The House of M timeline is one of Marvel’s most engaging realities, with the perfect political set up for a superhero Game of Thrones expansion.
The specific nature of the Marvel Comics multiverse allows for different kinds of realities, some of them specifically divergent from one another. The choices made to change a timeline can result in the creation of an entirely new reality. This is how dark futures like the world of Days of Future Past or the grim parallel world of Age of Apocalypse can still exist in the multiverse even after their connection to the core reality of Earth-616 is severed. This is the case for the House of M reality, which was introduced as an altered version of Earth-616.
But due to the rules of the multiverse, the House of M reality lives on and it actually remains a quietly fascinating setting. Events in tie-in books like Black Panther #7 (by Reginald Hudlin, Trevor Hairsone, John Dell, Dean White, and VC’s Randy Gentile) set up this universe to an ideal reality to set a Marvel Game of Thrones. It is a world of political backstabbing, flexible alliances, and lethal tactics, where the “heroes” are monarchs increasingly willing to do terrible things in the name of victory. In a multiverse full of interesting settings, the House of M timeline might have the best storytelling potential in the multiverse.
House Of M Reinvented The Larger Marvel Universe
House of M (by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel, Tim Townsend, Frank D’Armata, and Chris Eliopoulos) saw the Scarlet Witch use her powers to radically reinvent the Marvel Universe as a mutant paradise, all under the benevolent rule of Magneto and his family. From their seat of power in the (typically tragic) mutant capital of Genosha, Magneto’s influence is largely accepted and embraced by the world at large. While House of M itself focused on the heroes of this reality remembering their true lives as the denizens of Earth-616, setting them on a path to restore their world, this timeline remains a part of the multiverse as Earth-58163. While it hasn’t appeared much, it’s been quietly set up as quite a tense version of the Marvel Universe
Black Panther #7 established a number of other rulers in this timeline, fleshing out the global sphere of a world where Marvel characters embraced monarchies. In this world, Genosha has largely conquered America after a costly war and is now recognized as the world’s primary power. Mutants are increasingly gaining thrones around the world, like Storm in Kenya, the Braddocks in Britain, and Sunfire in Japan. Early alliances with the Inhumans and Atlanteans kept Genosha protected as they’d developed, and Wakanda had been among the first global powers to recognize Genosha as a sovereign nation. Latveria likewise aligned with Genosha early, with Doom serving alongside his wife Valeria, their adopted son Kristoff, and a mutated Ben Grimm as the Fearsome Four.
Marvel’s House Of M Timeline Became A Thrilling Setting
While the main plot of House of M was occurring, tie-ins like Black Panther #7, New X-Men #16-19 (by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, Aaron Lopresti, Brad Vancata, Pete Pantazis, and Dave Sharpe), and Fantastic Four: House of M (by John Layman, Scot Eaton, Don Hillsman, Rick Magyar, Dean White, Rob Ro, and Randy Gentile) hinted at the dysfunction in this setting. The romance between Storm and T’Challa threatened to sway public opinion away from Magneto’s harsher tactics, prompting an attempt on the Black Panther’s life. This set up Panther to discuss the matter with the other world leaders. They each had their own plans for Magneto’s rule, ranging from Sunfire’s attempts to empower humans into mutate soldiers to Doom’s own attempt to claim Magneto’s throne. Black Bolt also proved to be the true wildcard of the event, with an Inhuman alliance with Magneto not necessarily preventing him from intervening to kill Apocalypse.
These political plays even continued when the world nominally returned as a part of Secret Wars, with Namor allying with Quicksilver to try and claim the Battleworld version of House of M for themselves. All of this political backstabbing calls to mind something like Game of Thrones. In the right hands, a new House of M series could potentially be Marvel’s version of the iconic fantasy series, an attempt to explore world politics and war through the lens of a fantastical setting. It could be similar to the nation-building of the modern X-Men, but with the freedom that comes with being a nominally non-canon story to go wild places. There’s a fascinating and lethal power struggle set to play out in the House of M reality, and it’s one that’s well worth revisiting.
