Powers of x [03] : This is what you do (spoilers)

[Graphicisnovel]

It would be horrible to develop Moira up to all this for the betterment of mutantkind as the heroine who united Xavier, Magneto, and Apocalypse just to end up vilified.

Well get ready because that's where the story has been headed... I don't see why it's a bad thing. it's 2019 no one is all good or all bad.

But she has said some pretty shifty sh!t, we're told she broke/will break up Erik and CHarles....and with every life she aligns with worsse and worse evils....and kills more..

The moral of the story so far has been knowledge corrupts (garden of eden), and it's in every issue, so the character who knows it all will be corrupted.

[Devaishwarya]

Personally, I'll wait to read how HiX-man ends his story, thank you very much....Instead of making any wild assumptions.

[stillanerd]

Under ordinary circumstances, I think Powers of X #3 would make a for fine, if standard post-apocalyptic X-Men story. However, with the ending twist (which, admittedly, quite a few folks predicted), Jonathan Hickman turned this comic into something extraordinary. Not to mention makes us question everything we've read in both series up to this point.

Stillanerd Reads: Powers of X #3

[HomoSuperior]

Last week I would have agreed with you. I am starting to lean towards the idea that Moira has already taken the cure in M10 before she reached puberty.... That plan will inevitably lead to a new problem that no one has thought of which will change the status quo of the mutants and launch the new X-Men books with a clean slate.

Intriguing and makes sense to some degree. But why take the cure to prevent reincarnation if she knows she’s in her 10th (final) life? How would she take the cure, as a child before puberty, before she has means to produce the cure?

Seems like in the 10th life she would seek out a proven path to immortality to bypass Destiny coming for her and keep things going. She seems driven to survive and perhaps gained a taste for amassing power through acquiring knowledge.

I think folks are onto something that she can’t be trusted in the same way Claremont demonstrated w/Dark Phoenix “power corrupts... absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As you point out she’s gathering many different perspectives from Xavier, Magneto, Apocalypse, and Sinister. With Apocalypse — Hickman’s kind of staked out she experiments with these perspectives without much ties to a cultural value. Mutant nationalism aside she seems driven to achieve transcendence through knowledge. She hasn’t tried Nimrod, so why not? At some point her aggregated experience and knowledge should begin a transformation that transcends common morality.

[loke13]

I can buy her turning heel given all she's now been through. I also don't see her as a purely heroic character in this new equation as is. I wouldn't want her reduced to just a black hat though, and I don't think she will be. Whatever happens I think Moira will have her reasons.

I think at this point Moira is the perfect embodiment of the end justifies the means character. The realization that AI/sentinels are an inevitable evolution broke her hard I think to the point where she teams up with Magneto in life 8 and then Apocalypse in life 9 and then murdered Xavier, Magneto, and the Earth superheroes. I think if it meant that mutants as a whole survive/thrive then she would have no problem sacrificing the X-Men.

[Nick Miller]

Any feats? or what?

[loke13]

Any feats? or what?

Feats? Who?

[Hulkout42]

Hickman is unlikely to pull the same trick twice. Showing a life suddenly end and going to a new iteration is a one-trick pony. So I would imagine we can discount M11 theories now. <fingers crossed>

Clearly, you don't know Hickman then, the thing about him is that:

1) he plays the long game
2) when you think he is going to do something logical he pulls a fast one on you when you least expect it
3) he doesn't just throw something out there and later forgets about it (He's not Bendis or Slott, cue the rage).

In this case, he wouldn't just throw out the 11th life and then not use it, just like he didn't throw out the continuation of the Apocalypse Moira life up to her death that leads into the 10th life. If he mentioned the 11th and that a series of events must take place for it to happen, than for all intents and purposes he will come back to it (the 11th could very well be the Dawn of X), the question now is how will he do that? You may think that its a one trick pony we would be facing but in reality its a Unicorn that won't get caught until it wants you to catch it.

[powerpax]

With Apocalypse — Hickman’s kind of staked out she experiments with these perspectives without much ties to a cultural value. Mutant nationalism aside she seems driven to achieve transcendence through knowledge. She hasn’t tried Nimrod, so why not? At some point her aggregated experience and knowledge should begin a transformation that transcends common morality.

Absolutely.

loke13 has also nailed it. I don't have a problem if Moira breaks 'bad' because her perspective is so much bigger than those notions. In a way, that flexible morality and weight of choice has always been a part of her character, starting with Proteus and carrying over to a host of other stories both before and after her on-panel death. Look at how many people's first go-to memory of the character is adjectiveless #1-3, where Moira is eaten up with guilt about another sin and secret.

[TOTALITY]

Clearly, you don't know Hickman then, the thing about him is that:

1) he plays the long game
2) when you think he is going to do something logical he pulls a fast one on you when you least expect it
3) he doesn't just throw something out there and later forgets about it (He's not Bendis or Slott, cue the rage).

In this case, he wouldn't just throw out the 11th life and then not use it, just like he didn't throw out the continuation of the Apocalypse Moira life up to her death that leads into the 10th life. If he mentioned the 11th and that a series of events must take place for it to happen, than for all intents and purposes he will come back to it (the 11th could very well be the Dawn of X), the question now is how will he do that? You may think that its a one trick pony we would be facing but in reality its a Unicorn that won't get caught until it wants you to catch it.

I think JKtheMac seems to have some familiarity with and appreciation of Hickman’s work...

I would argue that Hickman doesn’t do twists for twists’ sake. His story beats may not be obvious but they are logical (if only in retrospect at times) because he sets them up so well. It may just be semantics but I wouldn’t say he’s looking to “pull a fast one” on anyone.

I agree that he probably planted that “maybe 11” seed for a reason. That could pay off in all kinds of ways, and whatever it is I’m sure it will be satisfying by the time it comes.

But I’m also willing to say at this early juncture that I see very little chance that Hickman is going to tell this whole story of Moira’s tenth life just to set everything after in her 11th life. They’ve gone out of their way to make the life 10 timeline fit with all the pre-HOX/POX stories we know, so it would seem safe to assume that life 10 is in fact the familiar timeline. You might say it isn’t safe to assume anything, but come on, they’re telling a story here and not what would amount to a labored misdirection. If reality starts over when Moira dies, they’re not going to reboot the universe. If she starts a parallel timeline with every life, the whole story isn’t going to follow her into an 11th life because readers’ investment in that one character is never going to surpass their investment in the continuity they’ve been reading for decades. And I think Moira’s power was introduced to establish her perspective as an active player in the X-Men’s past and present, not as a device to stick different storylines in different timelines, and I would bet that will only become clearer with every issue.

They could say “actually life 11 is the timeline we’ve been in since the silver age” but I don’t think they’re going to spring that on us after telling this whole story in life 10. Literally what would be the point of weaving Moira through all this familiar history just to get to the end and be like “but actually that was a past life, now we’re back to the main one where things happened extremely similarly but also different in ways that we’ll have to explain later, because we spent this whole miniseries explaining the details of a past life.” The “twist” of revealing the year 100 stuff was life 9 works because we get to immediately see how those experiences have informed the life 10 stuff we’ve already seen and the life 10 stuff in progress. Sure, technically you could say the same thing about Moira carrying all these experiences with her to an 11th life, but that’s just inserting a 50 year buffer between the events of HOX/POX and Dawn of X, for what seems like very little benefit other than saying “bet you didn’t see that coming!” It would be like Hickman mitigating the relevance of his own story in realtime, for no reason — he’s got carte blanche and he’s writing the ongoing after this! And I don’t know, it feels like there’s too much to dig into in what the story is actively saying to be looking for everything to be misdirection.

[JKtheMac]

In which case...
They defeat Nimrod, mutant future is saved, all at the cost of Miora's life.
She dies a self-sacrificing hero...but opts not to reincarnate...and...our current 616 time line (L10) continues, as normal.
It's important to note that her death and reincarnation does not mean the end of the universe...just the end her life as it pertains to mutants.

Sure, and everyone will live happily ever after. Not happening.

[JKtheMac]

Intriguing and makes sense to some degree. But why take the cure to prevent reincarnation if she knows she’s in her 10th (final) life? How would she take the cure, as a child before puberty, before she has means to produce the cure?

Nobody has said she has a finite number of lives. You are interpreting that wrongly. Destiny sees the impression of a number of lives that she will live. So theoretically, for some specific choice based reason, her reincarnations finish at approximately this point in her life.

Seems like in the 10th life she would seek out a proven path to immortality to bypass Destiny coming for her and keep things going. She seems driven to survive and perhaps gained a taste for amassing power through acquiring knowledge.

We know what she has chosen to do, break all of the rules. The biggest rule of her life is she knows it will reset. I am speculating she broke that one right up front.

I think folks are onto something that she can’t be trusted in the same way Claremont demonstrated w/Dark Phoenix “power corrupts... absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As you point out she’s gathering many different perspectives from Xavier, Magneto, Apocalypse, and Sinister. With Apocalypse — Hickman’s kind of staked out she experiments with these perspectives without much ties to a cultural value. Mutant nationalism aside she seems driven to achieve transcendence through knowledge. She hasn’t tried Nimrod, so why not? At some point her aggregated experience and knowledge should begin a transformation that transcends common morality.

A lot of people seem to trust Facebook. Even though they failed to legally reveal information under a data protection request and were fined heavily. Why? What possible reason can people have to give a company the data of their entire life? Just so they can keep in touch? So the real world makes little sense to me. If Hickman pulls this off we will still be arguing about Moira after the story is over.

(To clarify that’s not just a random association, I am holding onto a theory that Moira is a little bit like Facebook.)

[JKtheMac]

Clearly, you don't know Hickman then, the thing about him is that:

1) he plays the long game
2) when you think he is going to do something logical he pulls a fast one on you when you least expect it
3) he doesn't just throw something out there and later forgets about it (He's not Bendis or Slott, cue the rage).

In this case, he wouldn't just throw out the 11th life and then not use it, just like he didn't throw out the continuation of the Apocalypse Moira life up to her death that leads into the 10th life. If he mentioned the 11th and that a series of events must take place for it to happen, than for all intents and purposes he will come back to it (the 11th could very well be the Dawn of X), the question now is how will he do that? You may think that its a one trick pony we would be facing but in reality its a Unicorn that won't get caught until it wants you to catch it.

I know Hickman pretty well. I have read over 70% of all his books, probably 90% of his issues. I don’t think an unfamiliarity with Pax Romana or Red Mass for Mars will steer me wrong. Note, I am crossing my fingers. Partly because I want M10 to be the MU we know.

TOTALITY said everything else I might be inclined to say.

[comicstar100]

So did Apocalypse actually lose?

[loke13]

So did Apocalypse actually lose?

I mean not really? The mission objective was met even if he lost the fight get the information on Nimrod's origin to Moira so she can use it to defeat him in her next life. The war was already effectively lost by the time PoX starts.