I promised a House Of M reading guide back in December, and now it’s time to finally post the first part!

This part is going to focus on the main event, part two will be posted at a later date and cover the various tie-ins related to House Of M.

Recommended pre-reading

Like with most Marvel comic events, they rely on at least a little bit of knowledge of previous events. Personally, when I read House Of M for the first time, it was my second ever comic book, so I had none of the knowledge and muddled through just fine.

But, I’d say you should definitely at least have a basic idea of the X-Men and everything they’ve been through, so I’d recommend you check out my top three places to start with the X-Men post before you even start House Of M.

I’d also recommend looking up my Scarlet Witch character profile too, so you’ve got a bit of background knowledge for Wanda too.

The Main Event

Onto the actual event, and I’m going to start with the prequel.

The powerhouse team of Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch take on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! It begins with the return of a team member thought dead – and by the time it’s over, everything you know about the Avengers will have changed! The event that will rock the entirety of the Marvel Universe starts here!

This is where it all really kicks off, and gives you an idea as to why Wanda is where she is, mentally, at the beginning of House Of M, and just why the Avengers and X-Men are gunning for her.

The Marvel event of the decade is here! The Avengers and the X-Men are faced with a common foe that becomes their greatest threat: Wanda Maximoff! The Scarlet Witch is out of control, and the fate of the entire world is in her hands. Will Magneto help his daughter or use her powers to his own benefit? Starring the Astonishing X-Men and the New Avengers! You know how sometimes you hear the phrase: and nothing will ever be the same again? Well, this time believe it, buster! Nothing will ever be the same again!

The actual event itself, where the infamous words ‘no more mutants’ are said!

The biggest event to hit the X-Men in ten years is here.

Just when it looked like there was no possibility of a future for mutants, hope arrives. But the X-Men aren’t there to meet it – The Marauders and Purifiers beat them to it. Now the race is on to get the first new mutant since House of M…

Be careful to read this before Messiah War, my first time round, I read War first and got very, very confused!

It’s the exciting sequel to 2007’s Messiah CompleX Cyclops has complete faith that his son, Cable, will do everything he can to protect the so-called mutant messiah – who he believes will save mutantkind.

But he also knows what havoc former X-Man Lucas Bishop has wreaked in the nightmarish future. So now he’s sent his black ops team, the X-Force, on a risky, time-traveling mission to save Cable and the child, completely unaware that there’s something else waiting for them in the future. Something not even Bishop was counting on…

While this focuses mainly on Cable and the child, it’s still very important to read before Second Coming.

The climax of four years of X-Men stories is the X-Event of 2010! What started in House of M with the Decimation of mutantkind and erupted with the first new mutant birth in Messiah CompleX finishes here.

In the epic crossover Second Coming, Cyclops’ faith pays off when Cable returns to the present with Hope, the girl he believes to be the mutant messiah. But will she be the saviour or destroyer of mutantkind? We may never know, as she is the target of an initiative for mutant eradication unlike anything the X-Men have ever experienced.

Many will be wounded. Several will die. Is Hope worth it?

Technically, you can finish reading here and will have read the entire main story, but there are a whole tonne of tie-ins, crossovers and spin offs you can dive into! I’ll be posting part two, where I go into these, within the next week!

For now, that’s the end of this reading guide, I hope you found it useful, and if you’ve got any questions, post them down below and I’ll do my best to answer them there, or in a future blog post!