Synopsis & Review by Sean Mills. Thanks!:
Synopsis: In the House of M world, Wolverine is the leader of the Red Guard, a SHIELD unit composed of Toad, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Spider-Woman, and his girlfriend Mystique. Sebastian Shaw is his superior officer, and he watched the footage where Wolverine realized something was wrong and leapt off of the helicarrier into New York City, scaring the hell out of Mystique who was with him at the time. Nothing of their conversation was heard, but it was appropriate that the crew on deck heard Mystique scream, “NOOOOOOOO” as she watched Logan fall to Earth.

Four hours later, Shaw called Mystique to his office to talk about what happened and she tells him that he already has her report. But he’s not talking about his jump, he’s talking about a mission they had in Mexico two weeks ago. He has that report as well, Logan’s too, but what he wants to know is what isn’t in the reports and how that might tie into the jump. So Mystique begins the story.

Wolverine and Mystique were in the Sierra Madres chasing a kidnapping victim, taken by human guerilla fighters who weren’t associated with the Human Resistance; they just wanted a ransom. But the House of M doesn’t negotiate and the two mutants attack the small group of humans. Wolverine makes short work of them as Mystique frees the prisoner. Later that evening they’re preparing for a ball and Mystique uses her powers to try out different dresses, Wolverine likes the blue one. She teases him before a shower as Wolverine finishes what he’s doing, putting a lot of pills into his Vodka and pounding it back, much to Mystique’s dismay.

Back in Shaw’s office, he asks how long she knew that Logan was abusing drugs and alcohol. Mystique asks to speak frankly and she insists that the re’s a rage inside Logan, which Shaw himself as exploited. Shaw agrees and says that he’d gladly do it again for the sake of mutantkind. Mystique asks against whom though, since the war against humans is over. But Shaw says that the events in Mexico contradict her statement. Mystique defends Logan saying that the drugs help him deal with all that he’s lost, which is a lot, and the alcohol helps as well; it even makes him smile. But neither of these has ever compromised his abilities as an agent or a leader. Shaw asks how she then explains Mexico, and Mystique tells him that everyone was caught off guard that night.

The ball that they were attending in Mexico was a celebration of the Mexican government celebrating the arrival of their new Sentinel, which stood outside the mansion on display for everyone. This ball was really just a glorified photo-op with a lot of small time diplomats, but since Mystique and Logan were already in Mexico they were added to the security detail, but they were really more like ambassadors of SHIELD. Shaw doesn’t want excuses, but Mystique is simply explaining how it felt to the two of them, that their presence was redundant and that their mission was over. In retrospect, they should have taken it much more seriously.

Logan is insulted and heads to the bar while Mystique goes to mingle. The most important person at the event was Devin Prince, the House of M’s Foreign Relations Minister, and after two hours of mingling everyone took his or her seats and a toast was made. Logan was at the bar when he suddenly smelled something wrong, but the attack came out of nowhere. A seemingly inconspicuous waiter holding a tray of champagne spilled it on Logan. It was weaponized corrosive acid and Logan began burning and melting, even as he popped his claws to fight. He was quickly outnumbered, stabbed, and taken down.

The resistance fighters then all made their presence known as they began to take hostages, Mystique fought back but slipped under a table. The resistance fighters were searching for Prince and they found him under a table, pulling him up and holding a knife to his throat. The genocide will end, the resistance fighter tells Prince, but the foreign relations minister tells him that he doesn’t want to do that. When his eyes glow yellow, he says that he really means it.

Mystique reveals herself and takes out the resistance fighter and then the marines kicked down the door and started shooting all of the resistance fighters. The entire thing only lasted about 30 minutes and only nine dignitaries were injured, 10 killed, and Prince got through it with barely a scratch. But then, he wasn’t the intended target, the Sentinel outside was and they got it while everyone else was distracted inside.

Shaw lightly mocks Mystique’s use of the word ‘they’ and she explains that it was a tactically brilliant strike, doubting that the fighters inside didn’t even know about the true mission. Shaw agrees and says that he doubts even SHIELD could have done better. Mystique is put off and asks that if he’s suggesting…but Shaw stops her and suggests that she calm down. Shaw asks if Logan ever talks about his past, and Mystique tells him not often.

Shaw hands her a photograph and asks if she could identify anyone in the picture, of course she can because she never forgets a face. She looks at it and hands it back to Shaw, she recognizes someone in the picture and says that that’s the man responsible for the attack. He asks her to look at it again, the bottom left-hand corner were a scrappy little hairy guy is smiling. Shaw asks if Mystique would like to be more specific and she slams the photo on his desk, telling him that Logan had nothing to do with the attack!

It was another person in the photo with Logan…it was Nick Fury.

Review: So now we delve into the House of M with a little non-story about Wolverine that, technically, never happened and is really only a creation by the masterminds behind the House of M in the first place. But let’s ignore all of that and focus on the issue at hand. Frankly, I’m glad that it’s more of a story about Mystique than Wolverine because there’s more than enough Wolverine in the House of M title.

This is a nice issue and the start of what could be a nice story. It’s got some cool action, a plot twist, Wolverine getting taken down, a nice cliffhanger, and great art. The art is very good and Mystique looks wonderfully both deadly and beautiful, though everything seems a bit smudged. Wolverine is properly fugly and rough and the Sentinel looks very nice and imposing. I like this new design for the Sentinels, very cool. So even though House of M is almost over and this story bears nothing on any future continuity or even the House of M, I still like where it could be going. I can handle a fun Mystique story.