It's a pretty big difference.
Nobody ever came out and said "Moira has never met Xavier in her life and certainly isn't his right hand man."
On the other hand, we've had many MANY comics that specifically remover around the fact that she isn't a mutant.
They straight up told us that the comics where had read, the character interactions , and even the thought of the characters were straight up lies.
They friggin' Armin Tamzarianed her.
Bottomline: the fact is you can take Hickman's Moira, change her name, and you would lose literally nothing by making her a completely different character with a different name.
Except Hickman provided a clear explanation as to why she had a reason and was able to pass as a human, and the only people that knew otherwise were Xavier and Magneto, who had a reason to keep the pretense. Also, Xavier and Magneto even knowing each other, let alone being close friends, is a much bigger retcon in terms of altering character interactions and motivations. But there's childhood nostalgia from the days before, so people don't complain.
Last edited by Omega Alpha; 01-05-2022 at 08:46 PM.
It's a big difference, but it doesn't mean that it's inherently unacceptable. All retcons require the suspension of disbelief and I guess it comes down to what one is willing to accept.
When HoX #2 came out, to me it was the most exciting thing that has ever happened with Moira's character and I loved it. It's lost some of it's intention and focus since then, but at the time it was game-changing, IMO.
We would lose people caring this much lol.
But to be serious, it had to be Moira. She was built into the fiber (a retcon in and of itself) of Xavier's whole X-Men world. For me, it was fun to see it woven into the X-Men's history. It doesn't all fit and no retcon ever does, but fun and exciting nonetheless to me.
That's a BS load of straws. My comment still holds true even for Psylocke.
The bodyswap was just superficial. It was the EXPERIENCE of having been changed and brainwashed, and how she reacted in the aftermath, that caused the actual change in who Betsy was as a character.
Never mind I'm just going to move on.
Last edited by superjosh; 01-05-2022 at 09:56 PM.
This puts words to a sentiment I've felt for a long time in the Krakoan era. They pretty much have no human close human allies like Moira, and Pumpkin King's comparison of her and Maddy is pretty apt. They're unintentionally stating that being an human ally to mutants is either exceedingly rare OR comes at the cost of utterly destroying you as a character. It's in the strong interpersonal connections with the mundane folks around them that really made some of X-Men's best scenes.