After the earth-shattering events that took place at the end of Marvel's Phase 3, the MCU needs to find a new way to raise the stakes: and House of M might be just what they're looking for. House of M is an iconic Marvel Comics storyline from 2005 that radically changed the status quo of the Marvel Universe within just a few short issues. In it, Wanda Maximoff (driven to the brink of insanity by the expectations of her father and the societal pressures of being a mutant) uses her reality-warping powers to rewrite the fabric of reality. The change results in an altered timeline in which mutants, led by Magneto, have become the dominant species on planet Earth, with humans viewed as inferior with the exception of a few examples.
The storyline is arguably one of the most important events in the life of Scarlet Witch, and comic book fans have been curious to see if the MCU would ever adapt the story. Wanda Maximoff was introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but due to recently-resolved licensing issues between Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox's ownership of the X-Men, certain elements of Wanda's characterization couldn't be utilized prior to 2019. This included her mutant status, the details of her parentage, and further elaboration of her Chaos Magic-based powers.
Wanda's abilities make her one of the most formidable characters in the MCU, and House of M is a devastating demonstration of just a fraction of her power. While the storyline seems fit to be adapted into a single film, there just might be evidence to suggest that all of Phase 4 could take place within Wanda's pocket dimension.
House of M is literally one of the most influential storylines in the history of Marvel Comics, and the outcome of the story affected the relationship between mutantkind and humanity for decades to come. After several major crucibles experienced by the X-Men, including the events of Planet X (a story written by Grant Morrison in which a mentally-unstable Magneto kills hundreds of thousands of humans), the tentative co-existence between mutants and humans had already been unraveling at the seams. This strains the mutant heroes of the X-Men, but it also only adds more trauma onto Wanda Maximoff, who was at the time dealing with her inability to have children with The Vision.
With her trauma and vulnerability manifesting as unintentional manifestations of her power, both the X-Men and the Avengers came together to discuss options on how to handle the crisis. Several heroes sought peaceful means, but other characters like Emma Frost and Wolverine came to the conclusion that Wanda needed to be killed. After heated deliberation, Xavier takes the two teams to Genosha to intercept Wanda, only to arrive too late as a blinding flash of light engulfs the world.
The inevitable reveal is that Wanda has completely rewritten the fabric of the Marvel Universe, creating a world in which an assassination attempt on her father's life in the 1970s led to the reveal of a massive genocidal conspiracy against mutantkind. As a result of this plot being exposed, mutants become a protected class by the international community at large, eventually leading to a world in which mutants make up 50% of the world's population and humans are viewed as inferior. Several heroes also receive ground-breaking changes; Spider-Man is now married to Gwen Stacy and viewed as a celebrity, Steve Rogers has aged up in real time, and Wolverine (the only one who remembers the events of the original timeline) is now a SHIELD agent.
Fans have known for quite some time now that Marvel's Phase 4 would be diving heavily into the concept of a multiverse, a metaphysical concept that comic books themselves have been working into storytelling for years. It was straight up confirmed at SDCC 2019, when Marvel revealed that the sequel to 2016's Doctor Strange would be called Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Taking it a step further, the filmmakers involved also confirmed Scarlet Witch would be joining the Sorcerer Supreme this time, and that it would tie into her show on Disney+. For a while, it seemed like Multiverse of Madness alone would be blowing the MCU wide open in terms of storytelling opportunities.
But recently, more and more puzzling news has been revealed about some of the biggest movies in Phase 4, and it all points to multiple multiversal machinations. There's the matter of Jane Foster becoming Thor in Thor: Love and Thunder, and while this is something that happens in the comics as the result of Jane being diagnosed with cancer, that explanation might be a little too grim to pull off in a franchise as lighthearted as Thor. Then, fans were recently shocked to discover Jamie Foxx is returning as Electro in Spider-Man: Homecoming 3, a reveal made all the more intriguing by an Instagram post from Foxx that seemingly teased a Spider-Verse event. We also know the Loki spin-off show will follow him jumping back and forth through different timelines, lending more evidence to the idea that all of these changes could be the result of multiversal manipulation.
Disney+ subscribers will be pleased to know that, unlike some of the other Marvel shows, WandaVision is still dropping on the subscription service this year. The first trailer revealed a surrealist homage to classic television throughout the years, all wrapped up in a larger story that somehow involves Scarlet Witch's reality warping abilities and a proto-variant of the SWORD organization. With so much going on, it's hard to figure out specifics of what's going on in the show's narrative, but one thing that fans have generally accepted is that Wanda has somehow created a pocket dimension or alternate reality in which Vision has returned to life.
If this is the case, then the basic assumption is that this reality will play out over the course of the show, with maybe a tie-in to Doctor Strange's next cinematic outing. However, there's always the possibility that the MCU could be looking to tell a story bigger than that. In the comics, the potential for Wanda's powers seems almost limitless, only bound by her experience and her willingness to use them. House of M represents just how volatile those abilities can be when used by someone in a state of emotional turmoil, and WandaVision seems to be setting itself up to do the exact same thing. There's a strong possibility that Wanda's powers could have repercussions for not just the events of the show, or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but for the entirety of Phase 4.
In the comics, only a select few heroes can perceive the changed timeline that Wanda creates in House of M. The other characters simply believe the altered reality to be the real one, blissfully unaware of the radical changes made to the fabric of history. The MCU could be gearing up to do a very similar storyline with each of the solo films in Phase 4. By starting off the phase with WandaVision, the show could be the catalyst that alters the fabric of the MCU, resulting in Multiversal warps within each individual solo film. This could explain bizarre changes such as the existence of Jane Thor and Jamie Foxx's return as Electro, leaving Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as the film in which Wanda's manipulations are finally reversed. It would certainly explain why Phase 4 seems to have no Avengers film slated, as instead of giving us one team-up movie they're instead using an entire Phase to play around with the concept of alternate universes.
Not only does this have far-reaching repercussions for the solo films affected by Wanda's powers, but this could also give the MCU a perfect justification for bringing the X-Men into the MCU. At the end of the House of M comic book storyline, Wanda (who's been pushed to the brink by both her father's obsession with mutant superiority) utters the phrase "no more mutants," and once again warps reality by depowering thousands of mutants across the globe. This is widely referred to as the Decimation, an event that drastically reduces the mutant population to mere hundreds. Since mutants don't exist yet in the MCU, the conclusion of Wanda's House of M storyline could end with her accidentally creating the mutant population, in an effort to fill the world with more people like herself. The thought of the MCU doing a House of M adaptation gives them a lot of creative leeway moving forward, and Phase 4 would be the perfect place to do it.
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