What a ride already!
We open with the preview pages, the X-vote team emerging through a portal in NYC near what is a destroyed Treehouse headquarters. They're in the timeline of Moira Engine 3.9. Frenzy notes that it smells like fire and brimstone, the environment looking desolate and destroyed. Prodigy says there's something wrong as he's not picking up anyone, let alone Moira. Suddenly winged demons fly overhead and Magik/Darkchylde arrives, one month after she ascended to Lord of All Hells and razed the planet. Prodigy says Moira not there and he can feel Magik's memory of killing her. Dazzlers calls for them to be pulled out immediately.
Recap/title page reminds us of Moira's mutant power and her lives, Sinister's Moira clones, and the ascension of Essex/Enigma. "Now, in a last-ditch effort to stop the Dominion from ever forming in the first place, Xavier has enlisted the help of the newly elected X-Men members who were recently killed at the Hellfire Gala. The fate of mutantkind rests in their hands.
The team returns to Atlantic Krakoa in the White Hot Room. They're all winded from "jumping" twice in close succession. Cannonball starts to say that he feels discombobulated when Rachel appears before him as a burning bush. Sam says he's a good southern boy and that it ain't right for her to appear in this way. She says she works with what's handy and flames are part of the psychic package. She's gratefully she can even manifest because (we now see her levitating) she's in No-Place X. It's taking all of her focus to communicate at a speed they can comprehend because time operates differently where she is. She says they can't linger in timelines too long and yanking the team in and out is like dancing between seconds for her.
Dazzler makes a comment about how the Gala proved that she's not as immortal as she used to think she was. David says with everything Rachel unlocked in his mind he's getting faster and faster at detecting signs of her (Moira.) It's taking a toll on him. He says they need to find one version of Moira who's not cybernetic and he can lift the info they need from her to get Xavier where he needs to go. Getting Moira's own mental map of her past is the mission.
"... we might be #$@% out of luck." She sends them to timeline Moira Engine 2.4.
I won't get into all the details of the timelines as the story progresses but it's always fun to see how different they are. The X-Men emerge from a portal on earth and immediately struggle to breathe. The portal closes and shortly after a different portal opens and a hand reaches out grabbing Jubilee and teleports the whole team away. A mysterious hooded figure on a nearby rooftop witnessed all of this.
The team are now on a spaceship and thankfully can breathe. Standing in front of them are Abigail Band and her X-Men, Blink (who teleported them to safety), Armor, Random, and Rootfire. Their ship is an Acanti-borne Arakko, known as the final mutant refuge. Brand orders the team to explain themselves (they look like her long-dead allies) and Prodigy falls to his knees in pain. Jubilee explains that he absorbs knowledge and skills from anyone near him but where before he had limits in place "to keep his brain from melting out of his nose", he volunteered to have remove those limits for the mission by Rachel. He now knows (from Brand and the others) that she got her intergalactic war in this timeline, except it was Orbis Stelllaris pulling the strings the whole time. Krakoa, Orchis, most of the Avengers, and like 92% of all life on earth was snuffed out. Arakko was destroyed as well and with a handful of surviving mutants scattered around the galaxy, Brand humbly became their leader.
Armor asks David if he's here to fix all of this but Frenzy says they all should know how paradox works, that they can't reveal their mission and they really shouldn't even be talking. Frenzy asks Brand to take them back to earth when the ship is attacked by the Technarchy. Dazzler's all like great, now we have to deal with the freaking Phalanx. She asks Brand why they're chasing them, what does she have? Brand says on the ship they have the last cache of Mysterium in the universe. Turns out Orbis is on his way too looking for the Mysterium. On his ship he has a fragment of the M'Kraan Crystal.
As Brand's X-Men fight the invading Phalanx Prodigy senses that Moira is suddenly close by and she's still human. They know that has to be their focus, finding her, as Cannonball notes that he doesn't like the odds of Brand's team surviving without their help. Frenzy reminds him that there's nothing they can do to save this timeline because even though the Moira their after is depowered, there's still a Moira clone from Sinister's engine out there that will die and reset everything.
As our team runs towards where Prodigy is sensing Moira to be, this timeline's Starjammers show up - Juggernaut, Sunspot, Mercury, Hepzibah, Warbird (Carol), Smasher (Cannonball's son), with Lockheed as their leader. As the battle rages Prodigy yells out in pain as Moira is getting closer and he starts absorbing her mind. "Never absorbed a mind... like hers before..."
Data page:
Smasher smashes through Orbis' chamber and debris flies everywhere.
I was a little unclear here because at first I thought that was a piece of the MC but perhaps not. The hooded figure from earlier pulls up in her hover-bike thingy and approaches Frenzy and Prodigy. Prodigy has that shard in his chest but he says it doesn't hurt as Frenzy is checking on him. Cannonball spots the figure sneaking up on them and slams into her. It's a wild looking Moira, kinda almost robotic and missing half an arm. Prodigy immediately absorbs everything from her mind saying he got it, a full map of Moira's past, all of it, as Dazzler helps him to his feet. "And not just her tenth life... we can go anywhere. Anywhere. We could stop the Dominion before it's born." They run and jump into a newly opened portal, leaving the timeline.
Moira spots the shard on the ground and says it will do nicely. Brand shoots at her but Moira swings a weapon that sends an energy pulse at Brand, knocking her down. Brand, realizing who it is, asks Moira how she's still alive. Moira said she had to stay alive to build her weapon which looks like a super high tech axe. She says it's made of adamantium, carbonadium, vibranium coating, Xorn's black-hole brain, and now she has the final piece, a shard of mysterium. Looking completely crazy, she says, "Everythin' I need to cut a path back to my very first life, start all over again and make sure Moira always wins."
Final page is a data page, Moira's checklist of ingredients for her weapon and how she got them.
My head is spinning but in a good way. The only part I'm unclear about is if the shard Moira picks up at the end is the one that was in David's chest or if he still has one in his chest. Other than that this was a wild ride and the fight scenes were beautiful. The changing art didn't throw me off at all because it was expected and intentional.
I enjoyed how everyone sounded. Rachel's role is extremely important and Prodigy is the centerpiece that the others have to protect. The Betsy mention was great and Rachel not choosing her because Moira will have defenses against a direct psychic approach was smart. I like alternate timeline stories when the characters are not stuck there for too long so these quick jaunts really work for me.I'm looking forward to the next issue as well as seeing the cast in Rise #2.