After a couple of months of buzz and speculation, Marvel’s House of M begins in June. The eight issue miniseries, which ties in to the events of last fall’s “Avengers: Disassembled” storyline is epic in scope, combining the X-Men and the Avengers in a battle that spans the entirety of the Marvel Universe in order to stop the Scarlet Witch from reshaping reality to her whim.

While Brian Bendis is writing the core miniseries (illustrated by Olivier Coipel and Tim Townsend), editing and coordinating the storyline, which touches upon nearly every hero in the Marvel Universe falls to Tom Brevoort. We caught up with him for a look at the storyline, and the effects it will have in the months to come.

Wizard #162 previewed issue #1 of the miniseries, showing the X-Men joining the Avengers in the new Avengers Tower to, as Professor Xavier said, “to decide the fate of Wanda Maximoff” i.e., the Scarlet Witch.

Wanda, as it was revealed in the final issue of the series-ending “Avengers Disassembled” arc, was responsible for the horrific events that happened to the team, gutting it, killing a handful of members, and in the end, causing its founders to officially dissolve it. When her puppetmastering was finally revealed, Wanda’s father, Magneto, arrived, and took her to Genosha, a haven for mutants, where he was working with Professor X (as shown in Excalibur).

As House of M begins, Xavier realizes that he can no longer control Wanda – and something needs to be done, hence the meeting called between her friends and family.

“Wanda’s nuts and she’s in possession of a power that can literally change the nature of reality,” Brevoort said. “It’s a dangerous combination, one that strips the bedrock right out from underneath what you and these characters think they know. There’s a school of thought in some religious circles that God is insane. If the Avengers and the X-Men were to do nothing, that would certainly be the case here.”

Contrary to appearances, House of M was not developed in tandem with Avengers: Disassembled, Brevoort explained. “The core idea of House of M came at an editorial retreat while we were in the midst of Disassembled. We knew more or less where the pieces were going to end up, and so it became obvious that there was an opportunity for a follow-up. The full scale of that follow-up became apparent as we talked about it.

“In short, Disassembled was Disassembled, and the ending was what was intended from the very start. But, as has been pointed out, that ending suggested a sequel of some sort—the final shape of it is far larger than where we started out.”

As with this kind of event storyline, Brevoort knows the preconceived notion of ‘in eight months, everything will be back to normal, and the storyline won’t matter in the long run.’ It happened years ago when Kulan Gath (a Robert E. Howard character) transformed Manhattan into a Hyborian-era sorcery-laden dark age in Uncanny X-Men, and to a similar extent, the entire Age of Apocalypse. Drama without consequences can ring hollow, although Brevoort has a different take.

“I think the drama only rang hollow after the fact—during both of those stories, readers were actively engaged in what was going on, and wanted to know where things were going to end up when all was said and done,” the editor said. “That said, House of M shares some similarities with those earlier stories, but is not the same.”

In short, it’s not a “What If?” story.

“It’s a ‘What Is’ story,” Brevoort continued. “All of the events of House of M are happening to the actual Avengers and the actual X-Men—and the actual Marvel Universe, for that matter. The events of the story will shape the characters and the MU itself for some time to come.”

In an interview with Editor in Chief Joe Quesada, Brevoort confessed that he wasn’t one of the early converts for what Bendis was proposing to do in "Avengers Disassembled," but admitted that he doesn’t feel that reluctance with House of M. “I thought—and think—that this story is a natural extension of what we did in Disassembled. It’s a good story that takes full advantage of the larger Marvel Universe.”

Structure-wise, Brevoort said that the larger story will be divided into three acts, each of which will be characterized by specific elements, but added that it’s too early to delve into the plot directions of each just yet.

As word has begun to leak out…there will other issues of ongoing series connected to House of M. But, as Brevoort explained, series tie-ins to House of M won’t be along the same lines of the "Avengers Disassembled" tie-ins, which, as some fans pointed out, seemed to have less to do with the Disassembled storyline, and more to do with traumatic changes in the lives of the respective characters.

“Honestly, some of that was a result of us listening to the fans and the retailers too much, the vocal ones, in terms of what they said they wanted in crossovers,” Brevoort said. “’We don’t want to be forced to buy everything in order to follow this story!’ So we tried to make each of the Disassembled tie-in books totally modular, and that led to some awkward storytelling in places. With House of M, we’re going to follow our own hearts and minds a bit more, and not worry about what the vocal fans are saying beforehand—if Disassembled is any indication, they’ll be saying something else by the time it’s underway. In House of M, we’ve got a whole world to explore, so we’ll be doing some of that exploration elsewhere.”

Looking at the scope again, Brevoort said that House of M will share a characteristic with events of old, that is, it will be a platform where new characters will be introduced as they rise to the challenge, and also a place where characters that’ve been out of sight for a time will be able to get back on stage.

As for the mastermind behind the story, Brevoort was quick to praise Bendis’ working knowledge of the Marvel Universe. “Brian’s been reading Marvel comics off and on for twenty years; he knows his way around the universe pretty well. And we’ve been keeping in touch with the X-office and its creators along the way, to make sure everything lines up nicely.”

And the end result of that lining up – coming in fall of 2005, when the final page of House of M hits? “What we’ll see as a result of the story isn’t so much a tonal shift as a logistical shift - some of the pieces are going to be in very different places when this is all over, and that’s going to affect how all of our various heroes do business in a significant way.

“But rest assured - there’ll be a marked difference in the Marvel Universe in the aftermath of House of M—one that’ll propel us directly into the next year’s worth of stories, at the very least.”