This week in the Fall of the House of X, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes join the fight, while the X-Men tie some loose ends — and call in a favor.

PRELUDE TO THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X

A light week with just two titles: Avengers #12 and X-Men #33.

RECAP OF THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X

Shortly before the war on Orchis, the Avengers launch their attack on various Orchis strongholds in order to weaken their leveraging power on the world. Disgruntled former Avenger and current Orchis agent, 3-D Man, informs his superior, M.O.D.O.K., that the Avengers are attacking one of their bases and warns not to underestimate them. As the Avengers make quick work of each Orchis base, they liberate captured mutants and usher them to the Impossible City, a spacebound semi-sentient superstructure allied with the Avengers. Despite their great success in overpowering Orchis, 3-D Man figures out their plan and sends a fleet of Stark Sentinels to attack the Impossible City.

Not long ago, Sebastian Shaw and his son Shinobi muse on their plan to side with either Krakoa or Orchis, depending on who wins the coming war. Emma Frost continues to rally the troops telepathically, and sends the X-Men’s attention to Madripoor after Orchis attacks Callisto, where they are greeted by Shinobi. Knowing it would be more advantageous for him and his fathers if the mutants win, he directs them to Dr. Killian Devo, allowing them to strike — but they don’t know Devo has access to the Negative Zone, and he retaliates by trying to send them there. Unable to stop him telepathically because he lacks a human brain, Emma helps Ms. Marvel call in a favor — the Seven Daggers of Latveria, Doctor Doom’s personal mutant team who recently promised their help to the X-Men. They kill Devo and make contact with Cyclops, who warns them of the Sentinel City rising.

ANALYSIS OF THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X

Fairly light week in terms of major happenings, which is mostly down to both issues being heavier on action than plot. Avengers #12 is the more brisk of the two, with fast pacing devoting most of its pages to the Avengers being awesome badasses and making quick work of various Orchis bases. Because this happened a short while ago in the chronology of the story, however, it means nothing super groundbreaking happens, and thus it means that nothing totally awful happens with the Impossible City or else we would have heard about it by now. Such is the pitfalls of superhero event storytelling…

X-Men #33 is a little more consequential, with the main takeaway being that Devo is officially off the board in the Orchis war, so another higher-up within the organization will surely help the mutants balance the scales a bit. As previously seen, however, Devo’s defeat is hardly a big loss for Orchis, with Sentinel City looming in the distance both literally and figuratively…

NEXT IN THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X

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