Son of M was one of the Decimation Event series, and in many ways it was really good. In it, we see that Quicksilver was one of the mutants de-powered by his own sister. He’s so upset by this that he attempts suicide.
But first, Spider-Man shows up to remind him that a lot of people were hurt by the House of M event.
I mean, I get it. He was killed during House of M only to be resurrected by Wanda and then depowered by her shortly after that. He’s been through a lot. And he was kind of a dick to begin with.
Crystal tries to help her injured ex-husband by taking him Attilan.
Thereafter, he decides to get his powers back by stealing some Terrigan crystals from The Inhumans but instead of giving him super speed he … meets himself.
This is a version of Pietro from the future who was pulled back in time by Pietro’s new power, and of course his older self is … kind of a villain. Here’s how the time-travel ability is explained:
Working with his future self he concocts a scheme to steal the mists and use them to give powers back to all mutants affected by M-Day–and his other companion in this effort is his daughter Luna, who was told by Black Bolt that she will never be exposed to the mists because she is not a pure Inhuman (her dad is Pietro). At first she is reluctant to go and doesn’t know how they’d escape Attilan, but Lockjaw becomes their escape pod.
Pietro turning his own daughter against her mother, Crystal, is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from Quicksilver.
Of course, Pietro’s mis-use of the mists backfires–the end up being toxic for mutants.
The book builds to Pietro confronting his father, Magneto, who killed him during the House of M event.
But their showdown is interrupted when the Inhumans show up to reclaim their Terrigen Crystals. At the same time, the U.S. Army shows up to take the Mists as well–and they shoot Pietro.
And Luna manifests her powers for the first time–which seem to be to cause fear in some of the soldiers.
There’s a three-way battle during which Unus’ restored powers end up killing suffocating him…
Nooooooo! I love Unus!
After more conflict, the Army takes the crystals and Black Bolt declares war on them.
In the concluding pages, we see the Fantastic Four severing ties with their long-time friends, The Inhumans, due to Black Bolt’s act of war. We also see that Pietro’s prolonged exposure to the mists have now given him the power to lay hands on people and cause them to mutate–making him basically a living embodiment of the mists.
All of this is EXCELLENT.
Sadly, the whole thing is later rendered irrelevant when we learn that the Quicksilver shown in this book is actually a skrull (during the Secret Invasion event). Seen in that light, it’s hard to understand why a skrull–who would not have suffered power-loss due to M-Day–would go through this much trouble to pretend to be a de-powered Quicksilver.
Hmph.