House of M Boxset
House of M
A little background on the House of M
In the House of M world, Reed, Sue and John Jameson(yes, Jonah Jameson’s son was part of the crew instead of Johnny storm) died in the cosmic ray event instead of gaining powers. Only Ben survived.
Crashing in Latveria, Doom finds the bodies and gets the inspiration to create his own team called the Fearsome Four, using magic to augment his body(a la a metallic Reed Richards), his wife who can project force fields, his bratty son as the new Inhuman torch(he shouts “Hellfire on!”) and Ben Grimm as a mute brute/slave/whipping boy.
Whenever Doom’s in a bad mood he kicks the crap out of the It, kinda like a druken master kicking his puppy.
Doom plans to overthrow Magneto as the ruler of the world and almost succeeds but Ben finally gets the last laugh and betrays his “master” by getting help to release Magneto. Doom’s family is killed, Doom is exiled back to Latveria, humbled. Ben Grimm escapes his captivity and joins the rebels, who happens to be the group Alicia Masters has joined.
BTW, Johnny Storm is totally absent in the F4 story but is seen as Tony Stark’s best friend/ rival/ sidekick in the Ironman House of M saga.
Tony’s father is alive and he ridicules his son’s accomplishments at every turn. Even at their favorite sport and even at Tony’s achievements for Stark industries(a company his father built). Mostly it’s about Tony trying to get out of the shadow of his Father.
Later on Tony discovers a plot by Hank Pym to exterminate all mutants with bombs scattered throughout the city. He enlists the aid of friend and Armor fighter rival Johnny Storm. Ironman is eventually forced to fight his father who set the whole thing up and who is actually trying to assassinate Magneto to save the human race.
Unfortunately Tony decides not to follow his father’s last wishes and doesn’t kill Magneto. Ironman is then hailed as a hero for stopping Hank Pym’s mad bomber plot.
I really didn’t like the Ironman story that much. BTW the art was done by Pat Lee.
Another fun read is Spiderman House of M.
Peter Parker is a superstar wrestler loved by everyone(after he pretends his powers are of mutant origin), he has his dream life as a husband to Gwen Stacy, father to a baby boy, and has his own successful company(who made a fortune selling his webshooter designs to law enforcement agencies), Plus Uncle Ben and Capt Stacy(Gwen’s father) are alive. MJ is a famous starlet with no romantic relation to Peter.
Best of all, J. Jonah Jameson is Peter’s Press agent. Peter publicly embarrasses JJJ at every chance(as retaliation for all the bad press Spidey’s gotten over the years). Jonah practically loses his pride since Peter pays him a fortune to be his whipping boy(Peter knows JJJ’s weakness is money) and Rhino is Peter’s slow-witted friend and personal bodyguard.
Things start to fall apart when Peter takes over Osborn’s company and the Green Goblin appears and hands JJJ Peter’s diary, where Peter says he’s not a mutant(the reason for his popularity, humans are descriminated in the House of M world) but was actually bitten by a radioactive spider.
Peter also mentions things he remembers from the original universe(like Gwen and uncle Ben dying). JJJ goes to the press in retaliation for all the public humiliation at the hands of Peter and practically ruins Peter.
Ironman
The It
With The Thing
The Inhuman Torch
With Johnny Storm
Hulk(basically a retool of the hulk figure that came with Bruce Banner in the Hulk Classics series)
House of M(Spider Sense) Spiderman(from Spiderman Classics 18)
Wolverine(From Xmen Classics 2)
Hmm a bit tall compared to his Astonishing Xmen figure
Gold
