Powers of X #6 *spoilers*

[Electricmastro]

I can totally understand why people may be concerned that the X-Men may jump to considerably unethical territory despite the best of stated intentions, including throwing a mutant into a pit despite how some may argue that it was 100% justified, but that said, I won't be accusing of the X-Men going off the rails until there's evidence shown that proves that they went off it. Either one has gone off the rails or has stayed on track, and until such a time comes that they've shown to have majorly screwed up with what they've built up with big time, then I'll assume for the time being that what they're doing is being unselfishly done with the best of intentions on the whole. And that they'll continue to protect a world that has hate and fear in it, but at the same time not letting the hate and fear prevent them from protecting the world more while also forging a relatively decent existence in potentially developing their standing in the world that at least a few of the humans coming to genuinely respect. I'd definitely have varied and complex relationships over having the majority of humans commit mass genocide against them over and over and over again. The last several years have felt quite tired and unapproachable and I think I'm allowed to at least desire some more preferable developments that may help the series in the long run.

[JKtheMac]

One thing I don’t quite get - Moira is concerned about getting killed and having everything “reset”. What happens if she just dies of old age? Aren’t they inevitably going to have this problem anyway?

We know exactly what happens when she dies of old age. She gets reborn. See her first life when she died peacefully in her sleep. Her life is a puzzle that needs solving. She is holding back the future based on her own perspective. A moral and discerning perspective and one that gets wider in each iteration, but still essentially unique and personal.

[JKtheMac]

I'd like to thank @Cranger and @JKtheMac for a robust debate which made me swing one side, then the other. There are clearly merits in each side's argument and my overall conclusion is that, yes, the Krakoa State and the key players' positions established in HOXPOX are 100% going to be the new status quo for a few good years of stories over multiple waves of X-books, so in that sense Hickman has indeed taken the come-back-1000-years-to-change-everything trope into brave new territory. (My fear now is, if he meant what he said literally, he will put the toys back in the box at the end of his run and undo all this nation-building --with a Life XI reboot?-- to plonk our merry mutants back into the Westchester school and a world that hates and fears them.)

Thanks.

I have to repeat a point I made a few times previously. Putting the toys back - on the shelf / in the toy box - is a statement that means different things to different people.

It can mean ‘the illusion of change’ a philosophy that itself means different things but often implies nothing changes in the long term and the status quo is reset back to how it was before. This is a mercifully dated approach to serial fiction. One we still see in comics but nowhere near as often as we used to.

In Hickman’s case he was talking about leaving the characters and the world tidy. Not messing things up for those that follow. That doesn’t necessarily mean everything will be put back in the same place.

Sometimes the choice of analogy can give us a clue. Saying ‘toy box’ can imply that everything goes back in its exact place. Saying ‘shelf’ can imply that there is plenty of scope for different arrangements.

(There are other ways that this phrase can be used but I feel Hickman was very clearly suggesting the latter of these two.)

[Devaishwarya]

After subsequent re-readings:

1: It does read like an an epilogue in a prologue...not an actual ending...but then, PoX was written as the Cliff Notes to HoX. So...

2: I disliked the repeat pages. HiX-Man could have started the issue with just the panel where Moira tells Charles to "read her mind and see" and take the story from there...and use the extra pages to flesh out the No-Space scenes, or give is more on characters like Apocalypse, Sinister and Mystique...we know those two are going to cause havok...it would have been nice to get a glimpse into their mindsets about all this.

3: Moira is more than a little paranoid. But after living the lives she's lived...I don't blame her. I like that Charles and Erik are there to ease her paranoia...a little bit.

4: A probable solution to the "insvitable future scenario" is the fact that...while the humans are busy creating Homo Novissima, the mutants are not just sitting back and allowing "nature to take its course" slowly, they are being progressive and innovative and scientific and experimental, (Sinister had already created his first Chimera) the trick would be to stay a few steps ahead of the human's advancement. They just need to figure out ways to either be dominant in numbers and/or be better "wolves".

Apart from the wasted pages, I liked this set-up issue...but it's not a perfect 10/10 with five stars, for me. This was more an 8/10 and three stars.

[Lapsus]

This probably have been already discussed but the reason of why we always are reaching the same conclusion could be that the leader of Orchis is a mutant with the same power as Moira ??. So she is figthing another chessmaster who is forcing the same conclusion and it seems that he/she is winning because he/she knows something.

[ZeroBG82]

2: I disliked the repeat pages. HiX-Man could have started the issue with just the panel where Moira tells Charles to "read her mind and see" and take the story from there...and use the extra pages to flesh out the No-Space scenes, or give is more on characters like Apocalypse, Sinister and Mystique...we know those two are going to cause havok...it would have been nice to get a glimpse into their mindsets about all this.

Except that none of those characters are particularly relevant to THIS story, at this moment. Particularly in PoX, which is very much Moira's book. This issue in particular is about framing Moira's role in the establishment of Krakoa. A framing which changes somewhat based on the information we're presented about both her previously unexplored sixth life, and the present day scenes and diary pages that make clear how she's controlling what she knows to manipulate Charles and Erik. Future drama is all well and good, and has been set up extensively in the pages of HoX, but none of that is really relevant to the story Hickman is telling in this side series.

The thing is, HoX is very much an open ended book. It's moving forward, and has left clues to where the books are headed next as well as created avenues for future drama. PoX is not an open ended book. PoX is very much a backward looking story. How did we get HERE. It's the story of Moira's journey, the things she has experienced which have led her to the current experiment. And this was very much an ending to that story. Moira has tried all the old ways, seen them all play out. Seen them all fail. She's tried to take elements of the threat off the table, to no success. She has seen that only bold, evolutionary action remains to even be attempted. And she has put the pieces into place to allow that to take place. Moira's work is effectively ended, as far as PoX is concerned, with the establishment of Krakoa. It is the conclusion of her journey, the end to which she has devoted herself in this tenth life.

The repeated pages for emphasis may not be to everybody's taste. But I think they are very much a part of what Hickman was going for here. Re-contextualizing scenes we had already scene in light of new information, to clearly demonstrate the lengths to which Moira has gone to bring about HoX, her endgame.

[Bruce Wayne]

4: A probable solution to the "insvitable future scenario" is the fact that...while the humans are busy creating Homo Novissima, the mutants are not just sitting back and allowing "nature to take its course" slowly, they are being progressive and innovative and scientific and experimental, (Sinister had already created his first Chimera) the trick would be to stay a few steps ahead of the human's advancement. They just need to figure out ways to either be dominant in numbers and/or be better "wolves".

They are doing that. They rallied all mutants under one banner, they have figured out a way to resurrect mutants (and created a safe haven on Krakoa) and they have managed to digitize and backed up most of mutantking. In essence they are playing the same game as the post-humans in that they are using technology to advance themselves further.

[Hulkout42]

You mean apart from the time Betsy killed him for being a dick (for a minute)?

That was not part of life 10. There were no five and it was Elixir who brought him back.

[Hulkout42]

So we still don't know who the Red King is going to be. Any theories?

Everyone seems to believe it will be Kitty...why that it is i can't really fathom at all.

[Hulkout42]

Give Kwannon another code name. What suits you?

I thought her codename was Revanche?

[Hulkout42]

[QUOTE=king of hybrids;4621331]So the great truth is: Man hates, Machine kills, Mutants die; and mutates... sit back and prosper

It is fortunate that through Selene, Gorgon and Hellfire the mutants now have the connections and leverage to squeeze the ‘heroes’ until the pips squeak[/QUOTE,]

Well that was rather grim and gritty now wasn't it?

[Hulkout42]

Oh, we all know that Xavier and Magneto will mess up.

Thye already has when they lied to Mystique of all people, life 10 is over because they think they got all the bases covered.

[Hulkout42]

Is it tho? How many times have we heard Knowing too much about your future is a bad thing?

CW2 comes to mind, The search for the Destiny Diaries also led to bad things as well.

[cranger]

Rereading this again, for like the third or fourth time tonight. There is just so much to chew on.

...

Nimrod is prevented at the cost of an entire team of X-men's lives. A total loss, a truly grievous price to pay. Before. But the new mutant does not fear death. For this new kind of mutation, stopping the development of Nimrod cost them NOTHING. The X-men have leveled up, and it's a whole new game.

I found rereading it helped me realize that the X-Men who died on that mission absolutely died, or at least did so accepting that they were dead. Otherwise it would have been so much easier to just "do what it takes". The goodbyes were real.

[Jness]

We know exactly what happens when she dies of old age. She gets reborn. See her first life when she died peacefully in her sleep. Her life is a puzzle that needs solving. She is holding back the future based on her own perspective. A moral and discerning perspective and one that gets wider in each iteration, but still essentially unique and personal.

I meant “why is Moira so concerned about being killed and having the universe reset, when that’s an inevitability based on her dying of old age?”