House of M’s Real Villain Was Never Scarlet Witch

House of M is one of the most important — yet infamous — stories in Marvel‘s history. House of M was an eight issue event book by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, advertised at the time as a crossover between the two most popular Marvel books of 2005 — New Avengers and Astonishing X-Men. It dealt with the fallout of “Avengers Disassembled: Chaos”, as the two teams met to figure out what to do with Scarlet Witch. However, she was warned about their conversation, and used her powers to transform the world. Mutants were suddenly the most powerful force on the planet, with Magneto leading the countries of the world from Genosha with the House of M. However, Wolverine and new mutant Layla Miller kept their memories of the old world, and worked to return the memories of the rest of the hero. This led to a battle in Genosha, and Scarlet Witch uttering three words that would change Marvel forever — “No more mutants.”

House of M changed the mutant side of the Marvel Universe for years to come, paring the once massive mutant side of the universe down to a veritable handful. Scarlet Witch is often impugned for her actions in the story, but I don’t think that she should bear the lion’s share of the blame for the events of the story. Most will point their fingers at Quicksilver, but again, he’s not the biggest problem with this brave new world. Instead, I would say that Magneto was always the true villain of House of M, his actions showing that Magneto might not deserve the heroic standing he has now.

Everything in House of M Is Magneto’s Fault

The question of whether Magneto is a hero or villain is a big one among the X-Men fandom. Magneto has been an ally of the team for nearly 20 years now, and most people believe that, at the very least, he was at least justified in his hatred of humanity. However, Magneto is just as much of a racist as any of the humans he hates, and that’s something that a large portion of Magneto lovers don’t want to admit. Magneto is a mutant supremacist, and it’s here where his responsibility for House of M comes in. Scarlet Witch created a world that would make the man she thought was her father at the time happy, and this was a world where the circumstances of mutant and humans were reversed. Mutants were on top of the heap, and humans were the oppressed minority. While Magneto wasn’t exactly having humans hunted down by Sentinels, humans were second-class citizens across the world, and they were under the rule of the autocratic Magneto and his House of M. One thing a lot of people forget about Magneto’s world in House of M was that SHIELD was basically there to violently put down any humans that got any ideas about fighting back against mutants (this was a focus of Wolverine‘s tie-in issues, which are honestly one of the better tie-ins to the story). Magneto wasn’t a completely benevolent ruler; he had brutal ways of dealing with humans.

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Magneto’s beliefs played a role in the actual creation of the House of M world. However, that’s not the only reason to blame Magneto for House of M. Magneto was not a good parent or role model for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Magneto was a genocidal monster during his days raising the two of them. The damage that he did to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver was massive; while there’s a joke going around that Scarlet Witch is the only one of his “children” that he loved, that doesn’t change how abusive he was to her. Scarlet Witch was surrounded by creepy mutants like Mastermind and Toad who were constantly trying to get handsy with her. Silver Age Magneto was a temperamental monster who blamed everyone for his failures, and this affected Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Their father figure was constantly holding everyone around him to impossible standards, and this affected the two of them, giving them an inferiority complex that would make them do anything to make them happy. Scarlet Witch gave Magneto his fascist dreamworld because she spent years under his thumb. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were broken people, and Magneto is the one who broke them. Magneto caused House of M in basically every way but actually doing the deed.

Magneto Deserves More Blame Than He Gets for House of M

Magneto was quite angry when he found out that Quicksilver had talked Scarlet With into changing the world, and he attacked Pietro. Magneto was incensed at his name being used for the change and was going to do something about it — kill Quicksilver. This was the breaking point for Scarlet Witch. She created a mutant fascist paradise based on what the man who raised her wanted, and when she saw that he was going to kill the one person who was fighting to save her life, she decided to de-power the mutant race, to destroy the one thing that had destroyed her family. This was all Magneto’s fault.

Magneto was in a very different place at the time of House of M then he was when he raised the twins. He wasn’t the same monster he was back then. However, it’s those terrible lessons, combined with the fact that he wasn’t going to raise a finger to save Scarlet Witch from the heroes, as well as his actions against Quicksilver at the end of affair, made everything happen in House of M. Magneto was always the true evil behind House of M, his actions breaking the Maximoff twins, forcing them down the road to some terrible actions.

What do you think about how Magneto influenced House of M? Sound off in the comments below.