Half Way Through Hickman...

[pandafarmer]

So we're half way through the Hickman run and there is still plenty of misdirection and mystery unfolding. So what do YOU think is really going on here?

EDIT - yes sorry, half way through HOX/POX, not actual Hickman's full run.

[RachelGrey]

I love this X-Men reset, I love that they are going to come out of this as an actual Nation of Mutants and an actual world power. This is giving the mutants their own version of Wakanda or Atlantis and giving them political power on the world stage.

As for the event itself, I definitely think Xavier is either controlling everyone, or they are pod people. Everyone is extremely loyal to Krakoa, Xavier, and Magneto, and both of them are coming across as creepy controlling dictators. This event probably ends with the mutants seizing control of the island nation from Xavier and Magneto and governing without them. Hence why Dawn of X shows everyone getting some actual agency back, Scott is running the field team, Jean, Hank, and Logan run the clandestine services branch, Kitty, Storm, and Emma are running the economics and shipping of the new nation, Elizabeth and her team are handling extra-dimensional threats of a magical nature, so they are kind of the field team for magic, New Mutants are handling space exploration and possibly alliances with races like the Shi'ar, Fallen Angels is taking care of the mutants who weren't able to make it to Krakoa and are probably being detained by the humans.

But I love this new direction, I loved the Utopia years, and the best thing of this revamp is that they aren't undermanned like they were in Utopia, now they are a full out nation with a government, clandestine services branch, space exploration, trade and economics, and armed forces. Krakoa gives the mutants their own version of Wakanda and they are a force to be reckoned with and the world is on alert that the rise of mutant kind has begun in full, whether the world is ready for it or not!

[AHRNIHAL]

Do we really need another thread for this?There's like half a dozon already.

[pandafarmer]

Added a poll, as I figure it's needed to inspire discussion

If mods want to kill it, that's fine!

[powerpax]

I think there are def pods and I think it's very possible Scott's entire strike team just bought it or will next week, only to respawn on Krakoa. I don't think they're all mind controlled, but I do think there is some sort of influence involved based on the incredibly sinister overtones with Xavier. That said, this status quo is not going away when the maxiseries ends nor should it.

[Digifiend]

Added a poll, as I figure it's needed to inspire discussion

If mods want to kill it, that's fine!

Frankly the poll was needed to justify a new thread, there's already a HOXPOX discussion thread.

We're not half way through the run, lol. Just half way through HOXPOX.

[AHRNIHAL]

Added a poll, as I figure it's needed to inspire discussion

If mods want to kill it, that's fine!

The pools definitely gives new theories I have not heard before.In the normal discussion thread this new theories would've been disappeared.

[pandafarmer]

The pools definitely gives new theories I have not heard before.In the normal discussion thread this new theories would've been disappeared.

That's why I made the thread. Sometimes people will post a really neat idea and it gets buried by 3 pages of "I like Emma's sassy pages."

Some thoughts:


Pod People! The "real" X-Men are trapped in goo. - Most popular theory on the discussion thread. Everyone here knows SOMETHING is off and it's the easiest choice, or at least something similar to this.

Magneto freaked out by Moira and built that helmet to control X - Many people are suggesting Xavier is the one who is pulling strings, but it's hard not to notice that Magneto is pretty important in whatever is going on. That and we know there is a "Schism" at some point that might lay some seeds *cough* to this theory. Wouldn't be the first time a superstar writer gives us the "OMG it was Magneto!" twist.

This is mostly Life 6, we'll return to "normal" Life 10 in Wave 1 books - I've seen this discussed a few times. I'm not a huge fan of this one, but I wanted to include it.

Beats me but Mr Sinister is suspiciously missing - This being said, he could really be a part of ANY of these other theories. He gets brought up a lot in speculation threads, and especially after seeing the team take off from THE MOON where we know he's been fiddling with science things in other lives...

This is Life 10 and each Wave of new books is a new "Life" of Moira - I saw this mentioned on Reddit and I've become a big fan of this theory. This is based on what little art we have, but if Moira has discovered the true secret of eternal life during her times in Life 9 when she lived in her 100's... then she could easily keep dying and easily keep giving the X-Men fresh stories every few years with changing casts and moving parts that can easily be reset whenever they want.

Moira is masterminding everything with Apocolypse and the X-Men are pawns Well we know that it's possible Apoc and Moira were lovers and they fought together in the last life. What secrets did he impose on her? What happened in Life 9 that we're not seeing? What if Moira is doing all of this to make sure her and Apoc Daddy can live forever together?

The X-Men are "immortal" now and Krakoa can just make identical clones when someone dies - This was one of those theories that was batted around before HOX POX started. Now we could be seeing some weight to that with today's issue. What if Scott's team just died? We know they'll be back in the Wave 1 books... but how?

Year 1000 is actually controlling things in our timeline somehow - For everything I feel like I've "figured out" this is the piece I'm least sure of. In order for us to SEE this storyline, Moira must still be alive (or at least a part of her). Something is going on here...

It's not all Universe 616 storyline and we're just led to believe it is Seen this one batted around a bit too, and with understandable reason. There is just too much "at stake" here for the greater Marvel universe. And it's not unlike Hickman to play with alt-Marvel universes.

[jwatson]

I believe all of Moira's lives are sprinkled over the entire 616 so it's all the 616 and we have essentially been viewing X-men through Moira's omniscient leans.
I also think X1000 is the current X10 future and Moira is the character that ascends at the end because she did do it right and as such is turned into something else thus there technically being an 11th life for her but not one we actually see. The only thing that gives me pause on that though is that unless in this life, in this time we at some point get a resolution to moira's powers it will always loom over the books as the achilles heel to everything so in that respect thats the only reason i think we will see whatever she accends to X1000. I'm assuming an immortal being because that would create a catch 22 in her own power and probably effectively neutralize her powers while still keeping her around but making her more.

I also don't think she died in life 5. I think something happened and she had either a stilted birth in life 6 or there were two moiras. Though it would be funny if the timeline is in white and we just can't see it encompasses everything. Also interesting to note Moira is 572 years in total lifes but in the one life where it doesn't explicit state she dies, Life 5 faraway massacre happened when she was 44. If she lives to 44 in life 6 or was somehow transported to life 6 at that age due to the coma/massacre that would be 616 years of knowledge.

[Mutant X]

This is Life 10 and each Wave of new books is a new "Life" of Moira
+
The X-Men are "immortal" now and Krakoa can just make identical clones when someone dies
+
It's not all Universe 616 storyline and we're just led to believe it is

[JKtheMac]

After last week’s “and thus ended Moira’s ninth life” I have been giving more thought to the sixth life. For simplicity M6

Initially I imagined there would only be a few options.

The most obvious is that the X^3 story is from M6. That the circumstances are similar enough that somehow Moira is still alive and has set things up to ensure ascendancy. That M6 taught her about the far future of machines.

Alternatively, there is the theory that the prime Marvel Universe continuity as we know it is M6 (616 if you are still clinging to that designation by a spider thread).

Now, both of these theories made little sense to me, but some of that was based on my perspective before we learnt about M9.

I have spoken on why these theories might not make sense, but I was wondering why they might be correct. What would we gain? This is similar to how I was thinking about M9. Initially I rejected the theory but the closer we got to the reveal the more I realised what we had to gain by it.

In context M6 comes immediately after Moira realises that AI and sentinels will always destroy mutants. They seem to be a part of the arms race between humans and mutants. The emergence of mutants predicates the emergence of AI. In M7 we see Moira deciding to try and stop sentinels and realising she never can.

The sentinels and AI seem to be the central theme of these books, and they have dominated a number of Moira’s old lives.

In M9 we see one possible outcome if Humans throw themselves in wholly to this and end up with the Church of Ascendancy governing their lives. This initially made me wonder if we see the opposite in M6. That in this life we see Moira throw in her all with the Trask family, just as we see her do this with Xavier, Apocalypse and Erik in different lives. That this M6 experience, and whatever happens to wider humanity, is the early part of her radicalisation. Enough to make her try and destroy the machine makers.

So considering what we have seen, do any of the theories fit with that context.

Clearly M6 is compatible with the far future, and seeking ascendancy, but from what we have had hinted about ascendancy it may not be desirable. If M6 is that story and post-humanity ascends then Moira would need to die to produce M7. It would also need to be a terrible future. Enough to make her wish to ensure it can never happen. That certainly looks feasible, given the insidious nature of the Church of Ascendancy in M9, and the ominous appearance of Phalanx in X^3.

It got me thinking though. What if both the X^3 and Prime universe theories were true. There is a hint, based on Cylobel being present, that the future involves a similar story to M9. Would that necessitate a Krakoa story? The difference being that in M6 Moira may be on the side of the sentinels. So could Moira have been secretly on the side of the sentinels throughout X-Men continuity?

I guess its just as feasible as saying Moira struck a deal with Charles and Erik secretly in M10. That in M6 and our comics, Moira was going to seek to use the Sentinels for her own agenda and indeed in the long term post-humanity do appear to be the children of the mutants and machines, so maybe it works to some extent. But maybe post-humanity overstretches by seeking ascendancy, and Moira ultimately decides that the sentinels can’t ever lead to mutant salvation.

What would all this mean? Well, any story that assumes M6 was the prime universe as we know it would necessarily assume that M10 is almost but not exactly the same. It would have to be similar enough such that we don’t discard decades of comics, but importantly it would be just different enough, that anything in continuity that doesn’t quite fit could be put down to it being literally retconned by Moira in M10.

This solution would actually be quite elegant and perhaps not coincidentally, it would seem to fit with Hickman’s views on continuity as expressed in story form in his S.H.I.E.L.D ending. In that he seems to suggest continuity is a cyclical process of complete renewal. That rather than continuity being set in stone (Newton) or continuity being continually retconned and mutable (Michelangelo) that instead there can be a compromise whereby we continually reassess continuity as written based upon the present status-quo.

So what this would mean for X-Men continuity, would be an entirely new context for the comics we know. That in the background, certain events were being manipulated to avoid the futures we have been given glimpses of. That the new theme of X-Men going forward, and the new context of their ongoing story, is seeking to find a way through the maze of the advent of the machines. That despite humanity thinking of them as a weapon, and part of an arms race against mutants, they are actually a doomsday machine, and that even in a future where mutants are literally in the ascendancy, the machines inevitably hold false hope.

It could also mean that Powers of X is entirely drawn from lives 1-9. Even those parts that seem to be identical to House of X, like the continuation of the raid and the potential emergence of Nimrod could be happening in almost identical but slightly different contexts in the two books.

Of course all is theory until we understand the context of M6, but it does mean the M6 = 616 = X^3 theories could have a logical purpose and even an elegant one. Perhaps better described as M6 is X-Men continuity as we used to understand it but with a secret agenda behind the scenes which only changes things later, where Moira seeks a Mutant/Machine future. M10 is a slightly different and technically all-new continuity where the past looks very similar but were Moira has been seeking a new compromise her whole life. Any continuity errors that throws up are technically not continuity errors because the original continuity was M6.

[hawkeyefan]

All the X-Men are trapped in pods on Krakoa and it is feeding off their power, and Xavier is able to birth replicas of them that are based on his idealized memory of them.

[Kurolegacy]

The one thing I’m not really a fan of is the whole mutant nation in which almost all mutants are a part of this. Not only does it take away from the prospect that, while they have powers, they’ve still born of humans but with the isolationism going on there, they feel like they’re succumbing to Inhuman mentality where they view themselves as better than everyone who isn’t them, the X-Men falling into that as well.

[Snoop Dogg]

I don't even want anymore ballbusting twists. I just wanna explore the world and the characters in it.

[Captain Nash]

I think they're all Pod people now and trapped in goo. and what will happen by the end of HOX/POX is that Xavier and Magneto will be overthrown, possibly by Moria and Apocalypse, and the real X-Men will have to emerge from the pods to save their new nation. But, I won't deny, the theory that Sinister is conspicuously absent is interesting, if for no more reason than the very fact that he is indeed missing. Of course, Sinister has always been one of my two favorite X-villains, along with Selene.