I typically avoid "big event" crossovers in the comic-book world. They are obvious ploys to sell more titles, and often they're not worth my time. It's been a few years since the big House of M storyline in the Marvel Universe, but I finally decided to pick up the main book in the series just to see what was what.

It's not bad. And yet, I'm not sure I'll be rushing out to get any of the many related books.

The Scarlet Witch, a mutant of immense power, has been muddling around in the Marvel Universe quite a bit. Recently she killed a couple of Avengers, and now she and her brother Quicksilver fear she'll be killed to prevent any further catastrophes. Suddenly she uses her power to rewrite the world, making everyone believe that mutants are the dominant species and humans are yesterday's news. Only Wolverine remembers the true past.

A variation of this story has actually been done before, featuring Doctor Doom as the primary villain, some guy called the Purple Man as his instrument of persuasion and Wonder Man, whom I've never enjoyed as a character, as the only guy who knows what's going on. But what it boils down to is, a hero runs around finding other heroes and forcing them to remember reality, whether or not its in their best interests to do so. Peter Parker, for instance, is not married to Mary Jane in this reality (something Marvel decided to do to him later on anyway) but instead if happily settled down with the no longer deceased Gwen Stacy. Finding out it's all a lie tears the poor guy apart.

All in all, it's an entertaining yarn, certainly done with more polish than the old Purple Man version. It turns out I'm glad I read it. And yet, it felt rushed and incomplete at the end, and I still resent the suggestion that I need to go buy a stack of other books to get the whole story. This is why I hate crossover "events" so much.