House of M #1: Review

As far as our Libraries are concerned:- Iron Man won't be in the following issues until #5. Instead he will star in his own series IM:HoM. Captain America will also be absent until #5, except for a small bit next issue showing him as an old man who survived WWII. She-Hulk will also drop out until #5. Thor is of course currently 'dead'. Hulk will contribute #83-86 of his own series. Luckily Cap, Hulk and Iron Man also show up in flashbacks in #3. So #4 is the only one that wouldn't be documented somewhere in this collection of websites. But since I'm the one writing these synopses and comments, I'm including all issues in the Iron Man Library. I'll also be briefly describing the tie-ins in my comments, spread through the issues in what I judge to be relevant places rather than when they came out. The only tie-ins I'll mention this time is an official prelude in Excalibur (2004) #13-14. Here Prof X has been trying in vain to cure Scarlet Witch in Genosha. He calls in Dr Strange to help. But Strange mainly psychoanalyses Xavier. And I don't actually think this really prefigures the current series.

Genosha is the island mutant haven that was destroyed by Cassandra Nova's Sentinels in (New) X-Men #115. Prof X quit the X-Men in Uncanny XM #443, staying in Genosha with Magneto in the Excalibur (2004) series, where Magneto took his daughter after Disassembled. Magneto was ruler of Genosha and presumed dead when it was destroyed. A mutant called Xorn pretended to be him in the Planet X arc in (N)XM#146-150. But the real Magneto turned up alive in Genosha, as above. Quicksilver was with Magneto when he ruled Genosha, until he became concerned about his father's ideas, and lead the Avengers against him in the Magento: Dark Seduction mini-series. Since then he has associated with the Avengers and X-Men, but wasn't present during Disassembled. Peter Parker has woken up next to his 1st love Gwen Stacy. This is the 1st indication that Wanda has created a world that grants certain people's hearts' desires. This will be a world in which mutants (homo superior) rule (and there are a lot more of them), and homo sapiens is on the way out. Specifically, Magneto and his family rule the world.

This is the start of the 1st of the Events that will dominate the Marvel Universe for years to come. I don't count Avengers Disassembled because its various story arcs were mostly not connected, even in theme. Scarlet Witch magically created children for herself and Vision in their 2nd limited series. But she lost them in Avengers West Coast #52 when they turned out to be fragments of Mephisto. Agatha Harkness made her forget them, but when she remembered about them later Wanda went mad, resulting in Avengers Disassembled and some dead Avengers. (Avengers: Children's Crusade #7 will provide more reason for her 'madness'.) Sentry has been a member of New Avengers since their #10. But his Watchtower is not shown above Avengers Tower here, where it appeared in that issue. This may be an editorial mistake. Or possibly Sentry was asked to hide it, as part of the attempt to keep Avengers HQ a secret as mentioned here. The old Avengers invited to the meeting are the survivors of Avengers Disassembled. Noticeably the only New Avenger missing is Spider-Woman. This could be because Brian Bendis knows that SW is a Skrull imposter. However Yellowjacket is also a Skrull here, and New Avengers #45 will reveal that both he and SW in the following issues of the House of M reality are still the Skrull versions. Furthermore it will indicate that the Skrulls know what has happened, unlike most humans.