Jonathan Hickman's tenure as Marvel's Head of X has brought back one of the coolest forgotten traditions of superhero comics over all the X-Men books, shown best by the recent X-Factor #5 from the team of writer Leah Williams, artist David Baldeon and colorist Israel Silva.
It is an unwritten law in comics that a hero or villain who sticks around long enough gets a cool lair they can retreat to in order to plan their next mission, store trophies or simply regroup. As Marvel and DC established their biggest characters, they'd often taken the time to provide blueprints and schematics of these dwellings, as well as key equipment like Batman's utility belt and Daredevil's cane. Whether it was the Baxter Building, Avengers Mansion, or the Batcave, artists and writers would create reference materials that gave readers a more forensic look at where their heroes spent their time. Sadly, the tradition mostly fell by the wayside, but the X-Men are bringing it back in style!
Many of the X-Men books have begun to include diagrams and cut-aways, taking advantage of the new Krakoan nation and its bio-engineered architecture to create a whole new world for Marvel's Mutants. Sometimes these schematics are just scene-setting, and sometimes they hint at "off-screen" character details, but they're consistently fascinating, with X-Factor's Boneyard being one of the best yet. The Boneyard, the headquarters of X-Factor Investigations, is a large tower located on Krakoa, the island mutants call home. It is an impressive structure, with the numbered diagram giving readers a clear idea of the building's geography and assets. The blueprint starts at the top and works its way down, detailing various living quarters and meeting/work spaces, along with the thermal hot spring under the Boneyard, while the accompanying text explains the logic underlying the structure.
The Boneyard schematics are the latest in what has become an unofficial hallmark of the X-Men titles since Jonathan Hickman’s relaunch in 2019: text pieces. Each issue has at least one text piece, be it an email, a book excerpt or the blueprints for the Boneyard. All of these are designed to be in-universe, and these pieces serve to enrich the X-Men’s universe, adding layers of realism. Just like blueprints, text pieces had likewise largely fallen by the wayside in mainstream comics, despite their usefulness for delivering direct exposition without forcing characters to outline every little detail of the world around them.
In adding these unique touches not just to one or two comics but the entire X-Men line, Hickman has helped give the books a unique but binding personality. With so much going on for the mutant nation, they've also been vital for allowing quick character summaries or explanations of different functions, buildings, or even nations. For fans, they're also an awesome visual exploration that makes the X-Men new environment concrete, and may even be useful storytelling cues for later - after all, if the Boneyard ever comes under attack, readers will now know exactly which members of X-Factor just lost their rooms.