House of M - World

World

In this world, Magneto was attacked by Sentinels over Manhattan in 1979 (taking advantage of Marvel's sliding timescale policy, there are no heroes active in the 1970s). At the end of the attack, Magneto revealed an alleged international anti-mutant conspiracy involving Richard M. Nixon. The main result of this was that Magneto was granted sovereignty of the island of Genosha as the leader of the world's mutants. Another result was that the protection of mutant life was judged to be the first worry of all laws (as a result, stem cell research on mutant embryos is illegal, but stem cell research on altered human embryos is permitted). Because of this, the world is a racist society, with mutants controlling governments, businesses, and culture; and humans (or "sapiens") are looked down on as inferior (essentially a reversal of the status quo in the mainstream Marvel Universe, where mutants are looked down on and despised instead).

Some exceptions apply to "sapiens" who live with privileges like Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel in Earth-616 continuity, but Captain Marvel in the World of M) and Peter Parker (Spider-Man). However, while Danvers is widely known to be a "sapien," Spider-Man is believed by the House of M world at large to be a mutant.

Given that the House of M reality was created by the Scarlet Witch and Charles Xavier combining their powers to give the assembled New Avengers and X-Men their heart's desires, it appears that Magneto's heart's desire was threefold. Primarily, he wanted the entire world to acknowledge that his paranoid fantasies about baseline humans wanting to exterminate mutants were true (hence the Sentinel attack over New York in 1979, which concluded with the release of evidence that the world's human leaders were involved in a genocidal anti-mutant conspiracy). Secondly, he wanted to be acknowledged as a heroic figure and the rightful leader of all mutantkind (hence the disappearance of Charles Xavier and the timing of Magneto's rise to dominance before other superheroes had appeared on the scene to challenge him). And thirdly, a massive speeding-up of the natural evolution of homo sapiens into homo superior; until, by the modern era, they accounted for almost 50% of the global population, providing him with a power base sufficient to take over the governments of the world and use them to oppress baseline humans.

It is unclear whether the Scarlet Witch's magic altered the entire Marvel Universe, or merely the structure and history of Earth, a fact further complicated by the events of Secret Invasion. The Skrull Hank Pym stated that there was no way the Skrull army could win against such a vast number of mutants, at least possibly implying the Skrull army was left intact by Wanda's reality warp. Also, Xavier's supposed death in this reality, yet with no body, combined with his own off-planet actions, further confuse the issue. However, there is a Kree ambassador called Genis-Vell that appears within this illusory reality, and the Kree are shown to be peacefully collaborating with Earth, signifying that such was the Scarlet Witch's power that she was indeed capable of rewriting all of reality, the entire universe.