House of M #2

[history79]

7.66 pages of 23

Comments

[silverhammerman]

The gimmick for why Wolverine is the only one whose isn't sucked in by Scarlet Witch's wish fulfillment world (his greatest desire was to have his memories restored from all of the various mindwipes and brainwashings, therefore he remembers the real world) is still a really neat idea. I think that long term getting rid of his bottomless backstory wasn't great, especially considering the general quality of the backstory circa the two Origins minis and all the Romulus bullshit, but in House of M it's cool.

[ap0cryphal]

I hate that I'm trying to remember this, but was the Romulus stuff Daniel Way or Jeph Loeb? The art was pretty unique, but almost everything else, yikes

[silverhammerman]

Jeph Loeb, from the looks of it. Only Loeb would write a mysterious and overpowered new baddie who is an evil version of hero, only for no one to care or remember even six months later. The only difference between Romulus and Red Hulk is that Romulus didn't have Jeff Parker write an ongoing that dragged him toward being an actually good character.

[ap0cryphal]

i'd actually managed to forget loeb was responsible for red hulk, though to be fair, it's kind of hard to top that TASTES LIKE CHICKEN moment from - Ultimatum? (And of course the entirety of ultimates 3)

[fra080389]

When I read HoM I kind saw a dissonance from book and book, humans didn't seem so discriminated in some runs, but they were treated like shit in others... and Peter looked perfectly happy in some book and batshit crazy in another book... and it was really strange, because, if Wanda tried to make everybody happy, why he made Peter crazy?

[donnblake]

Yeah- in the House of M mini Wolverine was apparently deeply depressed and the only way Mystique could think of to help him was to dress up like Nick Fury and blow stuff up.

[cyberghostface]

It wasn't Wanda's intention to make Pete crazy, Pete was having nightmares of stuff that happened in the real universe.

[shakalooloo]

If Wanda wanted to make everyone happy, what was her thinking behind orphaning Franklin Richards?

And if she made the world friendly to mutants, and empowered a lot of 'regular' humans to be mutants in the new reality, how is it that none of the Avengers got made into a mutant? Mass power-loss in the wake of this story is one thing, how much more interesting to have someone that gained powers for the duration and then had them taken away again? Bringing Hawkeye back is one thing, but why not bring him back as an arrow-spitting mutant rather than a guy stuck living in a sewer as a fugitive?

[deh_tommy]

I kind of imagined that’s like when Bruce Almighty answered everyone's prayers, they all begin to cancel each other out and the world descended into chaos. One person’s wish might step over another’s.

[cypherfdp]

nice goku dress

[mistersandman]

No Apocalypse or Selene in House of M? Why is Namor the first mutant?

[donnblake]

I don't recall Selene coming up, but the Black Panther tie-in has Apocalypse.

[scorntx]

Human brains are funny things.
But some of the choices of what are apparently everyone's desires in life are odd.

Scott and Emma just being happily domestic is sweet.
There's a bit a few issues later where Emma asks Scott "why is this happening", which - unless Emma's lying to try and hide her feelings (plausible) - suggests this is Scott's dream.
Not being married to Maddie, or Jean, or even having control of his powers, or anything like that, but living with Emma in Connecticut.
(I suppose the no-prize is Scott has accepted Maddie and Jean are gone, and is very much in love with Emma, but if either of them was an option, would he have gone for it?)

Meanwhile, Dazzler, whose major defining attribute since she first showed up is that she is a musician, is in this reality... Mutant Ellen DeGeneres.
... alrighty.
And apparently the best person she can get on her show is Wonder Man.
Ouch.
... still, makes more sense than her being a SHIELD agent. But not by much.

(It is also kind of funny and a little heartbreaking that in the House of M world, the only way for Carol Danvers to get her dream of being the world's most popular and respected super-hero, or just a popular and respected hero, is if there is literally no-one else ahead of her.)

And... Kitty as a teacher. Mm.
I guess? Maybe?
If this was Claremont-era Kitty, that'd be BS right there. Claremont Kitty would never stand for being a teacher. She'd be in politics, and almost certainly in trouble with someone somewhere for something, kicking up a fuss.
Probably about the government sanctioned murderbots.

Dr. Strange as a psychologist.
Now, my knowledge of medical studies is very fuzzy, but I'm pretty dang sure Stephen started off as a neurosurgeon, not a shrink, and those two are very different schools requiring long periods of study and training and the like. You can't just hop from one to the other.

Also, according to the tie-ins, Tony Stark's secret dream in life is apparently not to be free of any of the burdens, expectations, blame or guilt he's accumulated, but to host a robot fighting league.
As you do.

[gnarll]

I get the feeling that a lot of those are influenced by what Wanda and Pietro thought about people. What puzzled me most was the absence of Luna.

[scorntx]

It's stated later on that they hijacked Charles and used his telepathy to give everyone their desires so they wouldn't try and fix things.
So unless Charles was deliberately giving them not quite right versions so they'd bust out easier...
And towards the end, Strange hints that Wanda did things like creating Layla Miller to help them, so...
Then again, this is Charles Xavier. His track record with being helpful is spotty at best.

[deh_tommy]

Well fudge, does that mean Layla is Scarlet Witch’s daughter as well? Should we add Madrox and his duplicates to the Pym/van Dyne family tree?

[scorntx]

It's only implied, never confirmed. Probably best just to leave a footnote nearby. No sense adding to that monstrosity if it can be avoided...
(And in X-Factor, she apparently had parents at some point.)

[deh_tommy]

Too late, Layla and Multiple Man are Pyms/van Dynes now. We are all Pyms and van Dynes in the end.

[scorntx]

I was gonna joke about how at least they wouldn't be part of the Summers family tree, but Rick Remender ruined that one, so... at least they're not Darkholmes?

[fra080389]

I think that was just a Strange's supposition and Layla just was a unknown girl with the mutant power to not be influenced from Wanda (we saw more strange mutations). She was still there when the world was back to normal.

[thezmage]

My interpretation is that the comic was trying to say that desire is a funny thing. Much like Wolverine's greatest desire (memories back) didn't grant him happiness, Iron Man's dream probably wasn't to host a robot fighting league but rather that Tony Stark who is free from the burdens, expectations, etc would host a robot fighting league. Scott's greatest desire was probably just the domestic bliss and Emma just happens to be the person he ended up doing it. Peter Parker wants all of his loved ones alive but because happiness is incompatible with Peter Parker he writes that journal where he struggles and suffers. And so on and so forth.

[fra080389]

Wasn't Tony abused by Howard in HoM?

[lordultimus]

I think the Marvel Handbook for House of M at least explained that Alison used to be a super mega star until her fifteen minutes of fame eventually ran out.

The Doctor Strange thing probably had something to do with him essentially being Wanda's therapist.

[starwolf_oakley]

The epilog to CIVIL WAR II had Evil!Steve tell Comatose!Tony that HOUSE OF M showed how messed up Carol Danvers really is.

[scorntx]

I... don't think Stevil is exactly qualified to go commenting on anyone else's character.

[jlbarnett]

definitely not, but Carol basically did become a shittier person post this. She went from rarely caring what people thought of her and ready to head off into who knows where when they disappointed her to wanting to be the best hero in the world and being willing to do some very authoritarian stuff i that denied others the freedom she had in her earlier appearances

[donnblake]

Not necessarily directly related to this, but it's just occurred to me that part of Scott's phenomenal trauma conga line of a backstory involves being manipulated and abused by a telepath who turned into diamonds.

[leahandillyana]

616 would have been much better world had it stayed a House of M, and you cannot change my mind.

[thehood]

I've always wondered why Wanda granted Doom's wish. The Reed, Sue and Johnny died and Doom was the one that created the Fearsome Four.

[shakalooloo]

Well, if we are to believe that Children's Crusade is true, then Doom was behind the whole mess anyway, and probably planted a post-hypnotic suggestion spell of some sort that made the Lifeforce empowered Scarlet Witch do at least a tiny bit of his will when she unleashed her powers.

[scorntx]

Keep Doom relatively pacified and content and he's less likely to try and ruin everyone else's good times.
Hopefully.

[mastermahan]

Can you imagine the impact if people had gotten to remember House of M? All the humans in the MU would remember either being a mutant or being a minority subject to discrimination. That could have been a massive turning pointing in mutant/human relations.

Then again, this is the MU, where the United States can get overthrown by Nazis for a year with no long-term repercussions. The power to alter the universe is nothing to the power of Status Quo.