And here we are, at the start of one of the most influential and important events in Marvel history. These first two issues establish the concept that most of these tales take place in a distorted reality. But unlike Age of Apocalypse, these are NOT alternate or non-616 realities. They are Earth 616 realities created by magic. Therefore, unlike AoA, I’m covering all the miniseries and tie-ins here. (Plus, these stories are MUCH better and more readable than AoA, so I’m incentivized to WANT to cover them here. My blog, my rules.)
We start where the Excalibur series ended: Professor X is trying to psychically heal Wanda by breaking through her delusions and her coma. Because of her powers, she keeps changing the world to suit her delusions…
By page four, he succeeds in actually waking her up into what is real…
Wanda remembers how she destroyed her husband and teammates in the Avengers Disassembled event. After she awakens, her power starts to grow and Xavier is forced to put her back to sleep. X tells Wanda’s father, Magneto, that this has been happening over and over but that it’s getting harder and harder for X to shut her down after she awakens. Wracked by guilt, Magneto is no help—so Charles goes to New York to talk with the New Avengers. They assemble Dr. Strange, Quicksilver, and The Astonishing X-Men and brainstorm solutions. Emma Frost and Wolverine lobby to kill her, while others say no way.
A contingent of heroes go to Genosha where Magneto concedes that if she is not killed, Scarlet Witch could destroy the entire universe.
Everything goes white and…
Peter Parker wakes up with a baby, married to Gwen Stacy. This storyline continues directly into the Spider-Man: House of M tie-in miniseries.
Side note: I’m not a huge fan of Peter longing for Gwen so strongly that his reshaped world has them married instead of Mary Jane, but it’s also consistent with his character to be stuck in the past and unable to let go of that past hurt. Plus, MJ gets to be an A-level movie star in this alternate future so, hey, it works out for her.
From there, we go into issue #2, which sets up several other narratives, many of which lead directly into tie-in books. Captain America’s future finds him old and forgotten in a world controlled by mutants.
Scott and Emma are married and helping mutant kids like Franklin Richards, whose parents are dead. Wonder Man and Carol Danvers are a super-celebrity couple, and Dazzler is a talk show host. Wasp is a clothing designer (of course) and Tony Stark is the richest man in the world. And so on. Doctor Strange is a psychiatrist working with Sentry…
That’s the most delusional of all these developments. Stephen Strange terrible with people and human nature. He’s an a-hole most of the time. No way he’d be a good shrink.
Only one person seems to see through the veils of these fantasies: Wolverine.
Nice touch there, having him use Mystique to enable him to have sex with Mary Jane. His attraction to Peter Parker’s wife was established in a recent New Avengers story.
All of this is a single, shared delusion where mutants rule the world—teamed up with SHEILD—and they’re not doing a great job of it…
