SPOILERS! We’ll be discussing events in House of X #4 and others back issues relevant to this story

With House of X #4, we get another shocking installment of an already momentous series. It picks right up from the previous issue with the X-Men on a dangerous mission to destroy the Mother Mold in deep space.

The stakes are raised as graphics interspersed within the story illustrate the level of devastation of previous extinction level events on mutants. These events are what we will be focusing on for our relevant back issue retrospective.

Sentinel Body Count

The second largest body count of extinction level events for mutants was the Genosha attack. Despite being only the second largest attack, it is perhaps more relevant, considering it was brought upon by a veresion of the Master Mold, which is what the Mother Mold will be making in House of X #4. This attack was orchestrated by Cassandra Nova on the mutant nation of Genosha in Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s New X-Men #115.

No More… Mutants

The most devasting event comes from House of M, where Wanda Maximoff uses her powers to revert most mutants to human after speaking the now-infamous words: “No More Mutants.” This is even referenced in this issue, after the tragic deaths of many X-Men as they preemptively halt another potential extinction level event by destroying the Mother Mold, as Xavier mutters the words “No More”. This change occurs in House of M #8, and delt with during the Decimation event.

Wanda the Pretender

Wanda is now refered to as the pretender in the graphics this issue. Though she was not viewed of fondly by mutants since the events of House of M, things get even worse as she was revealed to not even be a mutant, but an experiment of the High Evolutionary in Uncanny Avengers (2014) #4.