WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Loki Episode 6, "For All Time. Always.," streaming now on Disney+.

In her anguish and grief, a devastated Scarlet Witch creates an entirely new world where she can get back all she's lost. That's the elevator pitch for House of M, a 2008 crossover event where Wanda threw all of Earth-616 into an alternate reality. But it's also the situation the Scarlet Witch finds herself in at the end of WandaVision's first season. Realizing she can't keep the city of Westview prisoner, Wanda destroys her pocket bubble, unmaking her copy of Vision and their two sons, Billy and Tommy. But at the show's conclusion, she's also embraced her identity as the Scarlet Witch, a being of unparalleled chaos and magical power. And with that being the case, and the events of Loki having taken place, it's clear the Marvel Cinematic Universe is building towards its own House of M, just not in the way you think.

House of M temporarily replaced Marvel's normal lineup with a world ruled by Magneto and his family, a reversal of the usual mutant-human power structure. Only Wolverine retained his memories of an unaltered reality, and the Canadian mutant had to rebuild his team from scratch, eventually confronting Magneto and his ilk. The master of magnetism lashed out indiscriminately, killing his son Pietro. Anguished over the loss of her brother, Wanda undoes her grim work, putting reality back to normal with a cry of "No More Mutants."

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Scarlet Witch using her powers in WandaVision.

This drastically reduced the number of mutants in the comics, but that's not a route the MCU can follow. After all, it doesn't have any mutants. The movie rights for X-Men properties were owned by Fox way back in 2008. But since then Disney has bought both Marvel and Fox, bringing the rights for the X-Men and the rest of 616 back under the same umbrella. They're left in the awkward position of working characters with complex backstories and histories into a slate of films often announced years in advance. Even setting logistical difficulties aside, the X-Men can't exist in the MCU if none of the groundwork has been laid.

Marvel will need a way to introduce mutants into the MCU. They can't suddenly emerge from nowhere, mostly because characters like Professor X or Magneto need to have been around for decades to make sense. They can't always have been part of the MCU, either, since it'd be a huge strain of credulity to suggest they were simply ignoring the world-changing events of the previous 24 films. What Marvel needs is a way to retroactively introduce mutants, changing history so that they emerged sometime in the '80s or '90s.

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house-of-m

House of M is a great way to do this. Using the power of the Darkhold, Wanda creates a new world where she and her family are safe -- not just from death, but also from the outside world who fears strange and extraordinary people. She creates an Earth where being superpowered is the default, where humans can be born with mutant powers. This is only one of several routes Marvel could take, but it also ties in neatly with the events of another Disney+ show: Loki. The trickster god's time-traveling romp just ended its first season with the shattering of a single linear timeline, opening the MCU up to the terrifying possibilities of alternate realities.

Wanda's House of M could just as easily be one of those new Earths. It's already been confirmed that she will appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which deals with the consequences of both shows' finales. If Strange manages to wrangle the Earth back down to a single timeline, it could be wholly different from the MCU fans have watched for the last decade. It could have new heroes, new villains and even an alternate history -- one that includes the same mutants introduced in Wanda's alternate timeline. While the original House of M ended with "No More Mutants," Wanda, Loki and Doctor Strange have the potential to give them new life.

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