Logan’s says someone’s coming, as we see the keys of Scott Summers fall to the floor when he takes in the sight currently assembled in his living room. He asks his “wife” what’s going on, but Emma just moves to Layla and helps her use her powers. Layla and Scott’s eyes both glow green, and Cyclops staggers against the wall from the rush of information. Emma tells him to keep it together, but he soon loses his lunch on the carpet. Oh no he gasps, and Emma wonders just why they’re married. He doesn’t really pay attention to this as he moves straight to wondering how Magneto could have done this, and where Xavier is. Wolverine says that they haven’t found him, the school isn’t the school anymore, and everyone else is scattered around. Scott moves right into his leader position wondering who they can find.

“Peter Parker!” someone yells, as the man in question, who’s out for a walk with his family, turns to the resistance group standing in a line across the sidewalk. He hands his son to his wife, Gwen Parker, and says he’ll be right back. He wonders if he can help these people, but Layla only says sorry, as both of their eyes flare green. We get a collage of several figures in Parker’s life, the spider that bit him, many of his infamous foes including Green Goblin, Lizard, Doctor Octopus, Venom, and Carnage, as well as family members with Mary Jane uttering her famous line and their marriage, his beloved Aunt May, and one of the most tragic events in his life, the death of Gwen Stacy.

Peter is freaked out at this revelation and collapses against a car screaming. Gwen comes over to see what’s wrong, but that only makes things worse as he immediately flashes back to when her neck snapped when he tried to save her at the bridge. The final straw happens when Uncle Ben walks up, and Peter can’t take anymore and leaps away. Gwen is immediately incensed at what these strangers did to her husband, but Emma just gives them all a telepathic suggestion to go play in the park. Logan decides he’ll go try to calm the kid.

Parker is breaking down in tears on top of a roof, with Logan not too far away. Peter wants him to tell him that he’s just gone crazy, but Wolverine can’t. He reveals that he’s got memories on top of memories and can’t get things straight. He thinks that this is all just too much, and he shouldn’t have to take this much pain. How did Magneto do it he asks? Logan says he’s not the only one; apparently he wanted to be Nick Fury. Sorry says the ever joking Spiderman, but he immediately gets serious and says that he thinks he’s going to kill Magneto and his daughter if he gets the chance and he won’t be able to stop himself. Don’t worry, says Logan, he’ll have done it already.

We get a montage of Layla using her powers as the heroes locate and reawaken more of their comrades. Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat, Stephen Strange/Dr. Strange, Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel, Tony Stark/Iron Man, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, and Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk all join the group. They stop, however, when the come across what has become of their friend Captain America. Emma tells Layla to power down when they see he is just an old man now, and they all decided he is no use to them in this condition.

In a darkened office, Emma fills in the assembled heroes on what they believe to have happened. Magneto convinced or forced his daughter, the Scarlet Witch, to change the world into his image, and betrayed his friend, Xavier, by forcing him to find everyone’s deepest desires, or something close, so that they would be happy enough to live in this new world. Anyone disagree? No one in the room says anything aloud, but Emma can hear Hawkeye’s thoughts loud and clear and the only way he’ll believe all this is if he lets Layla use her powers on him. Others try to find out what he wants, but he screams the only thing he wants is Emma out of his head! It goes silent again until Murdock and Logan try to warn of something arriving, just as one of the walls is knocked in. It is the SHIELD Red Guard, and they are all under arrest. A battle starts, but it ends just as quickly when Rogue grabs a hold of Layla. She begins to tell them to put their hands up, but part of one of the fingers of one of her gloves was torn, and as she touches the girls face, she absorbs the young mutant’s powers, which then end up being used to awaken the rest of the Red Guard. Cage smacks Toad off of him, Drew is comforted by Spiderman, Rogue begins to lose it, and Kitty asks Nightcrawler where Pietro is, but he doesn’t even know where he is. Logan is standing over Mystique when she gets all her memories back, and realizes what the two shared in this world. She gives him a hearty slap, but thinks she broke her hand, and he tells her to save it for who did all this to them. Carol notices that Hawkeye disappeared, but Emma says just to let him go. Rogue begins to demand what exactly Layla is, but Emma says to leave her alone, she just absorbed some of the girl’s power. Rogue says she’s never felt anything like it. Cyclops orders everyone to get it together. What they need to do now is more important, so they can have their breakdowns later. Spiderman says fine, but he gets to have his first. Carol asks what the plan, and Logan says that go straight for Magneto, because he can guarantee he knows exactly where Xavier is.

Outside the palace in Genosha again, Polaris catches up with her father. She says she’s been calling him for a while, is he okay? Magneto says he’s fine, and she informs him that Doom and his guests will be arriving in a half hour. He says okay, and she leaves, telling him to enjoy the day, because it’s his day. The still somber looking Magneto says he just needs a moment, as he walks over to a large stone underneath two willow trees. The plaque on it reads: “Xavier Memorial Garden; He died so Genosha could live.”

Review: What an ending! But I’ll save that for a little bit later. First off, the pace really picked up with this issue. They really moved things along when it comes to the inevitable confrontation, but if it seems like it could be moving a bit faster than should, as there are still three issues left, and you’d think that the fights should start next issue, you’re not alone. I think this just shows that they do still have some surprises in store for us that will stretch the story out for longer and not have the last few issues be one big fight. Which is a good thing, as long as the surprises don’t turn out to be crap or poorly done.

I found it a bit odd that we only really saw into the reactions of being reawakened with just Spiderman. It was a great scene, don’t get me wrong, but I would have liked to see how some of the others reacted to this earth shattering news.

Another good thing about this book is that it has helped out with the timeline of several of the other House of M tie-ins. The first two issues Fantastic Four take place before this, as mention that Doom will only be arriving soon, and the Pulse #10 takes place afterward, with Hawkeye’s disappearance in this issue. I guess he was woken up when Rogue touched Layla and ended up using her powers. The Iron Man series and New Thunderbolts also have to take place before this issue as well.

Now with the ending, as good as it is, I don’t really buy that Xavier is really dead. Unless there’s another screw up in editing, since Psylocke and Rachel were dropped into this reality later than everyone else, and they were still changed, that means that somehow, Xavier is still being used to find out the desires of any late comers. We can easily tell that it probably isn’t Magneto who is really pulling the strings, so whoever is behind this whole thing, is likely hiding Xavier from Magneto as well.

The art was just as top notch as ever with this book. The collage splash page of Spiderman’s past was just beautiful to behold and is just a treat for Spiderman fans. I also love the elaborate design for Magneto’s palace, with its many levels and towers. But what was Lorna wearing? It seems there was a bit of a lack of communication between books again, as all we’ve seen her wear outside of this is outfits similar to her regular universe uniform, but this “dress” is a far departure from anything she’s worn before. I haven’t commented on the cover art yet, but I also love those. The painting style covers really catch the eye, even though they aren’t most detailed, but they serve to draw interest as they stand out from the rest of the books on the shelf, which is something a book of this magnitude should do.