that believes that this is not Professor Xavier. The cloning and resurrection aspect of the book reminds me more of a Sinister plot than something Xavier would sign off on.

The stockpiling of Mutant DNA and the backing up of Mutant consciousness via Cerebro seems to be a gross overreach by Xavier. If the story presented in this comic is 100% straight forward I'd be surprised.

The comic also sees Xavier allowing most of the X-Men's rogues to Join the Nation of Krokoa. Wolverine is the only X-Man to voice a dissenting opinion here which makes me even more convinced that something is wrong here. The behavior of the X-Men feels like too much of a hivemind which is a bit too similar to the singular voice seen from the Sinister clones seen in Club Sinister (Powers of X #4).

It's really cool to see Xavier building these bridges. Seeing Apocalypse here is especially shocking. The tone of the book is presented in a way to convince the reader that Mutants are more united in ever. The comic feels more like propaganda which is concerning. Time will tell as the story develops.