Why does this book even exist? That was the central question
running through my head as I finished the last page of this comic. Don’t get me
wrong. I’ve rather enjoyed the previous House of M miniseries in part because I’m
a sucker for alternate reality stories and in part because they worked
perfectly fine as stand alone stories. Indeed divested of the branding of a
long since finished crossover HoM: Avengers and HoM: Civil War (dishonest title
aside) still worked as fun little stories in the vein of the DC Elseworlds of
old. So with that in mind why did this comic not work for me? The answer is
that it was completely redundant and uncreative. The opening of the book
features the HoM Hood making a pitch to the various non-mutant villains of the
HoM world… And it plays out almost exactly the same as the 616 version did.
Hell it even reuses much the dialogue verbatim from the New Avengers issue that
Bendis wrote. The next part focuses on the origin of the Hood in the HoM world
and again it is for all intents and purposes the same as the main Marvel
version. Even the direction that the series appears to be taking at the end of
the issue feels like a retread to a similar plot line in HoM: Avengers. On
every level this comic stinks of editorially mandated uncreativity. Right down to
the make up of the Masters of Evil Half the fun of an alternate reality story
is taking familiar faces and twisting them in unfamiliar ways. This is something
the previous mini-series understood quite well such as when HoM: Civil War used
Nuke and the Winter Solider as leaders of a government sponsored assassination
team sent to Genosha to kill Magneto. But
the HoM: Masters of Evil include the same old faces including the Wrecking Crew
and Madam Masque. Except that Madame Masque was a long time Iron Man foe who
came about as a result of Tony Stark playing superhero. But in the world of HoM
Tony Stark is not a superhero but instead the cybernetic equivalent of a UFC
star. So Madam Masque shouldn’t even exist. I suppose we should be grateful
that Marvel resisted the urge to call this House of M: Dark Reign because that
clearly was the central inspiration for this comics existence. Is this the
worst comic I read this week? No, but it could have been so much more than what
it is. Here is hoping the in the subsequent issues the creative team can turn
it around.
