X Deaths of Wolverine #3 - Review/SPOILER Thread

[Jackraow21]

Damn, this issue was hype! Still very Terminator-like but also continuing the story from both House of X/Powers of X and Inferno, especially with regards to that big twist re: the mutants having won and the machines/AI now doing their own version of DoFP. With that said, let’s get into the issue…

- Opens with the preview pages we saw of Xavier recruiting Laura to hunt the Omega Wolverine, and Honey Badger (yes, I know it’s Scout now but Scout sucks as a codename) inviting herself along as well;
- Cut to the Epiphany Campus in Mountain View, CA and Arnab Chakladar getting ready to do a big product launch;
- Agent Ramirez from the X-Desk at the CIA shows up and asks Arnab to come with her and her agents as he’s in danger;
- Arnab refuses and says he has 5 million people watching the livestream;
- Suddenly a police car comes rolling up, picking up speed and rams several CIA agents;
- Omega Wolverine steps out and begins his assault while the CIA folks usher Arnab to the helipad for evac;
- They fly off while Omega Wolverine is engaged with the agents, and you see that Moira is clinging to the underside of the helicopter as they take off (yes, with her one arm);
- They seemingly drop Arnab off at his lab North of San Francisco and then take off again, at which point Moira confronts him at gunpoint;
- There’s also some good internal monologue here from Moira where she’s now convinced that she’s on the right track because “the mutants are still coming for her… a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now” and she also details how she tipped off the CIA’s X-Desk as to where the Omega Wolverine would be headed next (i.e., that he’d be going after Arnab because he was able to determine that that was where Moira was headed from her online activity);
- After forcing her way inside with Arnab, she explains to him that the Omega Wolverine and others want to kill them because of what they will do together and says that the reason they’re after them now is because they’ve already won;
- Cut back to Omega Wolverine fighting the CIA agents and suddenly Laura and Gabby cut in, and they fight;
- Omega Wolverine seemingly has the upper hand and is winning (looks like he headbutts Laura and elbows Gabby and both are shown on the floor) when Daken shows up;
- They also begin to fight, and Laura and Gabby are back up now too, when Daken says “it’s really you, isn’t it… Dad?” (also referring to him as “Old Man” at one point earlier in their scrap, which seems like a term of endearment and is a bit odd considering their history, but everyone has been acting weird on Krakoa and we have seen them doing some family bonding over in X-Force);
- At this point Omega Wolverine stops fighting and retracts his claws, and tells them “None of you make it, I know how each of you dies” and then hunches over in pain with Laura noting that she thinks he’s sick;
- Cut back to Moira and Arnab in his lab and he builds her a new cybernetic arm while her monologue details how together they will “save the world from the mutants”;
- She also talks about how they will build off the research he’d already done and finish perfecting a machine that would allow for a mental upload which would guarantee her 11th life, and she goes on to talk about how machines/AI cannot truly create so the most promising vision for the future lies is a symbiosis of man and machine… augmented intelligence… human and robot in one;
- You catch a glimpse of a robot on an operating table, the implication being that Moira plans to upload her consciousness into it;
- There’s a black page with a quote from Moira that comes next, and it says “Forever is where I live. I tried to take you all with me. You chose not to come.”;
- Cut to a millennium from now at The Preserve in Year One Thousand from Powers of X, at the point where the Phalanx are ready to claim our world (and seemingly after Logan has killed Moira);
- A figure says, “I thought you would want to know, Wolverine, the world will end tomorrow” and steps out from the shadows… Logan says, “You… but I thought you were dead”;
- And it is Moira, but she is merged with Phalanx already and looking very Omega Sentinel-like as her arm transforms into a cannon and blasts Wolverine point blank in the chest, reminiscent of when he stabbed her with his claws and took her life in that very same future;
- She tells him she has waited for this moment, to see the look on his face as she kills the last mutant… and we cut back to the present where Omega Wolverine is telling his kids that “that was the end of one story but the beginning of another”… which clearly refers to his story and how he ended up back here in the past…
- THE END… for now.

Like I said, this issue was hype. Lots of twists and turns, and the implication is that when Logan “killed” Moira in that particular life, way in the future, that it did not reset the timeline at all… because she was already a man-machine fusion and perhaps had been the whole time. So is this our actual future now, and the life of Moira X that we are currently on? Seems like it could be, and thus my mind is a bit blown. It’s clear that Hickman was very involved in this if so.

Regardless, another great issue of this series and I cannot wait for the next one. The pacing continues to be strong and the art is great. Very kinetic and energetic.

[cranger]

My guess is that the future shown here is just one that was very similar to Life 6. So, that was the future of Life 10B, and now TermiLogan is creating a Life 10C. Or whatever.

[Kingdom X]

Thank you for posting! So far I’ve been keeping up with YouTube reviews, but I might have to pick this up.

[MarvelMaster616]

This was an intense issue. I wish we had gotten more action with Scout, Laura, and Daken fighting Omega Wolverine (love that title). Maybe we'll see more in the next issue. But Moira is quickly becoming one of the biggest threats mutants have ever faced. She's not just seeing things in terms of her latest clash with Mystique. She has a very long view idea of mutants and what's going to happen with them. She's lived through the end. She's seen that they never win. And now she's apparently done trying to "save" them. I put that in quotes because her idea of saving them in Inferno wasn't exactly heroic. But now she seems intent on speeding up the endgame.

It makes me wonder where Logan will fit into this with all his time-hopping. It's setting up to be a hell of a finish. Can't wait to see how it plays out.

[ericng]

Wow! Sounds like a great issue and a continuation of Hickman's story.

[LordUltimus]

Goddammit, I knew they were going to do this to Moira.

[Grunty]

Goddammit, I knew they were going to do this to Moira.

As i said in the past, some day they will retcon Moira X into not having been the real Moira MacTaggert via some likely dumb or contrived explanation, in order to return the character to her actual form. Likely when a movie or cartoon made prominent usage of her in that form again.

[Kingdom X]

As i said in the past, some day they will retcon Moira X into not having been the real Moira MacTaggert via some likely dumb or contrived explanation, in order to return the character to her actual form. Likely when a movie or cartoon made prominent usage of her in that form again.

I’m not sure that Moira is a character that Marvel is pressed to return to form considering she was dead for so long. Supporting characters don’t usually have the “back to basics reset button” that superheroes tend to get.

[king of hybrids]

Post-Humanity back in the game?

[LordUltimus]

I’m not sure that Moira is a character that Marvel is pressed to return to form considering she was dead for so long. Supporting characters don’t usually have the “back to basics reset button” that superheroes tend to get.

And this is why I'm so angry.

[Kurolegacy]

Wow so Moira has now gone from being one of the greatest human allies of mutantkind to possibly their greatest threat wanting to stamp them out and all because of Hickman’s retcon. Was it worth it just to make her relevant again?

[Jackraow21]

Wow! Sounds like a great issue and a continuation of Hickman's story.

It is.

Wow so Moira has now gone from being one of the greatest human allies of mutantkind to possibly their greatest threat wanting to stamp them out and all because of Hickman’s retcon. Was it worth it just to make her relevant again?

Definitely was worth it IMO, for the story potential. Just my $.02.

[Ambaryerno]

Definitely was worth it IMO, for the story potential. Just my $.02.

I'm still hoping for a reveal that Krakoa is going to be one of Moira's lives and NOT the true timeline.

[LordUltimus]

Alternatively, Moira X doesn't actually restart timelines, but jumps into alternate universe versions of herself. In other words, Moira X is an in-universe retcon.

[Devaishwarya]

So...Moira has gone full Anti-Mutant rogue...okies. I can live with that.