As readers of my posts, oh, all over the internet, may know, I've been very displeased with Marvel's treatment of its characters since about mid-2004; I think they've had their heroism dragged through the mud, including in a host of retcons which more or less establish that any of their long-standing characters have really been complete bastards for the whole of their careers, we just didn't know it all this time. I've had a lot of trouble not only enjoying this, but also I can't see it fitting with the way they were depicted before that, from Wolverine's "recovered memories" to the whole idea of the Illuminati.
I won't go into the whole history of what happened here -- anyone who wants to can look up the relevant bits on Wikipedia -- but if I were going to repair all of this damage, I'd simply say that after House of M, and probably before it, the Scarlet Witch didn't put reality back the way it was before, instead making the heroes -- and their now-altered pasts -- more corrupt, probably in ways which could reflect her own paranoid delusions -- Reed Richards being not only a bit of an absent-minded professor, but positively cold in his calculations of "what must be done"; Iron Man as not just a bit of a control freak, but a fascist; Wolverine as not only savage and feral, with being manipulated in his past, but positively murderous as well as controlled far more than anyone would ever think, killing innocents and such (which he never did before these retcons), Wanda even giving him a convenient "big, bad enemy" responsible for it all (who is also, conveniently, claiming to be the oldest mutant, even older than Apocalypse, so we get the "bad mutant" vibe as well as hints of Eastern European bad-wolf-related folktale imagery, right from Wanda's subconscious) rather than some more mundane explanation, like that along with the memory implants which were established before, memories don't heal even when your healing factor brings back brain cells (which I think should be the simplest explanation for why he doesn't have a good set of 150-year-old memories). Even Spider-Man's situation could be explained some by this -- in House of M, Wanda paired him up with a living Gwen Stacy rather than Mary Jane, and then Peter is placed in a position where he has to let Aunt May die or give up Mary Jane, so a case could be made that the nonsensical Mephisto "I want your marriage" deal is connected to all of this.
This would also mean that once reality is set right, which could also involve the healing of Wanda (I had already been thinking that Chthon possessing her would explain it all away, before Dan Slott used Chthon in Mighty Avengers; it could still be done, because if Wanda can reorder reality itself, and Chthon has already got a connection to her, this really could be used to fix just about anything) so she can be a hero again, any change which is felt to be positive -- such as, for instance, the Young Avengers, including Wanda's kids -- could be kept in the new restored reality. Various heroes could remember what happened before, so they can make sure that something like Civil War never happens in the first place.
But also, just as in Age of Apocalypse, the mid-2004-to-whenever-it-gets-repaired world (you know, the depressing What If we've been reading the last few years) could still exist in the multiverse, just as the Ultimate universe does, and it could go off in whatever direction people want to see, while the classic-style MU gets back to normal. So all the readers would win.
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