Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel's House Of M has long been considered one of the most important Marvel comics of the 21st century. It began the event cycle that Marvel has been locked into, with the publisher focusing on one big crossover event every year. It was billed as the first team-up between the Astonishing X-Men and the New Avengers, the two biggest teams at Marvel. It also changed the status quo of the X-Men for years.

RELATED: House Of M: 10 Things Fans Should Know About The X-Men's Most Hopeless Timeline

Unfortunately, it is also a terrible comic. A lot of fans have fond memories of it, but it was never actually very good. However, some aspects of it keep it from being among the worst event books of all time. This list is going to look at reasons it is so much worse than anyone remembers, and also why it's not actually the worst, but merely bad.

10 Not Completely Terrible: The Art

One unequivocally positive thing that can be said for the book is that the art is fantastic. Olivier Coipel had made a name for himself over at DC drawing Legion Of Superheroes comics before Marvel snatched him up. House Of M was one of his first Marvel works and he didn't disappoint.

His art takes what would become a very lackluster story and makes it look great. While Bendis didn't give him very much action to draw, and when he did it was terribly written, he made due with what was given and shone like the star he would become.

9 Worse Than You Remember: It Was A Glorified Hit Piece

Scarlet Witch crying as she says "No More Mutants" and depowers the mutant race.

Throughout the early 2000s, Marvel had been trying to right the ship after the disasters of the 90s. One of the franchises that needed the most rehabilitation was the Avengers. Marvel put Bendis, a rising star at the time, on the book and he shook things up. However, the X-Men books were still some of the biggest in the land at this time, with top rank talent like Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon working on them.

RELATED: 10 X-Men Characters That Deserve Solo Series In The "Dawn Of X"

Morrison had left Marvel over an editorial dispute, but he made sure to leave the X-Men in a very good place, with mutants becoming more prevalent and starting their own culture.... and House Of M destroyed all of that. The entire point of the series was to invalidate Morrison's entire X-Men run and devalue the X-Men brand while building the Avengers into something bigger.

8 Not Completely Terrible: Layla Miller

Layla Miller is the girl who knows stuff

Layla Miller was a MacGuffin character introduced in the book. Her entire purpose was to reawaken the memories of the heroes in the changed world. As a sassy teenage girl, she was a bright spot in an otherwise lackluster book.

She played off the gruff Wolverine and after House Of M, would go on to become a cast member in Peter David's X-Factor, using her mutant powers (which she defined as "knowing everything") to help out Jamie Madrox and company.

7 Worse Than You Remember: "I'm Gonna Kill Magneto!"

Magneto commits filicide

So, Scarlet Witch changed reality so that mutants would be the dominant race on Earth, but she also made sure to give every hero their heart's desire because she wasn't trying to be completely terrible. As Wolverine and Layla Miller went around giving the heroes back their memories of the real world, one line is repeated, ad naseum- "I'm gonna kill Magneto!"

RELATED: 5 Reasons Magneto Is The X-Men's Greatest Villain (& 5 Reasons It's Apocalypse)

That's not paraphrasing. Just about every character says this line. Even characters who would never think about killing say this line and mean it. This seems like a small thing, but it's not- Bendis doesn't really respect the individual characterization of a lot of characters in the book. Most of them start off the book not wanting to kill Scarlet Witch, now they all want to kill Magneto? It's ridiculous.

6 Not Completely Terrible: It Brought Hawkeye Back

Hawkeye

Hawkeye is a fan favorite Avenger. His irreverent attitude and humor strike a chord with fans and he's one of the bravest heroes around. Bendis killed him off in his initial Avengers story, Avengers Disassembled, in a scene that pretty much just seemed like it was there for shock value and many readers were not at all happy.

House Of M brought the character back to life, as Scarlet Witch felt bad for her role in his death. Hawkeye being back made a lot of fans happy... but Bendis saddled him with the Ronin moniker that no one cared about. You win some, you lose some.

5 Worse Than You Remember: The World Building

House Of M took a lot of cues from a prior story, the X-Men's Age Of Apocalypse. Both stories showcased a Marvel universe that had been completely changed from the one readers knew, with one character who had to figure out a way to change everything back to normal.

RELATED: The 10 Most Heartbreaking Things That Happened In The Age Of Apocalypse

House Of M, though, was very bad at world building. While AoA has gone down as one of the best alternate Marvel universes of all time, no one cares about the House Of M universe. Bendis could barely be bothered to do any world building and the tie-ins were lackluster at best.

4 Not Completely Terrible: Without It, No Captain Marvel

Carol Danvers's heart's desire was to be the biggest superhero in the world and she got her wish in the House Of M universe. Still called Ms. Marvel at the time, she was the premiere hero, a rare non-mutant who the mutant public loved.

Carol would remember this and once things were back to normal, she'd begin the long road of becoming better than she ever was before. This led to her taking up the Captain Marvel name and becoming one of the biggest superheroes around.

3 Worse Than You Remember: The Herald Of Event Fatigue

When House Of M was published it was the first big crossover event in a while. Marvel had a lot of work to do in the early 2000s, so they focused more on smaller scale stories in individual books to rebuild brands. House Of M would change all that and it's a change that plagues the company to this day.

RELATED: Remember Me? 10 Comic Book Events You Tried To Forget

The book's success locked Marvel into a cycle of doing big crossover events every year and changing the status quo. Readers would get tired of this as time went on, as it was recognized for what it really was- a cynical ploy to separate readers from their money.

2 Not Completely Terrible: Wolverine Got His Memory Back

Wolverine was a man of mystery for most of his history. His mind had been messed with more times than he could remember and it was revealed that his healing factor would "scab over" memories that would hurt him. This added to the mystique of the character, but it eventually became played out.

Scarlet Witch had given him his memory back in the House Of M reality and it stuck when things went back to normal. This opened up a lot of storytelling potential for the character, potential he hadn't had before.

1 Worse Than You Remember: It Was Boring

Boring House Of M Cropped

A lot of the previous sins could be forgiven if House Of M was at least an exciting comic. Action can be used to gloss over a lot a story weaknesses and this story was very, very weak. However, Bendis decided to try and focus on the drama of the whole thing, which was a huge mistake (see "I'm Gonna Kill Magneto!" entry for his idea of drama).

Event books should be exciting, as the biggest heroes team up to battle menaces they couldn't handle on their own. This book was anything but exciting and when it did have any action, it was badly written. The comic is basically 7 issues of people yelling at each other about things and one issue of very badly written action. It committed the cardinal sin of event books- it was boring.

NEXT: Avengers: The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Events In Marvel History