- Non-mutant superhumans are perfectly able to pass on their powers to their children. Mutants are perfectly able to reproduce with humans, powered or not. There is no intelligent reason whatsoever to consider them a separate species.
- Right, just as there is no scientific or logical sound Real Life reason for racism/Homophobia/etc. That's sort of the point of X-Men comics.
- Imagine if Real Life neo-nazis declared that people who had blue eyes due to a mutation in the EYCL2 gene were members of the master race, but those whose blue eyes were the result of a change at EYCL3 were mud-people just like the rest of the brown-eyed masses. That is exactly how much sense the House of M (and Marvel comics in general) makes regarding mutants vs. non-mutant supers.
- Mutants tend to have a much more varied set of powers, plus a greater chance of developing powers that are considered especially dangerous or invasive, like telepathy or reality warping. They are a much more random factor too, being simply born with said powers, whereas even if Spider-Girl is she can at least trace her lineage back to her father's lab accident, something rarer and thus much more manageable. The prejudice arises partly from the sense that mutants are somehow supposed to "replace" humanity in a cliched` Darwinist sense, something that many mutants believe. The place of normal superhumans in the Marvel world is actually mostly ambiguous; in House of M Spider-Man would probably be thought of as having "cheated" to get his gifts (not to mention he posed as a mutant), on the other hand, Doctor Doom explicitly did and yet manages to still be one of the most powerful mutants in the world. Not to mention most of the extremist anti-Mutant groups aren't exactly on friendly terms with normal superhumans either, plus the majority of normal superhumans are supervillains and so aren't really trusted anyway (for that matter, neither is Spider-Man or a few other heroes.
- Mutants keep getting used as a metaphor for real-life minorities (even though nowadays they could just skip the middleman) no matter how little sense it makes. X-Men comics are more about symbolism than realism this way. Realistically, mutants with dangerous powers would be feared the same way people with weapons are feared and mutants with visible mutations would be treated the same way people with physical deformities are treated. Since two ordinary humans can give birth to a mutant, there is no reason whatsoever to consider them a different species.
- While it's a safe bet that someone with tentacles growing from their face is a mutant, plenty of mutants look like ordinary humans. Discriminating by appearances makes no sense at all.
- Going from 5,000 mutants circa WW2 to 3,000,000,000 in 2005 requires that almost all of the younger generations be mutants and that even more of them have human parents or grandparents than in the standard 616 timeline. So why didn't they explore the implications of that generational difference?
- In the House of M: Avengers spin-off, it is revealed that as Magneto rose in power, a lot of humans wished to become mutants. Magneto sent transformers around who were able to unlock the mutant potential of people where it was still latent. That contributed to the explosion of mutant numbers.
- Which doesn't answer the question at all.
- It means that people who are only passively mutants don't count in the 616 numbers. In the House of M continuity, they became active mutants through technology germane to that universe, hence the rapid increase in numbers. There's also a chance people considered 'supers' or 'mutates' in 616 managed to 'pass' as mutants to receive the social perks, or people considered mutants in 616 are passing as non-mutants to avoid the social stigma.
- Hey, 16 million mutants died when Cassandra Nova destroyed Genosha.
- It is established in New X-men, around the time we first meet Xorn (let's not get into that) that at least China screens babies and offs those with mutant potential. In a timeline ruled by Magneto and similarly mutant-positive leaders, such would not be the case (but maybe the converse would be). That would tend to up the mutant count, especially if you add in the fact that without the lingering responsibility of being part of a military unit that "protects a world that fears and hates them", mutants would be free to start families and raise as many children as they liked.
- Long story short, the infamous editor who shan't be named isn't exactly big on these ideas of giving fans what they want. Thus no character development for poor Spidey, and no development for the poor mutants either.
- Why did the characters feel that 616 as it was was worth going back to/saving? They all had degrees of Heroic BSoD when Layla shows them their 616 lives, so why did they want to "fix" reality?
- Because they are heroes (okay and several antiheroes) and they do the right thing even at personal cost? Also thought of this way, if they give you everything you ever wanted but at the cost of rewriting your entire life without your consent at the hands of a mind alterer, the reality that obviously is not in its right mind you would worry a little since the next mental shock could shape the universe into something much worse depending on its state of mind (certainly unstable)
- If the House of M represents Magneto's ultimate fantasy - admixed with those of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch - then why is it that none of these three wishes to resurrect Magneto's first wife Magda (mother of the twins), or his other daughter, Anya? At the end of the story, Wanda tells Magneto that he's still a horrible man, even in this reality - but would he have been with Magda and Anya restored to him? Their deaths were a big part (sure, far from the only part, but still...) of what pushed him over the edge.
- As much death as Magneto's seen in his life, he's probably the type of person who believes in letting the dead stay dead. Sure, Death Is Cheap in the Marvel Universe and Mutant Heaven has revolving doors, but this is a guy who witnessed and survived the Holocaust. The number of people who die and come back (Thanos stories notwithstanding) is likely a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people he's seen stay dead. So, he focuses his desires on other things; a mutant-dominated world is a goal he can work towards and conceivably achieve one day. Bringing the dead back to life is the unproductive obsession of a man stuck in the past, so Magneto doesn't waste his wishes on it, however much he would like to have his wife and daughter back.
- It's not his fantasy- it's Wanda's version of his fantasy. She gave him the world she thought he wanted, and aside from the fact she wasn't thinking very clearly or deeply about it, it also reflects her not-very-high opinion of her dad- she thinks he cares more about mutant supremacy and ruling the world than he does his own family, and he wouldn't have started on that path had her mother and sister not met the fate they did. Magneto himself might have brought both of them back and might even have gone further and prevented the Holocaust and caused a bunch of other changes, but Wanda doesn't know or believe that. She thinks her dad loves her, but she also thinks that he would always put his family second and his cause first. So she gave him the first, to bring about the second.
- Keep in mind that she didn't use Charles to read Magneto's mind – she thought she had him figured out. Lorna was very clearly there, as his mutant daughter, Wanda being the human daughter. She may not have known about Magda and Anya.
- Incorrect. Anya has been part of Magneto's backstory in the comics for a long time.
- Anya has been a part of Magneto's backstory for a long time, yes. But has he ever made Wanda and Pietro aware of her? They know of Magda from Bova the uplifted cow, but Bova never knew about Anya, and this troper can't recall off the top of his head a time that Magneto explained his relationship with Magda to the twins beyond "She was my wife, and she left while she was pregnant with you, and it took me this long to track her down enough to establish that connection".
- Is the series set in the '70s or the 2000s?
- It's set in the 2000s, but Magneto has ruled the world since the 70s.
- Why did people hate Magneto's rule?
- Because he was oppressive towards non-mutants, or mutants who politically or ideologically opposed him.
- No, I think the original questioner meant "If this was the world as Wanda thinks Magneto always wanted it to be, why does it harbor any dissent at all? Shouldn't everybody be happy with their lot in life, whether lordly mutant or lowly Muggle?" And the only answer I can think of is that Wanda recognizes her dad has a deep-seated need for enemies to lord it over and unruly subjects to dominate by force. So the new universe contains stuff for Magneto to do.
- Wanda changed the world to suit her would-be executors' desires and ambitions; she didn't change human nature.
- Why did Xavier say that Wanda couldn't have kids? The only 'person' she's ever been with in a serious relationship is the Vision and he's an android which means he doesn't have regular genitalia.
- It's worth noting that the Vision was not originally an android, but a fully functioning synthetic human just like his predecessor/alternate self, the Golden Age Human Torch; that's why the older stories use the Insistent Terminology "synthezoid."
- Where was Jean Grey during all of this?
- She made a cameo appearance as a school teacher.
- How does House of M: Spider-Man fit into the rest of the plot? After the 1st issue, it seems to go straight into a 'What if the world never was reverted back' type of story.
- Indeed! In the "House of M," the other heroes came up to him with his family on a New York street and rebooted his memory. He was so traumatized by the transition that he ran away from all of them and had to be talked down by Wolverine, for cripes sake. And it doesn't look like he ever went back to his family, he seemed to be so horrified that it's hard to imagine him doing so, much less the 'happy ever after' conclusion of "House of M: Spider-Man" narrative. There must have been a major disconnect by the editor since they also have him shaving his head BALD in "HOM: S-M" on the first day they got there, but his hair was normal length when the heroes encountered him. No, I can't imagine that a world-renowned actor/billionaire/businessman/celebrity and his equally publicized family could slip back into New York and wander the streets given the level of notoriety he had at the end of the story.
- Did we ever see a map of which nation-states do and don't exist in the "present-day" world of House of M? We know that civil wars broke out between mutants and humans around the world and that nation-states still exist to some degree subordinate to Magneto, but are they mostly the same ones with the same borders or were entirely new ones created in the aftermath of the war? Did the USSR still fall?
How did Bucky get his metal arm?
In this version of history, Bucky and Cap successfully turned the rocket around and took down Zemo, and later when they haul Hitler out of his bunker, Bucky still has both his arms. So how is it that, thirty years later, when sent on a mission to kill Magneto, Bucky has a bionic left arm?
