Powers of X 02: We are together now, you and I *spoilers*

[JKtheMac]

It's a cool theory. But it's not new-readers-friendly.

But maybe Hickman find a way to make it like the Phalanx thing -- giving a completely new meaning for Phalanx Covenant but not harming the experience of those who have not read it.

Its just a call back / Easter egg.

[Criticalfan]

So Xavier and magneto let the genosha massacre happen

Well, it certainly explains the questions of "How did Magneto let giant metal robots sneak up on him & his country?" that have been asked throughout the years.

[Michael Watkins]

we saw a wheelchair-bound Magneto react to the sentinels arrival. he was shocked.

[Glio]

In no other life of Moira have we seen that Cassandra Nova existed. She can be something unique, like Proteus.

[Punch Dimension.]

If you don't find a group of time changed, familiar mutants combined with two new and cool chimera mutants getting ready to raid a human/machine civilisation under the leadership of Apocalypse, possibly heralding what we know is a surprising end to hostilities, interesting I am not sure what you want from comics.

You need to reread my post.

[hawkeyefan]

I just read through 17 pages of discourse :O

General thoughts in no order:

- a lot of people seem to be taking the revelation of Charles and Magneto long ago learning of Moira’s past lives to mean that everything we’ve seen them do since then was because of that knowledge, OR that that knowledge isn’t compatible with what we’ve seen them do, so the meeting in today’s issue must have been an alternate timeline. I think it’s more simple AND more interesting if they knew what Moira showed them this whole time, but everything played out as we’ve seen it anyway. Hickman took care to show us that much of the X-Men’s history as we know it happens anyway without Moira (getting so far as Xavier’s public address from Morrison’s New X-Men happening as Moira watches on TV in her second life), thus showing that much of what we previously understood of their motivations is absolutely valid. And the notion that something as existentially seismic as what Moira shows them would still not prevent their egos and basic nature from leading them to petty conflict time and again rings true and slightly profound to me. It’s like how we can read about how climate change may violently upset world order in our lifetimes and then go on doing whatever we were going to do that day, and even literal world leaders can’t unite on it. That said I do think the meeting is likely meant to be a bit into the X-Men’s history, before Magneto’s reformation in the 80’s. I think “year one” is pretty loose and not necessarily just one year.

Nice breakdown. I do think that scene with Magneto on the island is meant to take place sometime circa Uncanny #150. I also very much agree with you about their motivations being intact, and with this all taking place within the main continuity of the Marvel U. That issue is pretty much the one that began Magneto's transition from a guy who constantly threatened the world with nuclear annihilation to a more nuanced character. This was the issue that first introduced the idea of him as a survivor of the Holocaust.

Also, the panel below is really interesting in the new context. Sounds like Professor X is giving the X-Men the credit, but that he knows what's really up.

Prof X.jpg

- Obviously prepared to eat my words but just going on general story sense as I perceive it, I seriously doubt that anything we’re being shown is going to be retroactively revealed to be any of Moira’s past lives, except mayyybe the future stuff being life 9. The “present” of the story with the newly-founded Krakoa has got to be the same prime timeline we’ve been reading for decades, and it isn’t getting reset at the end. I really think the entire concept of Moira’s many lives exists only to inform her character in the main story (in the past, and presumably the present before the miniseries is over) — not to set storylines there just to mitigate how much they “count.” Basically everything has got to count. If Moira’s power literally resets the universe, they’re not going to reboot the whole Marvel Universe or even this Krakoa setup after putting such work into it. If each life creates a splinter timeline, the perspective of the whole MU or even all the x-books isn’t going to shift to an 11th life just to follow Moira’s perspective — if she loops back to the womb an 11th time, I’m thinking it’s as a 2 page epilogue showing how she dies, at most. Though her “11th life” could be a form of transcendence.... or ascendance?

Generally, I think it is all one timeline and that it is main continuity. The possibility of year 100 being life 9 seems the only possible exception to me, based on what we've seen, and I'm by no means certain of that.

- I’m still leaving open the possibility that the year 100 and 1000 stuff could be Moira’s 9th life because that’s not as much a dramatic dead end as “the Magneto island meeting is really life 4” or “the 616 as we know it is really life 6” etc. If the future we’re being shown is Moira’s past, it can continue to inform her actions in the present in a kind of loop. I.e. she could do something in the present that we definitely aren’t expecting now, but will make much more sense based on forthcoming events in POX’s future settings.
— knowledge of this future could add urgency to the ongoing story in the present. That “this is when Nimrod comes online” could mean either the future sentinel who has occasionally timetraveled to annoy them in the present, or everything we see in POX, makes Cyke’s “oh, damn” read two very different ways!
—And there’s the obvious practical reason this might be the case for the same reason Days of Future Past or any “dark future” story has tended to end with that future -possibly- being averted: how do you keep telling stories in the present once you’ve given up so much of where it’s ultimately headed? I know this wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for everyone but in this case I would be surprised if they’re asking everyone to get on board with the ongoing prelude to mutants’ exodus from earth and eventual bid to join a galactic hivemind. I would be the first to try to convince all the discouraged fans why the stories “still matter” in that scenario but I’ll be surprised if I have to..

I definitely think that Moira's Apocalypse-extended lifespan in her 9th life was done so that she has firsthand knowledge of what the future holds for them. It allows her and Xavier to know what they're facing, and fighting against. Not sure how much of that may be shared with Cyclops or the other X-Men, but they already know of Nimrod anyway, so it all works. We'll have to see how much Xavier trusts the X-Men with Moira's secret.

I do agree that there must be more to the future in year 1000 than what we're seeing. Can it be averted? Maybe. The story seems kind of bleak if it can't be. I mean, I look at that year 1000 stuff as kind of the death of what mutants are meant to be. Variety and individuality replaced with uniformity. So to me, the idea of Ascension as it's presented here seems a horrible fate for these characters. So even if that future is set, I expect new light to be shed on that scene so that it plays differently than it appears so far.

- Percival’s ability to make them invisible to machines makes me wonder if Hickman is working in Roma / the Siege Perilous somehow. Oh whoops, after googling some Arthurian legend that’s definitely the case and may have been obvious to anyone who knows that stuff as well as X-Men. The name “Siege Perilous” refers to an empty seat in King Arthur’s round table, and apparently Percival was a knight associated with that seat. In X-Men lore, Roma was the daughter of Marvel’s Merlyn who resurrected the X-Men in Australia after Fall of the Mutants, and made them invisible to technology indefinitely (basically until writers forgot about it.) She gave them a gem called the Siege Perilous which was able to open a portal through which anyone could escape their life, be judged, and potentially spat out elsewhere with a new life. (X-Men comics got pretty weird in the late 80’s.) I doubt any of this will be important to know but what a weird pull for Hickman.

That's a great catch. If you'd asked me last week if I thought that the Siege Perilous and Roma and all that stuff would play a part in this, I'd have said you were crazy. But with the way Hickman reintroduced the Phalanx and Technarchs and the transmode virus in this issue, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Arthurian stuff be incorporated somehow. Especially since there's an Excalibur book waiting in the wings. I expect that the context of that stuff will be repurposed if it is used. Claremont used so many disparate elements in constructing the mythos that it can be a bit scattered at times. But perhaps Hickman has an idea to use the Siege Perilous in a way that better fits with the story he's crafting. We'll see.

[JKtheMac]

You need to reread my post.

Ha. Yes I do. Clearly I should be wearing my glasses. The 1000 timeline is admittedly a little dryer but its still interesting surely?

It is clearly meaningful to the overall story, even if it isn't immediately obvious why. My own theory, that Moira is trying to cheat death and time through ascension makes it potentially fascinating. So far we don't know that for sure, but something equally interesting is bound to be happening. Hickman isn't going to do things like this just to show off some cool science fiction concepts.

[JKtheMac]

So Xavier and magneto let the genosha massacre happen

What would make you say that? I mean aside from the overly complex and unnecessary retcons surrounding that story nobody knew it was going to transpire like that.

[Triniking1234]

Magneto spanking Moira for trying to turn him good when he was baby is still canon.

[Punch Dimension.]

Ha. Yes I do. Clearly I should be wearing my glasses. The 1000 timeline is admittedly a little dryer but its still interesting surely?

It is clearly meaningful to the overall story, even if it isn't immediately obvious why. My own theory, that Moira is trying to cheat death and time through ascension makes it potentially fascinating. So far we don't know that for sure, but something equally interesting is bound to be happening. Hickman isn't going to do things like this just to show off some cool science fiction concepts.

For sure something potentially interesting is happening, but right now it's all very vague and incoherent. Im hoping the payoff will be worth it. The similar story he told in his Avengers run never really paid off but given the self contained nature of this story i dont think that will happen here.

Given that it's obviously an important cog in the overall story he's telling here, i can appreciate it on that level, but at the same time its hard to not want more pages of Cyclops, Magneto and Xavier interacting instead lol.

[Lucyinthesky]

Magneto spanking Moira for trying to turn him good when he was baby is still canon.

Yes but imo He was mad because she experimented with his DNA to cure the mental instabiliy his powers produced on him as a way to use that threatment with Proteus before that they parted on relative good terms.

[JKtheMac]

I do agree that there must be more to the future in year 1000 than what we're seeing. Can it be averted? Maybe. The story seems kind of bleak if it can't be. I mean, I look at that year 1000 stuff as kind of the death of what mutants are meant to be. Variety and individuality replaced with uniformity. So to me, the idea of Ascension as it's presented here seems a horrible fate for these characters. So even if that future is set, I expect new light to be shed on that scene so that it plays differently than it appears so far.

It is perhaps worth considering that Hickman is pulling a Theodore Sturgeon and taking inspiration from the seminal science fiction story "The Cosmic Rape / To Marry Medusa". The idea being that a galaxy spanning hive mind consuming humanity actually results in a kind of reverse takeover, in which individualism is given a cosmic playground to work with.

Another possibility, which I am less keen on, is that he is taking inspiration from Interstellar and once they ascend they can tinker with the timeline more directly. That would be problematic for serial fiction though. It would result in a solution and we wouldn't need the comics.

[Devaishwarya]

I still wonder if a little part of me died inside when I learned how everyone else actually pronounced Magneto.

Ha!
I still say Zahviay instead of X-ayvier and Magn-eh-to instead of Mag-nee-to.
to-may-to, to-mah-to

[bat39]

I agree with a lot of others on this thread...HoX is by far the more interesting series right now for me. PoX seems more like a companion piece at this point. The most interesting stuff in this issue was from the two time frames that tied into HoX - Moira's story, and the Krakoan nation.

On the subject of timelines/lives, I was curious about the visions of Magneto's 'fate' that we saw in the X^0 segment. If we assume that X^0 is Life 10, then obviously those flashes are from her previous lives. Now, interestingly, one of the visions is of Magneto from his trial in Uncanny X-men # 200. This implies that the events of that story occurred in one of her previous lives as well. Life 4 perhaps? Or the ever-elusive Life 6? Hell, it could actually be any lives other than Lives 5, 8 or 9.

Then there's Magneto getting killed by a Sentinel, which looked like Life 4. Magneto imprisoned by Nick Fury which is defnitely Life 8. And Magneto fighting some monster, which I have no idea about!

[Triniking1234]

That was probably the Shadow King vs. Magneto story Claremont teased before he dipped.