This week in the Fall of the House of X, the mutants of Krakoa are busy and spread thin around the world — and in one case, beyond, even.

PRELUDE OF THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X

This week: Wolverine #47, Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace #2, Resurrection of Magneto #4, and Invincible Iron Man #17.

RECAP OF THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X

As Laura breaks out of her confinement, Logan fights off Sabretooth to the best of his abilities. Unfortunately, Sabretooth successfully shoots Logan with Forge’s depowering gun, removing all of his special abilities. The Exiles arrive on the scene and rescue Logan from Sabretooth, while the Sabretooth variants brief a version of Graydon Creed —just pulled from the multiverse— on the situation and sic him on Laura, who has just killed Savage Sabretooth herself. Elsewhere, the depowered Logan tells Oya he needs a new suit and a weapon.

Some time later, Lila Cheney catches Ms. Marvel up to speed on her current situation, having recently breached a contract with Mojo and facing his ire as a result. But with the X-Men off the board, Mojo is desperate for ratings, and Lila concocts a scheme to rescue her fans —the Li-natics— from his captivity by returning to Mojoworld and pretending to fulfill her obligations. Adopting the alias “Chord,” Ms. Marvel accidentally becomes Mojo’s new breakout star and is forced to create all sorts of content for him, while Lila discovers her fans have been forced into engagement farming. Together, Lila and Ms. Marvel defeat Mojo (for now) and she returns the teen back to Jersey City, where she’s greeted with a familiar ally: Red Dagger.

Meanwhile, the newly resurrected Magneto arrives at an Orchis detention facility, and waxes poetic about “what kind” of Magneto he wants to be now. He makes quick work of the Orchis agents attempting to neutralize him and frees the facility’s imprisoned mutants, but the work isn’t done; he, Storm, and Blue Marvel are faced by a fleet of Stark Sentinels. Together, they form a powerful human/mutant circuit and defeat the Sentinels. He’s then given a new mission by Storm, tipped off by telepathic blast from Emma Frost: rescue Iron Man.

Recovering from Feilong’s attack, Iron Man hovers between life and death, greeted by figures from his past —such as his parents and Magneto— taunting him for his failures and his role in countless demises. Eventually he returns to consciousness against Feilong; they fight. Iron Man orders Feilong to shut down the Stark Sentinels, but he says he cannot do so, because artificial intelligence has stopped responding to humans in a bid to kill off all humanity, mutant or otherwise. Iron Man apprehends Feilong, and is then quickly greeted by the one man cavalry of Magneto.

ANALYSIS OF THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X

Another somewhat slow week in this event, with not much forward movement in the overall narrative. I have to admit that I’m getting a little restless with the plotting at this point; there’s still two whole months left in this storyline, and it doesn’t feel like we’re any closer to the end. I suppose that’s an original sin of this sort of storytelling, but even so, a lot of the tie-ins we’ve gotten have felt like padding in a way that doesn’t necessarily serve the whole.

As much as I enjoy reading Ms. Marvel comics, for example, her integration in Fall has not felt entirely organic, and Mutant Menace seems like it wants to be its own thing unconnected to the larger story. Wolverine, which is not technically tied to the event, has a similar issue, because it seems like it should have concluded its run before the event so as to not confuse readers of its place in the narrative. I wonder how successful FotHoX would have been had it just consistent of the two interlocking titles (Fall of the House of X / Rise of the House of X) like how House of X / Powers of X was published; some of the tie-ins have been genuinely enlightening, but not all. C’est la vie!

NEXT IN THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X

Next week: Fall of the House of X #5 and the conclusion of Dead X-Men #4.

Fall of the House of X: Week 15

6.4

Wolverine #47

6.0/10

Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace #2

7.0/10

Resurrection of Magneto #3

6.5/10

Invincible Iron Man #17

6.0/10

Credits

Writers: Victor LaValle & Benjamin Percy (W), Iman Vellani & Samir Pirzada (MMMM), Al Ewing (RoM), Gerry Duggan (IIM)
Artists: Geoff Shaw (W), Scott Godlweski (MMMM), Luciana Vecchio (Rom), Patch Zircher (IIM)
Color Artists: Alex Sinclair (W), Erick Arciniega (MMMM), David Curiel & Jesus Aburtov (RoM), Bryan Valenza (IIM)
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit (W), VC's Joe Caramanga (MMMM, IIM), VC's Joe Sabino (RoM),
Cover Artists: Leinil Francis Yu & Romulo Fajardo Jr. (W), Carlos Gómex & Jesus Aburtov (MMMM), Stefano Caselli & Jesus Aburtov (RoM), Kael Ngu (IIM)