HOUSE OF X [02] : The Uncanny Life of Moira X *Spoilers*

[JKtheMac]

Thanks! Yeah, it would make sense for her and Apocalypse to use Krakoa as well.

It really wouldn’t.

[JKtheMac]

Yeah, on a side note I don't know who/what that is but I don't think the green is a coincidence any more than that Polaris doppelganger Hound is. (I assumed it was a clone/Chimera of Polaris)

While we are on the subject of that panel -spoil tags because we shouldn’t assume everyone here has read the other book spoilers:

I have heard a theory not expressed here that rather than being Black Tom or Groot the tree character is actually the ‘Young Mutant’ the green child from HoX #1. Details about her got redacted in the script too. I think it could be possible. The character at first sight looked like a young girl but that’s not conclusive.

end of spoilers

My impression was that "Asteroid K" was just the name for the remaining surviving Krakoan landmass still inhabitable and still on Earth - the 'black tumor' or whatever. I may be way off but I did not get the impression, based on the graphic shown, that it was actually off-world. It just looked like all that was left of Krakoa that hadn't been decimated.

spoilers:

It is shown as an Asteroid. It matches the profile of the tree space ship from Hickman’s Avengers, and it’s described as being in the Solar system. They don’t travel directly to it but instead go through No-Place I think it’s location is deliberately ambiguous. It’s a hidden base.

end of spoilers

[ISnowNothin]

It really wouldn’t.

Why's that, exactly? I'd argue that it makes almost no sense whatsoever for her to have never experimented with Krakoa in a previous life and have it be instrumental to her game-changing plans in ten.

[houndsofluv]

Yeah, on a side note I don't know who/what that is but I don't think the green is a coincidence any more than that Polaris doppelganger Hound is. (I assumed it was a clone/Chimera of Polaris)

Do you mean the “Hunter” or whatever they called her that brought Cylobel to Nimrod and Omega? I made that connection too and still have no idea what to make of it. Was she a hound? Or is it really coincidence that she look so much like a mutant we know? I feel like Hickman wouldn’t just do that

[Leirus]

I don’t think any of this would contradict this being T10 or ML10 in that case. It does throw up the possibility that some of the data we are seeing is not data gathered from T10, however.

You know, actually when in PoX 1 Moira shows the cards to Xavier, in the opening at the fair, I think that is life 10 already. We all assumed she was showing him the future at the moment, because we had seen the solicitations. But Moira cannot see the future, that is not her power.
The only thing that makes sense is that she is showing him her past, so life nine. Or any of the others, really. Although the fact that the mutant leadership trusted somewhat Sinister in that reality says Apocalypse rather than Xavier or Magneto. So the shocker would be that "the old man" they are going to see at the end turns out to be Apocalypse and not Xavier. I think this theory is correct.

[bat39]

Well, we're nearly 70 pages into this thread, so there's no point in me repeating what a game-changer this issue is and how it "changes EVERYTHING forever!" and all that jazz. Suffice to say that this Moira retcon does seem to be the best kind of retcon - not "Everything you know is wrong", or worse "This 'now' never happened", but rather "Everything you know is true...but you didn't know everything.

Now I have a few observations regarding this issue, some of which have been touched upon in this thread before, and some of which haven't:

1. No one seems to have pointed this out yet, but in Life 2, when Moira watches Xavier on TV, its the speech from Morrison's New X-men, where he outs himself as a mutant to the world. This not only means that the X-men existed in this timeline, but that some approximation of their entire history up till 'E is for Extinction' happened. So people who are worried that Moira's pivotal role takes away from Charles can rest easy. Its demonstrated several times within this issue that the X-men was always Xavier's dream, and he founds the team in multiple realities with ZERO involvement of Moira! Even in Life 10, whatever influence Moira has on his decisions is informed by what previous versions of him did on their own.

2. In a strange way, the very nature of Moira's mutant ability means that she's functionally still indistinguishable from the human supporting character she's always been, in a sense. She's basically a human in every life. Her powers only kick in when she dies and simply allows her to live her life again. The only thing she CAN do in each life is draw upon her knowledge and try her best to influence people and their decisions the way any ordinary human has to - precisely the kind of role we've seen her play in the mythos so far. That's the genius of Hickman's move! ANY other power they could have given her would have felt like just another tried-and-tested 'X has superpowers now' reveal. But they found a way to give her a power that doesn't really change anything about her...but rather reveals more about her.

3. I haven't really read the stories in question, but a lot of people here have brought up Xavier meeting Moira's spirit in the afterlife. IMO, that can still work...if you consider the possibility that Charles encounters the spirit of one of the previous Moiras. Maybe Moira really does die every time...the next iteration of her remembers everything but those other Moiras were still distinct people who died. This would I feel distinguish Moira's ability from time-travel or 'Groundhog Day Loop' style plots. And it does seem to be what Hickman is implying - christening this version as 'Moira X', and not just as Moira living her tenth life. There's only ONE Moira MacTaggert...she just happens to remember the lives of other Moiras in different timeline/realities.

4. Okay, this is a bit of a nitpick on my part and ties into my first point somewhat. I think Moira's multiple lives could be a great way to explain away some continuity issues. Specifically, I'm talking about the differences between the original Lee/Kirby run/O5 era and everthing that happened from the Claremont/Wein era onwards. The way I see it, the X-men's original 60's run, as originally published, happened in one of Moira's earlier lives - perhaps Life 1, where she never met Xavier AT ALL. In the early stories, Charles and Magneto had no past history and Magneto was pretty much a stereotypical villain with world domination schemes. Perhaps, without Moira's influence, Charles didn't end up meeting and befriending Eric in Life 1, and never got to know him until he showed up as an enemy of the X-men years later. And perhaps without Xavier's influence, Magneto was even more of an extremist and wouldn't become the anti-hero or 'noble villain' we know him as today. Here's another thought - maybe the time-traveling O5 from Bendis' run were from the reality of one of Moira's previous lives? Admittedly, I haven't read the story where they get sent back yet, so I don't know if there's something that contradicts this theory...but its worth thinking about!

[Frobisher]

Powers of X^2 isn’t Moira IX. Xandra is Shi’ar Empress, but killing Xavier was like the first thing Moira and Apocalypse did. You have to wonder how D’Ken was stopped from destroying the universe in some of these timelines.

[Del torro]

What happens when you mass produce chimeras with moiras powers

[Glio]

Powers of X^2 isn’t Moira IX. Xandra is Shi’ar Empress, but killing Xavier was like the first thing Moira and Apocalypse did. You have to wonder how D’Ken was stopped from destroying the universe in some of these timelines.

It is curious to also note that it seems that Cassandra Nova and Proteus only exist in our reality.

[JKtheMac]

You know, actually when in PoX 1 Moira shows the cards to Xavier, in the opening at the fair, I think that is life 10 already. We all assumed she was showing him the future at the moment, because we had seen the solicitations. But Moira cannot see the future, that is not her power.
The only thing that makes sense is that she is showing him her past, so life nine. Or any of the others, really. Although the fact that the mutant leadership trusted somewhat Sinister in that reality says Apocalypse rather than Xavier or Magneto. So the shocker would be that "the old man" they are going to see at the end turns out to be Apocalypse and not Xavier. I think this theory is correct.

I am not convinced she did show him what we saw. Not since PoX anyway. He probably saw flashes of the times he met her because that’s what he would be looking for. Or he may not have been able to read her at all.

[JKtheMac]

What happens when you mass produce chimeras with moiras powers

They change the course of the Human / Machine / Mutant wars and then commit suicide in a singularity event. I still assert until proven otherwise that Cylobel is somehow Moira. Not just because it’s a possibility, but it makes sense of the crafted structure of PoX #1.

See my speculation here.

[Del torro]

They change the course of the Human / Machine / Mutant wars and then commit suicide in a singularity event. I still assert until proven otherwise that Cylobel is somehow Moira. Not just because it’s a possibility, but it makes sense of the crafted structure of PoX #1.

See my speculation here.

Damn. That would be an interesting twist.
Sinister thinks he's sabotaging, but it's all part of moiras plan to reach X1000 future

[ISnowNothin]

You know, actually when in PoX 1 Moira shows the cards to Xavier, in the opening at the fair, I think that is life 10 already. We all assumed she was showing him the future at the moment, because we had seen the solicitations. But Moira cannot see the future, that is not her power.
The only thing that makes sense is that she is showing him her past, so life nine. Or any of the others, really. Although the fact that the mutant leadership trusted somewhat Sinister in that reality says Apocalypse rather than Xavier or Magneto. So the shocker would be that "the old man" they are going to see at the end turns out to be Apocalypse and not Xavier. I think this theory is correct.

It could really only be life 6, or 9, though because she died long before that future in the other previous lives.

Powers of X^2 isn’t Moira IX. Xandra is Shi’ar Empress, but killing Xavier was like the first thing Moira and Apocalypse did. You have to wonder how D’Ken was stopped from destroying the universe in some of these timelines.

It would seem to indicate as much, but the only passage referring to Xandra is still labeled [ML_09........(APOC_build)], so I would argue that isn't as clear as you feel it is.
If it's the 616 Xandra introduced in Mr. and Mrs. X, then why doesn't it mention SHE'S a Mutant (half human Mutant, at least?) I would think, in a chart for Mutant survivors, mentioning the Shi'ar and their Mutant population but failing to reference that connection feels like a conspicuous absence to me.

As I said previously, while I'm pretty into this theory myself, I'm not 100% sold either, and this is the point that gives me biggest pause, for sure.

[JB]

Yeah, on a side note I don't know who/what that is but I don't think the green is a coincidence any more than that Polaris doppelganger Hound is. (I assumed it was a clone/Chimera of Polaris)

Same. Lorna popped into my head as soon as I saw her. I'm sure Hickman knew that would be noticed.

[Gladiator]

So Destiny saw 10 definite lives, and a possible 11th. Meaning that her reincarnation ability has its limit or that she is reborn an 11th time and dies before the mutant manifestation of her power. So this being the 10th life means that by the end of the series we're going to move into the 11th? Or something will happen that will kill her permanently? Or I suppose that she simply just doesn't die and so we stay in this particular reincarnation, or don't follow her to her next life, or Destiny lies.

IDK, there's so many questions, I'm very very excited by this development.

I don’t think she is limited in lives. Destiny explained that if she dies before her powers kick in then that’s that.