[8] Entertainment Weekly highlighted that "as with so many 2020 comics, X of Swords was hit by big pandemic delays"; the crossover was "a collaboration between more than 28 creators" and "the fact that the creative team was stretched across the globe meant they were all affected by COVID-19 in different ways".
Screen Rant commented that in this style of crossover "creative teams work together, with normal stories suspended in favor of continuing the event".
[14] A 56-page companion guidebook, X of Swords Handbook, in an encyclopedic style was released alongside the crossover; "each entry features multiple paragraphs detailing each character's known history up until this event".
[19] As part of the "Dawn of X" relaunch, Cyclops, Rachel Summers, and young Cable travel to a mysterious island on the ocean, where they meet enigmatic character Summoner.
[20] In the new Excalibur title of "Dawn of X", it is shown that Apocalypse wants to tap into the magical spring source that is Otherworld, ruled by Omniversal Majestrix Saturnyne.
However, what Apocalypse didn't expect was that this was all an elaborate plan created by his own children so they could return and overthrow Krakoa with their fellow Arakkii mutants and Daemon army.
Hurrying back to Krakoa, the Five proceed to restore his physical husk, but, when X begins to telepathically download his memories, the five Cerebro mainframes fry and short circuit.
Apprehensive, the Five convene with the Quiet Council to inform them that once a mutant is killed in Otherworld, this creates problems for the resurrection process as what was born was an amalgam of the different Rockslide variants.
[25] Storm travels to Wakanda to request permission to borrow an ancient relic from the Royal Family: a mystical sword named Skybreaker, made of vibranium and previously wielded by a legendary Wakandan king.
[37] Notable contests include: the apparent death of Captain Britain against Isca the Unbeaten, shattering into glass-like fragments; the marriage of Cypher and Bei the Blood Moon; and Gorgon being killed after a fierce battle against the White Sword and his One Hundred Champions.
[38][39] In the meantime, Sinister and the Hellions arrive in Amenth to sabotage the Arakkii team, but their mission goes awry when they encounter Tarn the Uncaring and his Locus Vile.
The other Hellions barely escape through a portal to Krakoa, but as soon as they return, the real Sinister kills the survivors to keep his true purpose during the mission a secret: stealing gene samples from Arakkii mutants.
Fearing for Cable's life, the heroes present their case to the Quiet Council: they intend to take as many mutants to the Otherworld and rescue Krakoa's champions.
[41] When Apocalypse wins the duel against Genesis, Annihilation seizes full control of its host and summons the hordes of Amenthi Daemons to invade Krakoa.
's space station to transport everyone they can gather to Otherworld's battlefield (including a reborn Captain Britain Corps), in the middle of an all-out war between Krakoa's and Amenth's armies.
With Apocalypse leaving Krakoa to be with his wife and children in Amenth, and Jean Grey stepping down from her leadership position to form the X-Men, the Quiet Council now has two empty seats.
by Al Ewing, the Krakoans take hold of the S.W.O.R.D space station and reposition it as their satellite base, under the command of Agent Abigail Brand.
She commented "If the creative teams had not kept such a high polish on the art, stakes, character forward storytelling, and making sure X of Swords felt like one story and not a clumsy game of Exquisite Corpse, this could have been very different.
[55] Jim Dandeneau, for Den of Geek, highlighted that the X of Swords "setup promised what was essentially a season of Dragon Ball Super in an X-Men comic", however, "once the tournament started, it ended up being the fighting equivalent of Whose Line Is It Anyway – the rules were made up and the points didn't matter.
Club, didn't view the crossover as "perfect", commenting that "the mythologizing of Arakko gets repetitive, especially when one of the issues (X-Men #14) reuses artwork from a previous chapter, pairing it with a new script showing a different perspective of the same events.
[...] The Krakoa experiment isn't losing any steam, and the confidence and excitement of this crossover suggests that the best is still to come as seeds take root and the X-Men's world continues to grow".
[58] Kofi Outlaw of ComicBook.com similarly highlighted that some readers will "feel the world-building is a bait-and-switch on the big battle event that X of Swords promised" as the crossover "invested a lot of time, panels, and chart work to establish the larger layout of Otherworld, its various kingdoms, various species, and their socio-political order".
[59] Ben Morin, for AIPT in 2022, called the crossover a "fine event" which "works well at paying off several through-lines for the era, while also ushering in new status quo changes.