Forge and McCoy isolate the gene frequency and Jarvis gives Johnny Storm and Tony a timing scheme and map for finding and disarming the bombs. They start at it, and the chances of success rise with each destroyed bomb, until it drops to 12% - with the arrival of a fleet of Vision-based Sentinels. Stark asks Forge when they were built and why he wasn't notified, and is told they wanted to surprise him. Tony opens up a broadcast to the entire city, asking both humans and mutants to find and torch any bombs in their area.

Meanwhile, Johnny calls Flash Thompson and Flash in turn places calls to all the Sapien Death Match fighters. As Iron Man battles the Visions, he's suddenly backed up by his fellow sapiens in their battle suits, and Flash "emcees" a live version of his show. Meanwhile, Forge and Hank can't shut the Visions down. Tony is down to the last bombs, all located in one tower, as Forge and McCoy hack the Vision code and find Howard's edits, which is why Tony has no control over the robots his company built.

Howard appears in his battle suit, and transfers Vision control to his son. Tony is shocked at his father's deceptions, aghast that he would plot to kill so many people. Howard explains that Tony was weak and so he had to be manipulated into executing Howard's plan, which was to kill only one person (Magneto) and leave Tony as the savior of both humans and mutants, theoretically the next world leader. Howard tosses Tony the last bomb. Enraged, Tony blasts his dad away. Meanwhile, the House of M arrives, and attacks Tony (?), but the magnetic blast bounces off Iron Man and hits Howard's suit, causing him mortal wounds. Howard's proud of his paranoid son, who secretly built magnetic reflectors into his suit, preparing for every eventuality. Tony holds his father as he dies, and Howard's last words are for his son to destroy Magneto and take his place as a world leader. Tony rises in front of Magneto, who understands how easily Iron Man could kill him. Tony refuses to accede to Howard's wishes, however, and blasts the last bomb. The House of M leaves.

In communication with Forge, Tony finds out that his company's being mostly nationalized by the House of M due to Howard's treason, but the Iron Man action figure is selling great, due to his saving the city. Tony doesn't really care about the business anymore: he's too busy working as Iron Man to pull people from the rubble and save their lives.

Review: Oof. What a torturous path to resolution, and not much of that in the end. This was a very difficult read, due to both the script and the art. At the end, I pretty much got Howard's plan, but it was totally submerged in doublespeak and hints. The art made it even worse, as it wasn't clear who Magneto attacked and what actually happened to cause Howard's death. Finally, Tony's decisions and the fate of his company, along with his seeming not to care was pretty incongruous with his supposed cutthroat business instinct. Perhaps that last was the point, that he learned to rise above his own power lust and strive to help his people, but in the end, it falls flat. The only other thing that MIGHT be important is the Iron Man suit's magnetic reflectors, but since Tony didn't go to Genosha yet, I wonder if it will end up in the final fight.

Furthermore, as with all these tie-in LSs, this one seems to occur well before the main House of M LS, in which Tony is "woken up" by Layla Miller and has yet to appear through 6 of 8 issues. So what the heck was the point of this? You miss nothing by skipping it, and that's the worst review a tie-in LS can get.