Comic Book Questions Answered – where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to they're e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com).

Reader Bob H. wrote in to ask:

How, exactly, did Layla Miller (or Wolverine for that matter) know that Scarlet Witch had changed reality in House of M?

This one is easy and complicated at the same time, Bob!

The Wolverine part of the question is easy, as it is actually explained in the comic book itself.

So Scarlet Witch alters reality at the end of House of M #1 and now mutants are in charge of the world. Wolverine, though, wakes up and remembers everything and I mean EVERYthing (in House of M #2 by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel and Mark Morales)...

He visits the underground human freedom fighters, led by Luke Cage, in House of M #4 and tells them what he knows and Luke Cage believes him because a little girl told him the same thing the previous day. That little girl was Layla Miller...

So that explains Wolverine knowing what happened. Scarlet Witch had subtly given most people their hidden-most desires so that they wouldn't question this new world. It just so happened that it backfired with Wolverine, because his greatest desire was to remember his past, so knowing his past meant that he would now remember the pre-altered Earth. So that didn't work.

But what about Layla?

Okay, here's tricky part - after House of M ended, Peter David picked up the now-discarded and not-being-used-by-anyone-else Layla Miller and made her a big part of his X-Factor series. However, he came up with a WHOLE other origin for Layla that did not tie into anything about House of M, so after he was finished, how she knew about the changes to reality no longer really made sense (I mean, they made sense in a sort of other way, but not really).

ORIGINALLY, though, it was as simple of an explanation of Layla being a mutant whose mutant ability kicked in and her mutant ability was able to see changes made to reality. This was explained in the biography sections at the end of the House of M trade paperback...

So she could see the changes to reality because that was her mutant power. That wasn't the case once Peter David took over the character, but when she saw through the changes in House of M, that is why she was able to do that.

Thanks for the question, Bob! If anyone else has a comic book related question that they'd like to see answered, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!