“Powers of X” #4 Welcomes Us to Bar Sinister

Writer: Jonathan Hickman / Artist: R.B. Silva / Marvel  “I. Love. That. Cape” Just like Wolverine and Nightcrawler’s BFF suicide mission to stop Mother Mold in House of X#4, the collective hordes of X-fans have flown to close in the sun in the certified heat that is the Hickman/Sliva/Larraz run on their rebirth the Children of the Atom. Only a week earlier, we watched all the mutants we love die in sacrifice to the greater good. This week?  Mr. Sinister goes full on Jeff Goldblum and Cypher learns to communicate with the mutant-island Krakoa in order to create the official language of the sovereign Krakoan mutant nation. Maybe this installment is not the issue fans want after Powers of X#3 and House of X#4 both ended on emotionally cataclysmic cliffhangers; however, this is probably the issue we need to gather ourselves. Also, who knew full on camp Mr. Sinister was the version we really needed until right now? The initial issues of HoX/Pox moved at such a frantic pace between timelines that reading one issue was like reading four.  In the previous installments of each, however, the narrative construction simplified but the drama and action escalated with two X-Men teams of X-Men in two separate timelines dying in battle.  Now, in PoX #4 the story takes a step back to fill in some gaps of the finer details that have been almost throwaway lines of dialogue or metapage info.  This issue opens with Professor X and Magneto landing on the narcissistically redundant Bar Sinister – a…