Saying that the House of M was a game changer for the X-Men is like saying whoever thought to shove peanut butter into a chocolate shell is a good person—both are wild understatements.  The House of M was easily the most pivotal event in years for Marvel’s mutant population and Harry Reese should have been canonized by now for his contributions to my sweet tooth and our rampantly overweight society.  Seriously.  I had a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup the other day for the first time in years and I almost needed a cigarette afterwards, it was that damn good.

Anyway, creepy and perhaps inappropriate love for junk food aside, the immediate aftermath of House of M really altered the landscape of the entire Marvel Universe and while X-Men and Uncanny X-Men continued with the same writers at first—Peter Milligan and Chris Claremont, respectively—those runs were winding down to give both books a clean slate with which to really start the post-Decimation world in earnest.

Sometimes I dream of having these fill a huge building like Scrooge’s money bin that I can just swim in. Is that weird? I don’t think so.

Much like a lot of books post-Secret Invasion would boast a Dark Reign banner in the coming years, the X-Books were branded with Decimation logos, marking a new direction for the teams, and also birthing new series and miniseries, including a relaunched X-Factor and New Excalibur, as well as X-Men: Deadly Genesis and Son of M.  New X-Men: Academy X became simply New X-Men, and took on a decidedly darker tone, the opening arc after House of M killing over forty of the students who had lost their powers and were being sent home from Xavier’s Mansion only to be blown up in a rocket assault by William Stryker’s anti-mutant zealots, the Purifiers.  Sounds like a typical school in Chicago, you ask me.

We’ve already touched upon Claremont’s final stint on Uncanny X-Men a few weeks back, so the only thing left to say is that it helped set things up for future confrontations with the Shi’ar Empire and led directly into the marriage of Storm and Black Panther in the latter’s own book.  Milligan’s post-House of M run, on the other hand, began with the X-Men under house arrest due to the presence of the Sentinels placed there for protection by the US Government and then wrapped with Blood of Apocalypse, one of the more poorly received Apocalypse stories on record, one that seemed rushed and like it really wanted to be so much more but was truncated to get incoming writer Mike Carey ready to go.

During the arc, Gambit, Polaris and Sunfire were all manipulated and transformed by Apocalypse, but the changes were never clearly defined and while they lasted for several years, there never seemed to be a will to do much with them since Apocalypse was swallowed up by the Celestials never to be seen in full action again.

Yeah. New X-Men got REALLY dark…

But of the various miniseries that were spawned from Scarlet Witch’s batshit breakdown, the most prominent was Ed Brubaker’s X-Men: Deadly Genesis, a six issue story that was mixed in its execution, but also finally brought an end to some rumors about the Summers family that had been lingering for years.

Now we all know the story of how way the hell back in 1975, X-Men was a canceled series about to be given a second chance and that Giant Size X-Men #1 was the beginning of that with the introduction of a brand new team assembled to assist Cyclops in rescuing the other original X-Men from a sentient island mass known as Krakoa.  That was the status quo for years and no one had any reason to suspect anything was amiss.

Mr. Sinister had an obsession with Scott Summers aka Cyclops and his bloodline, to the point where he was pretty much stalking him at every point in his life, from orphanages to family cottages.  Somehow when I hide in the trashcans of Hayden Panettiere, the authorities call it “stalking,” but this dude gets to star in comic books.  Kind of a double standard, you ask me.

But whatever, the dude knew way more about Scott than he should have, and at one point he let it slip that Alex Summers aka Havok wasn’t his only brother, that there was at least one more out there.  Whoops.  Who was it?  That was the source of speculation for years, and Gambit and Adam X were the frontrunners according to various writers, but there was never anything officially stated.

Can you guess where I’m going with all of this?

Not her house. Something about a restraining order or whatever.

That’s right.  In X-Men: Deadly Genesis, we got our answers and it turned out that when Scott’s parents were taken by the Shi’ar, his mom was pregnant and the child was taken before she died and experimented upon and used as a slave.  Christopher Summers never knew any of this and became Corsair, leader of the Starjammers, and eventually met up with Scott and Alex years later, after believing they’d been killed as well.

But not only did the third brother survive, but he made his way back to Earth, unaware of the entirety of his past and like Scott and Alex, he was a powerful mutant in his own right and came to be recruited by Moira MacTaggart, who was running her own team of junior X-Men.  Gabriel Summers took the name of Kid Vulcan and it was all good.

And then shit broke bad.  With all but Cyclops from the original team captured on Krakoa, Xavier had to assemble a new team but didn’t have the time, so he pushed Moira into letting him mentally give them a Matrix-like crash course in mastering their abilities and putting them into the field and she reluctantly did so.

So, cool, right?  Cyclops and his younger brother were reunited and ready to kick some ass!  Only, that didn’t happen at all.  The entire team was wiped out, only Cyclops surviving and he was more than a little bit screwed up about his brother being killed.

Xavier, being the nice father figure that he was…mindwiped the memories from Cyclops’ head.  Yeah.  That’s right.  Oh, you lost your brother?  Let me fix that—no more brother.  Now sack up and lead this third…I mean second team to Krakoa and try again.

You know the mission is a cluster when people are getting torn in half like two seconds in…

And that’s why we only got the story originally that the Giant Size X-Men #1 team was the first and only rescue mission and also got another example of why Xavier is a total dick not deserving of the pedestal they keep placing him on all the time.

Of course, this all backfired and it turned out that Gabriel survived thanks to the help of another teammate, Darwin, whose mutant ability to adapt and survive kicked in and placed them into a hibernation of sorts in space, their freedom coming from the massive energy that was unleashed when Scarlet Witch cast her final spell.  Naturally, all that time in space did wonders for Gabriel’s sanity and you know what makes for a great combination?  A whacked out mutant with near incalculable power, that’s what.

And, thankfully, that’s what we got as Gabriel, now going by Vulcan, returned and had no idea that Xavier mindscrewed Cyclops and decided to exact revenge for leaving him to die.  The truth came out—about everything—and Banshee was killed in action, his mutant power kicking in and out since getting his throat slit by Mystique in Casey’s run on Uncanny X-Men, and a wedge was driven between Cyclops and a now powerless Xavier (courtesy of Scarlet Witch) that lasted up until the latter’s recent demise.  Who knew that erasing the memory of a sibling would make someone carry a grudge?  Everyone’s so sensitive these days.

Vulcan, disgusted with the X-Men, decided the best course of action was to head on into Shi’ar Space and get back at the people that really got this ball rolling, and it’s there that Brubaker’s run on Uncanny X-Men began, with issue #475 kicking off the twelve part Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.

Go ahead, ask him. I gotta hear this one.

Now, before we go any further, an explanation about how this is all going to work is needed.  As Brubaker took control of Uncanny X-Men, Mike Carey began his run on X-Men with issue #188, a run that lasted all the way to issue #260, the longest such unbroken run on X-Men or Uncanny X-Men since the original days of Chris Claremont.  Brubaker’s wasn’t as long, lasting only until Uncanny X-Men #503, but this era of the main X-Books was rife with events and major stories either written, or set up, by both writers and we’re not going to cover each and every arc in this one column alone.

Instead, I’m going to be slowly unveiling their run as we move along in future issues of American History X(-Men) that will spotlight some of those pivotal events and really need entries of their own.  Much like this series started out with overlapping pieces examining the origins of the different teams and how we discussed the beginnings of the 1990s era of the franchise, we’re going to have the same approach in the coming weeks, but I assure you it will all coalesce in the end.

For now, the important thing to note about Brubaker’s run on Uncanny X-Men as we headed towards Messiah CompleX was the importance that Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire had, not just for the X-Men, but for the entirety of the Marvel Universe.

X-Men and space opera go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Yes, I’m still thinking about the Peanut Butter Cup, so sue me.

With Vulcan having a mad on for the Shi’ar, he tore his way through their empire like Taylor Swift through boyfriends, and this naturally led the X-Men to try and stop him, not to mention Gladiator and the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.  Of course, Vulcan being out of his mind, he helped restore D’Ken, the man responsible for his mother’s death, and with the assistance of Deathbird, eventually assumed control over the entire empire after killing him and his own father.

Vulcan was no longer just a villain for the X-Men to fight; he was now in charge of one of the most powerful empires in the galaxy and after most of the X-Men left Shi’ar space, Alex Summers stayed behind with Polaris and Rachel Summers to avenge his father and take command of the Starjammers, helping to lead a resistance force against Vulcan’s rule, events that led away from the X-Books and into the cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe with the X-Men: Emperor Vulcan and X-Men: Kingbreaker miniseries and the large scale event, War of Kings, which pit Vulcan against Blackbolt’s combined army of the Inhumans and Kree.  It was actually a great move for Marvel, in allowing Brubaker to build upon the animosity between Rachel Summers and the Shi’ar Claremont established towards the end of his tenure—you know, the whole having them kill her family and all that—and then passing it off to Christopher Yost for the two minis before allowing Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning to finish Vulcan and the Shi’ar’s story.

During this whole ordeal, Havok, Polaris, and Rachel Summers were left up in space, not returning to the pages of the X-Books until the end of Mike Carey’s run.

You’re not really a mad despot without a cape. Note to self: purchase cape.

And speaking of, on the X-Men side of things, Mike Carey was busy introducing a new lineup led by Rogue against the new villains, the Children of the Vault, an enemy of ultra-powerful mutants that seemed like a revamp of the Neo, but a bit more interesting, especially in terms of their powers.  With a focus on Rogue, Carey set out to make her a real leader, echoing the confidence Claremont placed in her during his first return to the X-Men during the Revolution days, and his team included former villains like Sabretooth and Lady Mastermind, the former having just gotten his ass handed to him like a party favor by the Children themselves.

Just prior to Messiah CompleX, Carey brought Mr. Sinister back into the game, his new Marauders striking out at Xavier’s and at any psychics and precogs that might be made aware of some secret knowledge he’d discovered thanks to Mystique.  During the battle, Rogue, who had been infected with a death touch by the mysterious Pan, was captured, and Gambit assisted Sinister once more and Carey made digging into the history of the X-Men, even obscure parts, a hallmark of his respect for what came before.

While all of the usual shenanigans were going on, Carey worked on a one-shot and series of backups that ran through X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, and New X-Men that came to be known as Endangered Species, and showed Beast trying to see if there were any scientific or even mystical solutions to restoring the X-Gene to our reality.  Already determining that there was not enough species variation of the mutants left for them to realistically repopulate mutantkind even if it were possible to get people on board with that, Beast was forced to turn to the likes of Sinister, Dr. Doom, High Evolutionary, Sugar Man, and even his Age of Apocalypse counterpart, the same one who’d previously kidnapped and imprisoned him for months.  No solutions were forthcoming, but this, naturally, made it all the more ironic and hypocritical when Beast would later on complain that Cyclops was cavorting with Magneto to try and preserve the few mutants remained, something that for some reason is never thrown in his face in the current status quo of the X-Books, but I digress—we’ll get there, I promise.

Carey’s first arc was appropriately called “Supernovas.” Go figure.

Now, while Brubaker and Carey were doing their things, X-Factor was handling a more street level approach to things, and New X-Men threw the students into the deep end against both the Purifiers and the denizens of Limbo.  Claremont’s New Excalibur brought the team back the England, with Captain Britain back in the leadership role, but the book still continued to exist largely on the peripheral of the other series, eventually introducing an alternate Captain Britain named Albion and a struggle versus a dark version of the original X-Men known as Shadow X.

But there was another book that bears mentioning.  Astonishing X-Men, a name shared previously by a four issue run during the Age of Apocalypse that temporarily replaced Uncanny X-Men and then again in a three issue miniseries right before Apocalypse: The Twelve, entered the picture, written by none other than Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, among others, and the future director of Avengers, the third most successful movie in cinematic history.

Astonishing X-Men was in continuity, but still marched to its own beat, not requiring the reading of other books to get into it.  Consisting of a Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, and Emma Frost, the book featured all of the trademark Whedon banter that made interplay between characters in Buffy and Angel such a delight to watch and while his 25 issue run was fun overall, it was far from perfect.

Unlike her.

For one, it was plagued with massive delays, some due to Whedon’s television and film work taking precedence for him, but most because of the slowness of artist John Cassaday, who was also a source of delays on Planetary with Warren Ellis and most recently on Uncanny Avengers with Rick Remender.  The plots themselves weren’t bad by any means, but had a sense of recycled themes, the first arc focusing on a cure being found for mutants that became a major part of the big screen X3, but also felt like a bigger version of an earlier story in Uncanny X-Men during the post-Zero Tolerance days.  A subsequent arc which revealed that Xavier knew that the Shi’ar computer that helped him enhance the Danger Room had gained sentience and suppressed it, pretty much enslaving the thing, made it feel like the Hunt For Xavier arc in which Cerebro gained self awareness due to Bastion’s manipulations and used its knowledge of the X-Men to take them out.  Further, Whedon had a tendency to write the X-Men like they were characters from his own shows and if you’d have someone read you some scenes without telling you who was speaking, you’d swear it was Buffy, Xander, and Cordelia talking to Mal, and it was especially obvious in his writing of Kitty and Emma.

Still, the big thing that came from his run aside from the introduction of S.W.O.R.D.—a space based counterpart to S.H.I.E.L.D.—was the return of Colossus, whose sacrifice in curing the Legacy Virus was one of the most memorable comic book deaths in recent history.  His resurrection involved a lot of hand waving and explaining to get around that Kitty had the body cremated and the ashes spread in Russia, but it turned out his body was stolen by aliens and replaced because, hey, it’s a comic book and shit like that happens all the damn time.

Colossus’ return became a major part of the rest of the series, with the alien Breakworld wanting him out of the picture due to a prophecy he would be either savior or destroyer of their world, something again echoing an earlier story of him being mistaken by prophecy during Whilce Portacio’s Uncanny X-Men run that brought Mikhail Rasputin back into the picture.  Aiming a giant gun at the Earth to literally split it in two, the Breakworld’s plan was only foiled by Kitty sacrificing herself to phase the space bullet through the planet, the catch being that she had to keep it, and herself, phased as it rocketed through space.  She was missing in action until being brought back by Magneto during Nation X, but we’ll be coming to that in a few weeks, so be patient.

For all of its flaws, Astonishing X-Men was a very enjoyable book and it still exists, having been taken over by Warren Ellis and then Greg Pak before the current run by Marjorie Liu, but it’s sadly a mere shadow of what it once was.

His return was, however, almost as emotional as his death.

And that’s going to bring this issue of American History X(-Men) to an end and, boy, was it a doozy.  In the next four issues, we’re really going to be all over the place, getting into the importance of characters like Hope, and how Cyclops’ role changed from leader to general and what it all meant for mutantkind as the X-Men headed towards the Schism, and it all starts with next week’s American History X(-Men) Issue #20—One Person’s Savior…: Hope and the Messiah Trilogy, where the effects of House of M really take center stage in an even more prominent way.

But, first, on Wednesday, we’ll be moving away from the X-Men and getting into some DC Comics action as the monthly Chronologically Challenged takes a look at Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis, so be sure to check that one out.

In the meantime, you can always find us, and me, on Facebook, so don’t be a stranger!

Thanks for stopping by.

See you next time.

Next week, the saga of Hope begins…

Charles J. Baserap
Former Officer, US Secret Service
Author, An American at the Crossroads
Columnist/Editor, www.NerdtopiaCast.com
Columnist, www.ForcesofGeek.com
charlesjbaserap@nerdtopiacast.com