These days, thanks to his years of work with legacy Marvel Comics properties, Jonathan Hickman is regarded as one of the kings of long-term comic book storytelling. He is supremely skilled at planting seeds early on that become hugely impactful plot points, and at recontextualizing scenes by returning to them 30 issues later and revealing information that fills in gaps the reader had no idea existed. Within Marvel, that deftness has, of course, given us the 2015 universe-resetting Secret Wars event and, more recently, revitalized the entire X-Men franchise. But even with the huge swings Hickman has taken over the last decade or so, working with legacy characters within a shared universe at one of the Big Two meant he had at least some limitations. East of West – the sci-fi/western end-of-days epic Hickman co-created with artist Nick Dragotta – has no such boundaries. Over 45 dense, exciting issues, Hickman and Dragotta flex their world-building muscles, and boy are those two jacked. [Read more…] about Hickmania 8.1: East of West Review!