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The Royal House of ‘M’- Genosha’s Royal Family Explained
Published by Clatteran Magazine June 11, 2020
The “House of M” as it is now called, refers to the family and line of King Erik Lehnsherr of Genosha. The origin of the ‘M’ is up for some considerable and lively debate- some argue that it refers to the king’s given name of Max, others that it traces back to some long distant ancestry, while others believe the rumor started by Prince David that the ‘M’ stands for Magnus, a teasing nickname given to King Erik by his husband, King Charles. Nobody knows for certain where the truth lies, and the family themselves seem conflicted as to which story is true, though their sides seem to be constantly shifting, as “new information” is presented, according to Princess Lorna at least.
Inexplicably, the people of Genosha seem to love their royal family, this “House of M” seeming to have taken them and much of the world by storm. This wasn’t always the case, those citizens of Genosha who remember the time before the kings’ nuptials seem to recall that few people really even knew what the then Prince Erik even looked like, he was rarely caught by paparazzi, and was predominantly known for his public use of his mutant powers which made him quite unpopular with visiting royalty and dignitaries. Conversely his sister, who every single member of the family has referred to as “Ruthie” rather than her given “Ruth”, was incredibly well-known to the public and very visible, her vocal support of any cause was at the time enough to push legislation through the parliament simply by encouraging the people of Genosha to action. Remarkably their popularity seems to stem from the sheer number of scandals they’ve had over the years, and it’s truly a remarkable number of scandals for one family.
The House of M had its first scandal when it was time for King Erik to marry and take the throne. It was an arranged match- despite having had a series of short lived girlfriends it seemed that King Erik was unable to, as his sister is quoted to have said “find a girl as stubborn and bullheaded as he is, so none of them are willing to put up with him long term.” His bride to be caused quite an international stir- Kurt and Sharon Marko were to present Sharon’s daughter from her previous marriage, Charlotte Xavier, to the royal house of Genosha. However, as far as anyone who had known the Xaviers could say, there had never been a Charlotte , merely a son, named Charles who had rarely been seen since his father’s death (choosing university over galas and other public events). Charlotte was by all accounts a picture perfect princess, if a bit stocky, upon her first appearance in Genosha, and her first conversation with her fiance is rumored to have been an argument. After merely one day in Genosha, having swapped her finery for clothing made and designed by Genoshans, thus endearing herself to the people with Princess Ruth by her side, Charlotte Xavier seemed to be the bright public face the prince was lacking, and had become the new darling of Genosha seemingly overnight.
Charlotte, did in fact turn out to be Charles, as was revealed within two days of the wedding. The Markos were forced to turn over all the Xavier holdings to Charles. When asked what he remembered of the experience, King Charles merely said: “I just remember being scared shitless that Erik would divorce me as soon as he found out I was a man- he kissed me instead and it was just as incredible then as it is now. We agreed it would be best if I continued to play Charlotte until after our wedding, for a number of reasons not least of which, gay marriage was not yet legal in Genosha and well, we quite liked each other. If you ask Erik he’ll probably say something terribly practical and noble about not wanting me to have to go back to my family, and mention that we’d made an agreement where I’d serve as the public face of his reign, but he’s secretly quite soft and much of the reasoning was romantic and out of a desire for my personal comfort.” When we asked King Erik he shrugged and told us to ask King Charles.
With such a tumultuous start to their marriage, King Erik further shocked the world by insisting that his husband be crowned co-monarch alongside him, thus giving King Charles full power. Despite his previous tight-lippedness we were able to elicit a response from King Erik.
CM: Have you ever regretted having King Charles crowned as your
co-monarch?Erik: Only when he’s being naive and painfully optimistic regarding
international feelings on mutant rights.CM:Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t you publicly complained that
your husband is always like that?Erik: Did I stutter? I don’t repeat myself.
CM: Alright… Why have you let King Charles take center stage during
your reign? Surely you’ve received pushback for allowing an
outsider and American to publicly lead the nation?Erik: Oh, Charles isn’t American don’t let him fool you- he tells that lie to
everyone and some of them believe it. I’m almost convinced that
Genosha likes him more than me, which is fine since our family
likes me more than him. He laughs and then shrugs. I don’t like
pageantry or ceremony, or really anything that comes with
interacting in the royal public setting- I don’t like people. Charles
gets depressed if he’s alone for more than an hour at a time, so it’s
very practical, nobody gets murdered if he has to deal with it all,
and I get to work behind the scenes.
It should be noted that King Charles is in fact from New York, which is located in the United States, and not in Great Britain, despite the claims made by King Erik.
The second major scandal occurred not even a year after their marriage when King Charles was reported to have called his husband while volunteering at an orphanage. Princess Ruth’s take on the story is that “Charles is ruthless,” she laughs for a long time, “nobody believes me when I say that but he’s a conniving bastard when he wants something, and he knows exactly how to get my brother to give it to him, he has this tone of voice, that very clearly means ‘Erik I want this and you’re going to give it to me or you’re going to feel so guilty about it that it’ll haunt you in your sleep’- he managed to master this tone of voice within a month of being married to my brother. It’s important that you know this before we get into the story. So, Charles absolutely adores children, every corny ‘children are the future’ bit and ‘they’re all miracles’ are things I have heard from his own lips, Charles… has…. opinions about things like education and orphanages- Charles holds many degrees, education and childcare are not among them, but he was insistent that he come with me to volunteer at an orphanage in the city where he discovered that they’d received two infants that day, and did not have enough supplies to take in these twins. So Charles called my brother, now the plan was clear- convince Erik to let the twins stay with them until they could find proper arrangements for them, and then cry and bawl when it came time to give them away so that Erik would have no choice but to agree to adopt them if only to make Charles smile. My brother isn’t stupid. He knew what Charles was planning- so he goes ‘well, we need heirs anyway’ which sets Charles off, he’s dragging me shopping for baby things, he has absolutely no idea how to take care of a child, and I am the worst with children, I blame myself for the way that Erik is today, so does he actually, so we finally arrive back home, and Charles is just barely holding onto the twins who are managing to overpower him, and my brother just melts. Suddenly, I’m an aunt- and these twins who have until this moment only known Charles, both decide that they prefer Erik, and nothing about that relationship has changed.” She laughs for a long time, any further attempt to tell us more devolves into further laughter.
The surprise adoption of the twins surprised the nation, as did King Charles’ insistence that the public would have limited access to who he refers to as “[his] little hellions.” It soon became clear that the twins were mutants, as in their first public appearance Princess Wanda sneezed and red sparks surrounded her like an aura, startling her white-haired brother, Crown Prince Pietro, who began to wail and then vibrated through King Erik’s grasp and had to be saved by his father’s magnetism. When the twins were about three things got more complicated.
“It wasn’t exactly rocket science,” King Charles replies blithely when asked about the realization. “Edie was showing me some pictures of Erik as a child when I realized that Pietro looked remarkably like Erik at that age- just with white hair instead of the almost coppery brown of my husband’s. It was uncanny. Erik has hidden all photos of him as a child from me for the duration of your time here or I would show you, so you’ll just have to trust me and accept these photos of Pietro as a child that I photoshopped to have Erik’s hair colour.” The images appear to have been edited in MS Paint and are all blurry, presumably as a result of the prince’s need to be constantly moving. I am starting to question whether King Charles is liked out of pity or if he’s much better at pretending to be a put together adult in front of crowds, at this point I remember that King Charles is a telepath. King Charles comments that “Erik shut down when I mentioned that Pietro looked like him, it wasn’t his most flattering moment, but the twins were quick to come cuddle their Papa when they saw him upset. Arguably the timing was bad as David was due sometime within the next month so we were both stressed about that.” Princess Ruth noted, “Wanda, though every bit Erik’s little girl, looked remarkably like a woman he had briefly felt pressured into dating right before Charles’ arrival. Erik liked this information even less than Charles’ observation that Pietro looked like him.” And indeed, the twins were the result of a rather reluctant tryst between King Erik and a scorned ex-girlfriend. This scandal much like the first changed Genoshan legal code- the question posed by the twins’ parentage baffled parliament, biologically the twins were the King’s bastard children, but they had been adopted without that knowledge, furthermore could they deny the title of crown prince to Pietro and instead give it to David who was born of a surrogate to married parents? Predictably King Charles made a bold and public declaration with his husband by his side, that the concept of illegitimate children no longer existed in Genosha, effectively deciding that Pietro would be crown prince and setting a precedent for his children.
Prince David posed….. challenges. He was a troubled boy, of this there was no doubt. A disastrous dinner in Paris when he was but a young child proved a turning point in deciding just what the young prince was as the terrorist attack led to the discovery that the boy could absorb the personalities of those who died near him, this on top of his already developing telepathy and telekinesis. As the years dragged on it became apparent that when the personalities David absorbed belonged to mutants that he gained their powers as well- but most importantly that not all of the personalities he absorbed were good. When asked about his childhood Prince David remarked, “Oh, I fucked up everything .” Here he pauses to do what I’m assuming is his impression of an evil laugh. “I’m more in control now, but that’s a relatively new thing, very much a result of time spent with Dr. MacTaggert. When I’m not in control Dad contemplates putting me in a high security mental health facility which is code for a hospital with straight jackets- he forgets he’s not the only mind reader- he also seems to forget that I’m like the strongest mutant who’s ever lived and could vaporize him if the mood struck. He and Papa do try to help, it’s hard, but they’re not the ones who have over a thousand people living in their heads, Dad can put up shields or take suppressants, I can’t escape the voices in my head and they want me to do bad things, I’m literally that kid from the Sixth Sense, but instead of seeing, I hear the dead people, I am the dead people.”
Princess Wanda rolled her eyes from where she sat next to her brother. “He was a weird kid and now he’s a weird adult- he plays the banjo . We do our best to help when we can and when he lets us, most of the time all he needs is someone to hold him and just not say anything- Dad’s really bad at not saying anything.” David nods and flops into his sister’s lap. “He’s the worst .” He says this in a way that makes me think he’s watched Parks and Rec. “He likes to think he’s some progressive leftist but like we literally live in a castle and despite having been a billionaire before marrying Papa he still takes money from the Genoshan taxpayers? It’s fucking embarrassing.” Wanda interprets the pause he takes to breathe as a good time to smack him, “ You’re not good at not saying anything either.” She comments.
And it would seem that the twins couldn’t escape scandal as adults anymore than they could as infants. Prince Pietro caused something of an intergalactic incident when it was discovered that he had eloped with the Inhuman Princess Crystal and that the two were expecting a child together- but the relationship was far from ideal. Princess Lorna commented that - “I never liked her, Pietro is loud and brash and full of bravado but that’s an act, he’s incredibly self conscious and time goes so slow for him we think he has a temper because his internal clock goes as a different speed than ours- she couldn’t see that, wouldn’t see past that mask he puts up. She also cheated on him like five times.” She and her brother, Prince David, lean against each other and go “She's the worst!” They have definitely seen Parks and Rec. The marriage was annulled after Prince Pietro utilized an inhuman technology to give their daughter, Princess Luna, powers- leaving the crown prince as a single father with an ex-wife who now hates Earth. Regardless of his marital status, Prince Pietro is a doting father who is clearly devoted to his daughter.
Princess Wanda’s romance is no less scandalous. “He’s a fucking robot. She might as well have married a microwave oven.” Pietro comments, he is sitting upside down in the chair across from me, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to make eye contact or not. Not only is Princess Wanda’s husband an Android, but he’s an American android and an Avenger. Once you push past the whole robot thing there comes a subject that makes you stop and think. Princess Wanda and the Vision have children together: woman + android = twins? Princes William and Thomas simply appeared one day, reportedly magiced into existence by Princess Wanda’s overwhelming desire to be a mother and raise and love children together with her husband, we’re not exactly sure where the princes came from but the family resemblance is uncanny. Prince William takes after his mother in both looks and ability while Prince Thomas takes after his uncle, Prince Pietro, in both looks and ability. Some have speculated that Prince Pietro is the father of his sister’s children but both sets of twins just laughed at the concept. Pietro remarked that “Even if I could look past the fact that we shared womb space, which I can’t, Wanda’s not my type.” Princess Wanda stared at us blankly and posited “Would you sleep with my brother? Yeah, didn’t think so, he’s my best friend, but I think I’d kill him if I had to date him.” Prince William just blinked at us owlishly, “Of course I look like Mom, she’s my mom , is that not how the rest of the world works, people looking like their relatives?” Prince Thomas took several minutes to stop laughing, but was finally able to point out that “I look like Zayde too, nobody’s suggesting that Zayde fucked his daughter- the internet just loooves twincest, fucking perverts.”
Of course with Prince Pietro’s ex-wife being from space, King Charles having at one time had a relationship with the former Shi’ar Empress, Lilandra, and the brother of one of King Charles’ friends serving as the current Shi’ar Emperor it is little wonder that aliens would feature prominently in the third generation as well. Prince William is reportedly very close with the Skrull Prince, Dorrek III- whose existence, to the Skrull, is something of a scandal in of itself seeing as his father is a Kree warrior. The two have been spotted together in public frequently, and seem to be rather close if the paparazzi photos of Prince William sitting in Prince Dorrek’s lap and wearing his jackets are any indication. Princess Luna and Prince Thomas agreed to talk about the dating rumors. “Billy just showed up with him one day like ‘I’m gonna go make out with my boyfriend bye’ when Mom was like ‘oh, do we get to meet him?’ and he said ‘no, he’s a prince ’ and then he like locked them in his room and we didn’t see them for a few hours.” Thomas supplies shrugging. Luna nods. “Dorrek even picked an Earth-name based on a nickname that Billy gave him! They’re sweet.”
The Royal House of M has most likely not seen their last scandal, afterall, they are what they’re famous for. Genosha is now world famous not only for their royal family’s progressive policies and statements, but also for the way it embraces each scandal and how they celebrate each other. We at Clatteran Magazine look forward to covering the next Great Genoshan Scandal and hope to see an intergalactic royal wedding soon.