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House of M #4

Jul 2005
Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel

House of M #4 cover

Story Name:

(no title given)


Synopsis

House of M #4 synopsis by Rob Johnson
Rating: 4.5 stars
In Castle Magnus in Genosha one of Scarlet Witch's children brings a model ship to grandpa Magneto. And says he made it with his mind.

In Hell's Kitchen in New York Wolverine faces Luke Cage's gang. Logan seems to be the only person who realises that this isn't the real reality, the only one who remembers it. He's on the run from his fellow Red Guard, and Cage's gang took him in at the end of last issue for their own unspecified reasons. But they still don't trust Wolvie, who's a mutant and so in their memories one of the enemy oppressing ordinary humans.

They also knew Wolverine would have a tracker in his neck, and last issue ended with Hawkeye threatening him with an arrow if he didn't remove it. This issue begins with Clint Barton shooting Logan in the neck, as the most efficient way to destroy the tracker. But they're astonished when the seemingly-dead Logan revives.

However Hawkeye's action wasn't fast enough, and Sentinels break in to the hideout. Cloak manages to transport most of the crew to Kingpin's deserted office, but some get left behind, including Cage's woman Misty Knight.

Cage wants to know why Wolverine ran from the Red Guard's helicarrier. Logan explains about the real reality, not expecting them to believe him. They've never heard of the Avengers or the X-Men. More strangely they don't know about his claws or the regenerative ability he displayed earlier. But Logan seems to be unclear about aspects of this reality too (I understood he had both sets of memories) because he doesn't know that here Wanda is human, not a mutant.

He tells them that his Wanda is the Scarlet Witch. She went mad and killed some Avengers, causing them to disband. Then the X-Men and the New Avengers met to decide what to do about her. And Wanda changed reality to put mutants on top. And he tells Hawkeye that he was one of the Avengers Wanda killed.

But it turns out that Luke is quite ready to believe Logan. Because a young girl called Layla Miller (who's been amongst the gang this issue) came up to him yesterday and told him the same story. And Cage himself then saw the real reality, and saw Jessica Jones pregnant with his child.

Layla doesn't know why she knows about the other reality, nor how she can make others remember it. She just woke up yesterday morning (ie when Wanda created this reality) with the knowledge. She lives in Hell's Kitchen so she went to find Daredevil, but ran into Luke Cage.

During the conversation Wolverine lets slip that he not only remembers his life in the real reality, but he also remembers all the parts of it that he'd been made to forget over the years.

Logan now gets Cloak to transport them all to Emma Frost's apartment, where she's married to Scott Summers. No-one's there so they sit and wait. Emma of course is surprised to find this gang in her apartment when she comes home. She scans their minds to find out what they want, and is surprised by some of the things she sees. She zeroes in on Layla, and the whole of the real reality crashes into her mind.

When she's recovered, Emma swears that she's going to kill Magneto and his family for this. Logan agrees, but says they're going to need a bigger gang.


 

Review / Commentaries


House of M #4 Review by (July 23, 2013)
This time I will deal with 3 tie-ins which involve people entering HoM from outside. When the HoM change hits in Uncanny X-Men #462-465, Marvel Girl saves herself and Psylocke by taking them to the White Hot Room. The change starts a chaos wave across alternate realities. To save them Roma and Saturnyne intend to destroy the main Marvel timeline. (The wave also recreates Jim Jaspers merged with the Fury, who will make trouble in X-Men: Die By The Sword and Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis.) Captain Britain and Meggan, currently rulers of Otherworld are sent into HoM with 48 hours to sort things out. Jamie Braddock also sends Marvel Girl & Psylocke there. The 4 are initially sucked into the HoM reality, where Brian and Meggan are rulers of Britain. But they discover a breach in reality which is allowing HoM to infect other timelines. Meggan sacrifices herself to seal it. (Captain Britain is left on HoM Earth, and then on 'real' Earth to star in New Excalibur, where Shadow King will return due to HoM. Meggan will resurface in Captain Britain And MI13.) Deadpool has been skipping through alternate realities looking for Cable. In Cable & Deadpool #17 he visits HoM without realising what it is, and rescues a baby Cable from Mr Sinister. He escapes as HoM ends. Exiles #69-71 sees the team bring Beak home to Earth-616, but unfortunately during HoM. The body-vampire Proteus isn't dead in this version, and goes reality-hopping in Mimic's body. The Exiles go after him, leaving Beak behind as HoM ends. Beak, his wife Angel and their children end up depowered as seen in Generation M. But Barnell becomes Blackwing in New Warriors (2007).

There are no characters in this issue that qualify it for inclusion in any of Julio's Library websites. But I've put it in the Iron Man library for completeness. And because I can. Luke Cage's gang has swelled this issue from Black Cat, Cloak, Hawkeye, Iron Fist, Lotus Shinchuko, Misty Knight and Moon Knight to probably include Abe Brown, Bob Diamond, Lin Sun (all Sons of the Tiger), White Tiger and the mystery girl Layla Miller. Abe Brown, Misty Knight and White Tiger get left behind by Cloak. Cloak knows Kingpin's office is empty. This connects to Sam Wilson interrogating Cage in #2 about what happened to Kingpin. But the full story won't be revealed until House of M: Avengers #4. Cage is being a bit disingenuous when he doesn't recognise the name Avengers. HoM: Avengers will reveal that *that* is what many people call his gang, although they never use the name themselves. This is the 1st appearance of Layla Miller. Dr Strange will have a theory about her in #7.


> House of M comic book info and issue index

Elektra
House of M #4 cover

Excelsioring your collection:
DIAMOND SELECT TOYS Marvel Gallery Black Cat PVC Figure
Holy smokes, Batman!
(The Boy Wonder)

Olivier Coipel
Tim Townsend
Frank D'Armata
Esad Ribic (Cover Penciler)
Esad Ribic (Cover Inker)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos.
Editor: Tom Brevoort.

Characters

Listed in alphabetical order. All stories.

Black Cat
Black Cat

(Felicia Hardy)
Daredevil
Daredevil

(Matt Murdock)
Hawkeye
Hawkeye

(Clinton Barton)
Iron Fist
Iron Fist

(Danny Rand)
Luke Cage
Luke Cage

(Power Man)
Moon Knight
Moon Knight

(Marc Spector)
Scarlet Witch
Scarlet Witch

(Wanda Maximoff)
White Queen
White Queen

(Emma Frost)
Wolverine
Wolverine

(James Howlett)
Plus: Abe Brown, Bob Diamond, Layla Miller, Lin Sun, Lotus Shinchuko, White Tiger (Hector Ayala).

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