Midnight X-Men #1 Review: Hickman, Della Fonte and the Variants

A launch issue gets read twice: first for the story, then for what it puts on the table. This one puts down a lot of pieces, and it doesn't explain all of them.

As always in this guide, we only state verified information (creators, issue numbers, dates); the analysis is ours, with no reproduction of protected pages or dialogue.

The issue's credits, as published

Let's begin with the facts that aren't up for debate. Midnight X-Men #1 is dated October 7, 2026, the shared launch day for the line's three series. Count 40 pages for this single issue, eight more than its follow-ups, under a Parental Advisory warning. Hickman writes it and Della Fonte draws it. The colors are split between Arthur Hesli and Matt Hollingsworth, and Cory Petit handles the lettering. Cover A is by Dike Ruan.

What a collector will remember most is this format quirk: an opening issue that runs longer than what follows. Forty pages leaves room to set up a backdrop, several factions and several characters, which is exactly what the issue does. Issues 2 through 4 drop back to 32 pages, which gives the launch a status of its own within the series.

The editor is Jordan D. White, who had been quoted in the series presentation praising Della Fonte's storytelling and how well it fits Hickman's script. Hickman himself had described the project at announcement as one of the most exciting he had taken on in years, and spoke of a rich, open-ended mythology that blends old ideas and new ones. Those are launch statements, not a verdict on the issue.

What the issue sets up: a cold war with four sides

The official summary is short. Vampires and mutant "Empyres" haunt New York, the peace between the two species and between the factions within each is fragile, open war is brewing, and ordinary people who haven't been turned are caught in the crossfire. The Comics Beat reviewers sharpen the picture: this is less an outbreak than a cold war, with humans, mutants, vampires and mutant vampires maneuvering against one another.

That nuance matters to the reader. In an outbreak story the mechanism is simple: a threat spreads, and you fight it. In a cold-war story the engine is negotiation, the balance of power and the fear of seeing it break. Hickman knows this terrain from building multi-faction worlds, and it is what several critics took away: a credible world, opposing camps, political structures rather than a string of fights.

The characters named by the press give the story its framework. Nightcrawler negotiated the peace and carries its weight. Storm has become a vampire, and the closing conversation between her and Nightcrawler is one of the scenes critics single out. Cyclops makes a striking entrance. William Stryker is recast as a cardinal of the Catholic Church, a choice one reviewer called sharp social commentary. Finally, there are nods to Exodus, whose statue destroys a vampire in the story.

Cardinal Stryker and the memory of 1982

Of all the elements listed, the richest one for a collector is the treatment of Stryker, because it points back to a specific object. William Stryker debuts in the graphic novel X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, the fifth volume of the Marvel Graphic Novels line, dated November 1982, with Chris Claremont writing and Brent Anderson drawing. In that story the character is a preacher who rails against mutants in the name of faith. A Comics Beat reviewer notes that Hickman's issue quotes the phrase that gave that graphic novel its title.

This link deserves to be understood for what it is. Hickman isn't retelling the 1982 plot: he borrows a figure and a register, that of the religious man who turns fear into doctrine. Making Stryker a cardinal places him inside an institution, with a hierarchy, resources and alliances, which suits a universe where people fight through power more than with their fists. Readers who know God Loves, Man Kills will see a lineage; those who don't will simply read about a churchman hostile to mutants. Both readings work, and that makes for a good opening.

If you want to go back to the source, the 1982 writer's body of work is covered on the page about Chris Claremont. Our focus here stays on the 2026 issue: nothing we were able to verify suggests that graphic novel becomes required reading, and the series can be read without it.

Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm: three ways into the same world

Critics agree on one point: the issue names no single hero to guide the reader. Cyclops's entrance is praised, Nightcrawler's peace supplies the stakes, and the final scene with Storm sets the emotional tone. The result is a story with several entry points, which fits a team book but also exposes the reader to a risk of scatter. One reviewer in fact complained that the jumps from one character to another, and from one conversation to another, were disorienting, and that it felt like opening an issue from the middle of a saga rather than a starting point.

That complaint is instructive for the collector, because it says something about the nature of the issue. An opening issue that feels like a story already underway is an issue that rereads better than it reads. If you have already browsed the page on Cyclops, you will gauge what the character's entrance means in a version where the balance of power has shifted. If you are coming to the series without that background, the read will be more abstract, and it is best to accept that you won't grasp everything on a first pass.

The peace Nightcrawler negotiated drew one particular remark: a reviewer found the character's dilemma hollow, since there is no explanation of how that peace was struck with the vampire Storm. That is a possible flaw, but also a writing choice: by refusing to explain what came before, Hickman leaves room for what comes next. Whether the next issues fill that gap is a question of reading, not of collecting, and we have no way to answer it before they come out.

Critical reception: four reviews, two buys, one pass

The Comics Beat review roundup brought together four readers. The result deserves to be reported with nuance. Two reviewers recommend buying: one because they love this blend of suspense and political structures, the other because they see Hickman's return to the X-Men and a world that invites you to explore its present as much as its past. One reviewer advises passing, regretting a lack of context. A fourth gives no verdict and wasn't won over by the central character.

Several elements recur from one review to the next. Della Fonte's art, with colors by Hesli and Hollingsworth, is praised: unsettling shadows, an atmosphere reminiscent of the gothic horror of the Hammer productions, and a treatment described as closer to classic superhero comics than in the other two launches. The dose of horror also draws consensus: this is supernatural fantasy more than terror, with violence and an air of dread, but fewer scares than in the line's other two series. Critics cite touchstones like Mutant X and Curse of the Mutants to place this register within the franchise's history.

One review favorably compares the issue to Hickman and Esad Ribic's Alien Versus Avengers; such comparisons prove nothing, but they show what readers expect from Hickman: structure and a political point of view.

For a collector, this split reception has a simple reading. A #1 that divides readers is not a doomed issue, and a #1 praised by everyone is not an investment. The sensible use of these reviews is to decide whether you like the series, and therefore whether you will follow it issue by issue. See the Midnight X-Men key issues grid: it shows that a series opener doesn't automatically become the sought-after piece.

Veiled covers and ten variants: identifying the right version

For this issue, Marvel announced ten covers, A through J. Cover A is by Dike Ruan. The variants fall into families: B by Ryan Stegman for the Bloodbath series, C by Skan for Special, D by Bjorn Barends for Horror Homage, E in the Gallery series with an artist still to be announced at the time, F by Clayton Crain as a connecting cover across three issues, G by Skan as a Special Virgin version, H by Alessandro Cappuccio, I by Ito and J by Ito as a Virgin version. The Barends Horror Homage variant is presented as a tribute to the film Fright Night.

The technical point to know is the nature of cover A: Marvel designed the main covers of this line as "veiled," with the full artwork appearing only inside, on the opening page. The most readable difference between a first printing and a second printing is therefore the condition of the cover: the second printing, in stores since October 28, shows Dike Ruan's cover fully unveiled.

To log the right version in your records, note four things: the title, the issue number, the cover letter and the printing. As for the printing, Ruan's unveiled cover tells you that you are holding the second. Don't confuse a variant's letter with its printing: the letter indicates the image, the printing indicates the print run. To understand what an order ratio implies, read our analysis of ratio variants; the exact ratios for this issue's variants are not published on the lists we consulted, so we refrain from inventing them.

The second printing and the order numbers

Marvel put out word in late September: more than a million copies ordered by stores, for the three launches combined. These are retailer orders, not sales to readers, with no breakdown by series; the total may include preorders, extra copies for hard-to-get variants and stock for the midnight release parties. So we can't deduce either a print run or scarcity for Midnight X-Men #1. The figure only lets us say that a second printing was ordered before release, with an unveiled cover A for each series. Marvel also says it hopes to do for its line what the Absolute universe did for DC: that is an ambition, not a result. Sell-out or third printing: no source we consulted says so to date.

What a collector should check before buying

First check the version on offer: veiled or unveiled cover, hence first printing or second printing. Then check the cover letter, which determines the image, and the condition of the single issue, because a 40-page book gets damaged at the corners and spine like any other. A recent copy has no established value: so we give no estimate, and you shouldn't accept one. The follow-ups are announced for mid-November and then mid-December: better to keep your records up to date now than to reconstruct your purchases later. To place the whole picture, see the complete guide to Marvel Midnight.

Single issues or collected edition: what to do with this issue

In what we have read, Marvel has given neither a date nor a format for a possible collected edition. In single issues, treat this one as the opening of a larger set: its reading value depends on what the following issues do with the camps it establishes. In a collected edition, there is no rush, the content will be identical and the variants question disappears.

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