Waited for the TPB: House of M

***Warning, this article may contain spoilers***

If you're like me, you were skeptical about the big annual event over at Marvel Comics last year. There seemed to be very little publicity for it in advance and it was mostly overshadowed by DC's hype machine over their follow-up to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. Marvel promised "it'll change the Marvel Universe forever." Well... it did... sort of, if you gave a damn about mutants anyway.

There was a time when I was into anything with an "X" on it. I followed the adventures of the X-Men religiously for several years. But at one point it just wasn't as interesting anymore. I read some of the Avengers cross-over material in the late 90s including the Bloodties story that tied together Magneto and his children (who were members of the Avengers at the time; alongside Captain America, Sersi, Crystal, Black Knight, etc). But for the most part, besides a few characters moving back and forth between the fictional nation of "Genosha" and North America, nothing really happened to change status quo... And House of M was supposed to change that ...starting with "Avengers Disassembled."

Now the Disassembled story really made headlines. After 40 or 50 years of continuous publishing, Avengers was cancelled. The story ended of a low-note with Scarlett Witch going nuts and killing off several characters and the rest of the team deciding they'd call it quits. Well, in the aftermath, Professor X of the X-Men vows to help cure Witch's condition and ultimately fails. What follows was the House of M deal. Witch unleashes her reality-bending powers again and grants everyone their fondest desires... beginning with daddy-dearest, Magneto, who wanted to rule a world where mutants were not prosecuted by humans... in fact, Magneto and his children would be royalty and humans would be slaves. Underground operatives like the X-Men would be big-time media darlings. Even Spider-Man would take his mask off and the world would adore Peter Parker instead.

BUT (and it's a big "but!") this was all temporary. "House of M" was a twist that only happened with Scarlett Witch in control. And then there was a the weird ending when the "House" reality collapsed. And only those 10 or so characters who appear in the central "House" mini series would remember the incident: Spidey, Wolverine, Cyclops, Ms.Marvel, She-Hulk, Dr.Strange, etc... But nobody else would remember it. What does this mean to real-world comics publishing?

Well, the most obvious change is in the X-Men comics and Avengers comics. the world mutant population is drastically reduced... several characters who had powers are suddenly regular humans.
But we know the "entire" Marvel U. was warped in the House of M story. There was mention of the Fantastic Four. And what about Tony Stark's Iron Man? Peter Parker was seen enjoying a day in the park with Gwen Stacy?! Marvel has seen fit to publish those stories with a series of tie-in books. However, and this is my biggest peeve, what do those book REALLY contribute to Marvel Universe? Nothing. More often than not, these are versions of characters we'll probably never see again.

I just finished reading the main House of M collected edition last week. It was nice to see Ms.Marvel in the spotlight again. And I'll be interested to read her newest adventures considering she was one of those who remembers House of M. But I also just finished reading the collected trade-paperback for the Fantastic Four and Iron-Man tie-ins. You know what this all reminded me of? Age of Apocalypse. Yah - that X-Men crossover that did me in almost 10 years ago... It promised to be the biggest thing since sliced bread and you know what? After you're done those 4 books, you'll never hear from this stuff again. It's not that it sucked or anything - just that when I was done reading about this alternate reality where Dr.Doom was in charge of the "Fearsome Four" I was left with the feeling that I had just finished reading something that was utterly inconsequential...

Maybe that's just me.