HOUSE OF X [02] : The Uncanny Life of Moira X *Spoilers*

[loke13]

I cant believe people swallowing this kool aid.

I just cant.

It would be like if Perry White was really Kryptonian, and he fought Doomsday. In life 5.

Its beyond stupid.

And i gave issues 1 of Hox and Pox a 4.5

Then Hickman gave me smallPOX, and i died in Fuckin Idaho

Don't really see what's so hard to understand here. The books for most people are living up to the hype that's been building for for few months now. The art is amazing, the dialogue has been enjoyable, and the unfolding of the narrative has been a treat to watch.

Frankly people just seem to be enjoying a quality X-Men story (and future iconic one unfolding in front of them) that Marvel isn't going to walk back in a year or two's time.

[spirit2011]

I wouldn't be surprised if we are all overthinking and life 10 is current 616 and life 9 is age of apocalypse. Both of which we know are still going on. Maybe they just wanted to streamline the alternate realities.

All Moira lives are 616, they are just alternate timelines

[H-E-D]

The main thing is that so much of how this story is being told is just masterful at conveying so much with so little, and... less masterful if taken as some kind of obtuse wordplay or misdirection. I trust that Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Muller and co. are putting their faith in their communication skills and our comprehension, and not in our gullibility to believe what they tell us.

This rant not about insisting on the correctness of this or that speculation; I just worry that the tendency to approach anything that doesn’t spell things out exactly as a potential misdirection, can get in the way of appreciating how well they’re saying what they mean to say in the space available...

Comics fandom in general has trouble appreciating things that are other than literal plot elements.

[H-E-D]

All Moira lives are 616, they are just alternate timelines

Well, with how the Marvel multiverse works, alternate timelines usually are alternate realities as well. That's how Age of Apocalypse got started, even.

[spirit2011]

Well, with how the Marvel multiverse works, alternate timelines usually are alternate realities as well. That's how Age of Apocalypse got started, even.

It can work that way, but the timeline is reseted when Moira dies

[H-E-D]

It can work that way, but the timeline is reseted when Moira dies

That doesn't usually stop things from becoming Alternate Realties. Hell, even Age of X was revealed as having continued to exist after the timeline was reset by Legion, and part of the premise of that world was that it wasn't all thought out...

[Devaishwarya]

Her timeline is reset.
This is essentially Moira's story and her impact on the X-Men's story throughout her many lives.

[Yohei72]

I've never been that into the X-Men franchise - the only runs I've read in full are Morrison and Whedon, because I'm a huge fan of both, and I've dipped into parts of others, mostly Claremont, Brubaker, and Fraction - and of course I've seen probably the majority of the Fox movies. And even I had to keep picking up my jaw while reading this issue. Can't imagine what it's like for people who've followed these characters for years and years. Fun times, fun times.

Not sure if this has been mentioned here, but if so, here it is again: this fellow Paul at the House to Astonish blog is doing annotations of each HoX & PoX issue as it comes out...

http://www.housetoastonish.com

And by the way, I'm going to pronounce "Hox & PoX" as "hoxenpox" from now on. I invite you all to join me in this endeavor.

[salarta]

It would be glorious if that plane crash turns out to be the one where Lorna's powers manifested. I think the ages would line up. Lol. But I think only Polaris parents were on the plane with her.

that would be an amazing twist to get her into the story.

I've said elsewhere that it would actually surprise me if the entire reason we've seen nothing of Lorna is because she was being saved for a surprise essential role later in the story. Of course, this is mainly because of my fandom. But also because it would be an interesting way to exploit what people expect out of Marvel. Even if people think Lorna will show up (I don't), nobody's going to think she'll have an essential role, specifically because of how Marvel's always seen and treated her.

This is all flights of fancy though, not reality.

[JKtheMac]

I feel like the “briefly died and was resuscitated” theory came about with regards to the coma in life 5, but since then people have been conflating it with the less defined end of life 9?

There may *technically* be some wiggle room in the semantics of “this timeline didn’t actually specify that she died” but I tend to think Hickman’s approach is additive and not so interested in splitting hairs among the stuff he’s already very legibly, very economically presented. Just look at how each of these first three issues has opened up vast creative territory that we didn’t even know was in play the week before. I’m not saying every issue will be such a conceptual departure, just that I don’t think the coming revelations will necessarily be found in the difference between the words “Moira dies” and the word “genocide” along with the established Moira death symbol, or by revealing the ingenious set of rules that govern her power aren’t actually the rules and the stakes aren’t actually the stakes.

The main thing is that so much of how this story is being told is just masterful at conveying so much with so little, and... less masterful if taken as some kind of obtuse wordplay or misdirection. I trust that Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Muller and co. are putting their faith in their communication skills and our comprehension, and not in our gullibility to believe what they tell us.

This rant not about insisting on the correctness of this or that speculation; I just worry that the tendency to approach anything that doesn’t spell things out exactly as a potential misdirection, can get in the way of appreciating how well they’re saying what they mean to say in the space available...

I think you have expressed this very well. Not at all a rant. I especially nodded along to the ‘less masterful’ part. With the many theories flowing, which are obviously fun, my test of their likelihood is are they elegant and additive as opposed to twists or things that would make things simpler for the protagonists.

Those of us that read his F4 and Avengers work have been on this ride before. Hickman will have twists but the will be huge and resounding ones, not legalistic simple ones like ‘but she didn’t really die in that timeline’.

[JKtheMac]

That doesn't usually stop things from becoming Alternate Realties. Hell, even Age of X was revealed as having continued to exist after the timeline was reset by Legion, and part of the premise of that world was that it wasn't all thought out...

But do we actually like this is the real question. I wish they had left AoA well alone for example. I can imagine Hickman vetoing his timelines being used this way until he is not overseeing things. The story is not about what might have happened once Moira died, they are about what she learned while she was alive and how those things inform the final timeline.

Treating them as sources of alternative futures would just dilute everything, at least at this stage of precedings.

[jwatson]

Yeah, I really feel like the arrows at the end of life 9 are not meant to suggest that she’s “still there”, just that there’s more (possibly eons more) to the story of that life that Hickman isn’t ready to show us until later. Same, maybe, with the coma time in life 5.. maybe some astral plane stuff went down in that time?



I feel like the “briefly died and was resuscitated” theory came about with regards to the coma in life 5, but since then people have been conflating it with the less defined end of life 9?

There may *technically* be some wiggle room in the semantics of “this timeline didn’t actually specify that she died” but I tend to think Hickman’s approach is additive and not so interested in splitting hairs among the stuff he’s already very legibly, very economically presented. Just look at how each of these first three issues has opened up vast creative territory that we didn’t even know was in play the week before. I’m not saying every issue will be such a conceptual departure, just that I don’t think the coming revelations will necessarily be found in the difference between the words “Moira dies” and the word “genocide” along with the established Moira death symbol, or by revealing the ingenious set of rules that govern her power aren’t actually the rules and the stakes aren’t actually the stakes.

The main thing is that so much of how this story is being told is just masterful at conveying so much with so little, and... less masterful if taken as some kind of obtuse wordplay or misdirection. I trust that Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Muller and co. are putting their faith in their communication skills and our comprehension, and not in our gullibility to believe what they tell us.

This rant not about insisting on the correctness of this or that speculation; I just worry that the tendency to approach anything that doesn’t spell things out exactly as a potential misdirection, can get in the way of appreciating how well they’re saying what they mean to say in the space available...

Personally i think wordplay or a purposeful misdirection is just as clever and adds just as much to a story depending on if it is being written as a mystery such as Hox and Pox so far are. It takes a level of genius to be able to leave a word out or break repetition all for the sake of suspense, for allowing your reader to wonder to let them veer off the path for a second before you steer them back on course. Let them have fun outside the pages. Not many writers can do that, and i'm not saying that is what hickman is doing or it isn't what he is doing, but if he was i would only be all the more impressed. For me all these theories and speculation and all that stuff is just fun, it's what i do and i think many others do before they turn the next page of a novel or read the next book in line and it's rare to get that sensation with a comic. At the end of the day i don't care what theories are right or wrong or if it goes where i'm thinking or not. It's fun. this is the most fun i've had with the x-men franchise in a long time.

[mike627]

This was a great issue can't wait to see how this ties into POX#2.

[AdamFTF]

Okay, I haven't been reading this series. Largely, because lately I've been about as broke as Jubilee after a trip to the Mall of America. However, I have heard about what the big reveal was and I have some issues. Mainly the issue that they revealed that the one human ally the X-Men had that isn't routinely treated like a footnote is actually a mutant. The X-Men could really use some more human allies. Particularly ones that get treated as important. Because the more the human side of things is dominated by villains like Stryker, Lang, Hodge, Trask and Creed, the more the whole message seems to skew away from "acceptance and tolerance" and more toward "all humans are assholes".

[Snoop Dogg]

they should make briar the new old moira

wow HARD AGREE