House of M Copyright Marvel
So, lets go all the way back to 2005. "House of M" is a storyline written by Brian Michael Bendis and the art is done by Olivier Copiel, this story sets the Marvel Universe for essentially the next seven years, I won't give anymore information than what is on the blurb of the book.
Story Synopsis:
Lets dive in, "House of M" is essentially a story about the Scarlet Witch having a complete breakdown, in previous Avengers books it shows her having this breakdown killing some of the well loved Avengers. "House of M" is written by Brian Michael Bendis, and it was the third event that I had read of his (I don't do things chronologically) and generally I didn't like his "event-writing" style. But this book opens solidly, it opens with the Scarlet Witch proving to everyone that she's cracked which - in universe - was six months previously.
Obviously, this means the Avengers and the X-Men have to decide how to deal with Wanda. Some of them a bit inhumane some are good, courtesy of Captain America, these few pages really establish the characters to people who have never picked up a Marvel comic before in their lives, Bendis knew (and still knows) how to write the Avengers and the X-Men - something which I greatly admire about him. I think what really gets you hooked on the whole story is Copiel's art, it's fantastic to be honest. Copiel, I've found, knows how to draw emotions on the faces of the characters, you can tell surprise, curiosity as if they were standing right in front of you.
After the Avengers have decided "what to do" with Wanda they end up at Genosha and reality completely bends around them, which I felt was a great twist to the other events I had read (granted - the other events were released since "House of M"), Spider-Man is some celebrity athlete and the "House of M" rules over the Mutants who rule above Mankind - something Magneto had been striving for, for years.
Strangely enough it's Wolverine who is the only Mutant that can remember the previous reality he lived in (the 616 universe), for which he strives to find out what the hell happened to it. Wolverine seeks out all of his former teammates from both the Avengers and the X-Men (check out what's happened to our old favourite - Captain America) to sort this mess out.
From this point it's better to read the book than for me to describe the events and giving too much away.
Overall opinions of the book:
This book in my opinion carries on with the same status-quo re-setting that I've seen in books for the last couple of years, it does the same for me as what "Scism" does a few years later in 2011 - it changes the setting for the X-Men in the future, many books since have referenced "House of M" so this might not be a surprise to some readers. It's also what I've come to know as Bendis' style of writing for events, they're not events as such - but instead they simply create a new status-quo or set up a future event, with regards to this event you can more or less jump to "Avengers Vs X-Men" (2012) to see the outcome.
The story - I felt - was actually very good for a Bendis written event, all eight issues of the series were nicely paced and there wasn't any overarching storylines. I think that "House of M" is a very good book to get to know your "history of the X-Men" in the last ten years or so. With the focus being on the X-Men, the Avengers members were really only there to "make up the numbers", as in a world ruled by Mutants there wasn't any lack of them.
So, in conclusion I personally feel this is a great book to dive into whenever, it explains a lot of the distrust towards Wanda particularly in more recent times (see: All-New X-Men) and a lot of references that might not have been completely explained. However, when it comes to the repercussions of this event you may have seen them in many events since then and the culmination in "Avengers Vs X-Men". But it's good to get to know the details of the event, which is why I will give the book (based on story/art):
7/10
What I feel lets it down is the fact it continues the cause and effect style event that Marvel set out in 2004 and continues to this day, it doesn't appeal to some people and I feel that is what will make it lose out compared to actual universe changing events.
Please note I do not represent Forbidden Planet in any way.
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