Graphic Novelty²

I haven’t reviewed a Marvel book in awhile, and it feels good to be back!

The book opens with Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, giving birth to her and Vision’s twins who are later retconned to Wiccan and Speed. But this touching scene is destroyed by Professor X who insists that this is not reality and demands that Wanda put the world back to how it originally was, for it is revealed that she killed several Avengers with her reality-warping abilities during a mental breakdown six months prior.

Wanda’s father, Magneto, and Professor X discuss how she is a danger to them all, as her unstable mind has the potential to destroy them all. Some of the Avengers and X-Men meet together secretly to discuss what to do about her, with Emma Frost suggesting that Wanda be killed, while Captain America counsels for other humane options. This cross-over group remains divided, and they decide to travel to see Wanda themselves before they make a final decision. Upon arriving in her father’s kingdom of Genosha, they can not find her, for Wanda’s twin brother Quicksilver had warned his father of the incoming group. As the group explores the area, a white light surrounds them and they disappear.

We are then introduced to a new reality for all the heroes, in which Wanda supposedly changed everyone’s reality to reflect their secret desires. I have a problem with this. A few I can deal with: Cyclops and Emma are married, Spidey is married to Gwen instead of MJ and has a toddler son, Dazzler is a talk show host, and many of the mutants are celebrities. But there were some glaring mistakes: there should be no Cloak without Dagger and no Luke without Jessica. Kitty Pryde should not be a put upon teacher, Captain America shouldn’t be an old man living in a rundown building in the Bronx (what?!) and downgrading Gambit to a criminal were all bad changes. Plus, why wouldn’t Vision be brought back to life, for he was the Scarlet Witch’s husband and father to the twins?? And where is Professor X? There are too many inconsistencies for me to deal with here.

Wolverine is the first to sense that something is off and investigates. He meets with Luke Cage and crew and meets a mysterious teen named Layla who has abilities to see between different realities and get inside people’s heads. After Layla helps Emma Frost see the truth, Wolverine assembles the group again trying to deal with this problem. They head to crash the party Magnus/Magneto is having, and all hell breaks loose. Doctor Strange tries to reach Wanda and have her restore the old reality, but a semi-incestuous talk she had with Quicksilver is shown as confusing her further.

We end with possibly yet another reality-  and the mutants deal with the fallout from Wanda’s last utterance, “No more mutants!”. What was real? What has changed? Is one reality better than the other? The fade-out sets up a new incoming problem- for now, that many mutants have lost their powers, Sir Isaac Newton’s law is quoted, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. What will be the reaction going forth?  But ultimately, if the Marvel universe doesn’t make sense, or there are inconsistencies to the characters and timelines in this book or others- don’t worry- everything will be scrambled in the Secret Wars,  where basically anything goes on the planet of Battleworld in an alternate universe. (Sigh)

The artwork, was usual Marvel type, with the women drawn better than the weirdly necked men. At times the narrative was hard to follow, for the flow of panels was confusing. Should I read left to right, or start-up and then track downwards? It was inconsistent, and at times I had to backtrack because I was following the oddly broken up panels in the wrong order. The front cover was misleading, with some heroes shown prominently that played little to no part in the story. I have noticed this on other Marvel covers, and I don’t like it.

Despite my criticisms, this was a great Marvel novel and sets up issues and plots that can be addressed in future House of M issues or other Marvel spinoff stories.  When you read it, look for the big themes, don’t get bogged down with little details, as I am apt to do 😉

-Nancy