The Complete Moira, Part 8
Welcome to the final part of our Moira MacTaggert read-through. For the previous chapters see here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7.
When we left off, Excalibur had just been cancelled, leaving Moira without a regular title to appear in. But she’s still around, still hunting for the Legacy Virus, and still supposedly in declining health. The final years of Moira’s (original) published life turn out to be big on pointless cameos and appearances where she does little more than explain the plot.
X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #21 by Todd DeZago, Andy Smith & Andrew Hennessy (“Devil’s Haircut”, December 1998). Strong Guy phones Muir Isle to ask Wolfsbane and Madrox for help with a possible alien invasion. Moira is there, and she’s back to working on the Legacy Virus.
Gambit vol 3 #2 by Fabian Nicieza, Steve Skroce & Rob Hunter (“Stormbringers”, March 1999). Gambit visits Muir Isle so that Moira can run some tests on him. Excalibur have now left, and Moira is working full time on the cure (pretty much alone). Naturally, Gambit tries to steal some files, and sets off a ridiculously elaborate failsafe mechanism that he manages to stop before it wipes all her data.
Magneto Rex #1 by Joe Pruett, Brandon Peterson & Matt Banning (“Ascendance”, May 1999). Moira appears briefly in some vox pops about Magneto’s seizure of Genosha. She says she’s lucky to have escaped alive from her previous encounters with Magneto, and that “dark times are coming, mark my words”. I suppose with hindsight you can read Moira as already knowing that the new mutant nation of Genosha will get swiftly wiped out by Sentinels. At the time, this read a little weirdly, since Moira normally tries to defuse anti-mutant sentiment in her TV interviews, rather than tell people that they’re right to worry.
Gambit Annual ’99 by Fabian Nicieza, Walter McDaniel et al (“With or Without You”, 1999). Moira plays the generic scientist role. She runs some tests on Gambit, which lead to us all learning more about Mary Purcell, the spirit who was living inside his body at the time. Mary is purged, and Moira verifies that Gambit is okay now.
Warlock vol 5 #7 by Louise Simonson, Pascual Ferry et al (“Meanwhile”, April 2000). As far as I can tell, this isn’t even listed on Marvel’s website, let alone available on Marvel Unlimited. But it’s just more of generic scientist Moira, as Warlock brings his new friends Lock and Psi to Muir Isle, where they meet Moira and Wolfsbane. As you probably guessed, Moira helps to advance the plot by running some tests.
Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #375 by Alan Davis, Adam Kubert & Batt (“I am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been”) / X-Men vol 2 #95 by Alan Davis, Tom Raney & Scott Hanna (“Do Unto Others”) / X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #25 by Joe Pruett, Brett Booth & Sal Regla (“In Remembrance”, all December 1999). These are all issues from the storyline where Wolverine is replaced by a Skrull impostor. Once again, Moira is simply the generic scientist who shows up to advance the plot. After “Wolverine” is killed, Moira comes to the X-Men Mansion to help in the autopsy, which exposes him as a Skrull. She also helps to treat Marrow and Mikhail Rasputin, and then she hangs around for a bit in order to explain the plot, and then get word that the real Wolverine has shown up alive, albeit as a Horseman of Apocalypse.
Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #376 by Alan Davis, Terry Kavanagh, Roger Cruz et al (“Filling in the Blanks”, January 2000) / X-Men vol 2 #96 by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer (“The Gathering”, January 2000) / Wolverine vol 2 #146-147 by Fabian Nicieza, Erik Larsen, Mike Miller, Roger Cruz et al (“Through a Dark Tunnel” / “Into the Light”, January & February 2000). Four issues from the crossover “Apocalypse: The Twelve.” Once again, Moira is just there to be the generic support scientist – though she does get to shoot at Horseman Wolverine, and she helps Psylocke to use Cerebro.
Nearly a year passes before Moira’s next (and final) storyline. Powers of X #6 has a diary entry, which must go here, in which she decides to remove herself from the world, and forms a plan with Charles Xavier to fake her death using a “Shi’ar golem”.
Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #388 by Chris Claremont, Salvador Larroca et al (“Dream’s End, part 1”, December 2000). On Muir Isle, Moira and some generic scientists watch Robert Kelly’s presidential campaign on the news. She isn’t impressed. Meanwhile, Mystique successfully tests a version of the Legacy Virus, supposedly created by her, which only affects normal humans. Mystique and Sabretooth show up on Muir Isle, only to be instantly recognised by Wolfsbane. At the same time, over in the X-Men Mansion, Rogue (whose powers are acting weirdly at this point) also detects Mystique and Sabretooth arriving on the island. Professor X is for some reason unable to reach Moira telepathically, so he sends Rogue, Wolverine and Bishop to help. They arrive just in time to see the Research Centre explode.
Part 2 of the crossover takes place in Cable vol 1 #87, but it involves a different plot thread, and Moira doesn’t appear.
Bishop: The Last X-Man #16 by Scott Lobdell, Joe Pruett, Thomas Derenick et al (“Dream’s End, part 3”, December 2000). Bishop, Rogue, Wolverine and Wolfsbane enter the wreckage of the Research Centre, and try to rescue Moira. Moira is badly injured from the explosion, but she tells them that she has finally figured out the cure to the Legacy Virus – inspired by Mystique’s own recent experiments.
X-Men vol 2 #108 by Chris Claremont, Leinil Francis Yu, Brett Booth et al (“Dream’s End, part 4”, January 2001). In a gloriously nonsensical piece of plotting, the X-Men decide to fly the dying Moira all the way back to the X-Men Mansion on the other side of the Atlantic – rather than, say, taking her to the local hospital.
Moira tells them that her insight into the Legacy Virus cure must not be lost. Rogue offers to use her memory absorption powers, but Moira claims that those powers are too unstable to be a reliable way of preserving the information. (As I’ve mentioned, there was indeed a storyline at this point about Rogue’s powers acting erratically.) So Professor X and Jean Grey travel to the jet in astral form.
This is where we get the scene that calls for some real explanation from Hickman: Jean watches as the astral forms of Xavier and Moira “become one” (in a panel which also mentions that they were lovers, and draws the “becoming one” as, well, exactly what you’re thinking). As they, er, “become one”, the information about the cure passes between them. Charles is too in love to break the contact and is at risk of dying with Moira, so Jean calls in Cable, and together they help keep Charles back. As her spirit seemingly departs for the afterlife, Moira tells Charles that she has known joy with him and is not afraid because the beauty and peace that awaits; she loves him, and wishes him well “until we meet again”. There’s a slightly extended version of this scene in a flashback in X-Men: Legacy vol 1 #216, and a single panel flashback of Rahne holding Moira’s body in New Mutants vol 2 #11, but neither of them add anything important.
So… that’s quite the ruse, if we’re to take it at face value. The obvious problems here are that two high-level telepaths, who presumably aren’t in on the scheme, are watching it all happen; and Uncanny X-Men #389 (which has scenes of Moira’s funeral) has Xavier spending most of an issue reminiscing to himself about her death and their past relationship. This is all quite tricky to explain away. And this Shi’ar golem must apparently have a convincing astral form.
On the other hand… Charles Xavier is certainly not above faking his own death, let alone Moira’s. And “Dream’s End” is an incoherent mess to start with. Most obviously, it asks us to believe that Mystique has suddenly become a world-class medical researcher capable of modifying a virus in ways that even Moira hadn’t thought of. And then she blows up Muir Isle for… well, for no terribly clear reason explained within the story itself. I suppose the original idea was to stop Moira from curing the anti-human version of the Legacy Virus, but it’s all very hazy. Hickman ties Mystique quite closely to Moira, so some of the dodgy plotting in “Dream’s End” can be explained if Mystique is in on the scheme too. But you’ve still got the grandiose astral-projection death scene to explain away.
And there ended the story of Moira MacTaggert, until House of X came along to reveal that she wasn’t dead after all. Or… oh, hold on…
X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1 by Ed Brubaker, Trevor Hairsine & Kris Justice (“Deadly Genesis”, January 2006). Moira appears extensively in video diaries and flashbacks in this series. But she also seemingly appears in issue #1 as a ghost, leading Sean to the room where her records of the lost X-Men team are hidden. Following the Hickman retcons, it’s conceivable that this might in fact be the real Moira after all, though why she’d do it in that way is unclear.
X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl #2-3 and #5 by Peter Milligan, Nick Dragotta & Mike Allred (April, May & July 2006). Moira is among the characters seen in the afterlife in this miniseries. She’s running a book group along with Gwen Stacy and Mockingbird. They’re reading James Joyce.
Chaos War: X-Men #1-2 by Louise Simonson, Chris Claremont & Doug Braithwaite (February & March 2011). This two-issue miniseries was a tie-in to the “Chaos War” event, in which various characters temporarily returned from the dead thanks to disruption in the afterlife. In particular, a makeshift X-Men team appears, consisting of the original Thunderbird, Banshee, two Madrox duplicates, two of the Stepford Cuckoos, and Moira herself – who proceeds to turn into Destiny over the course of the story. Oh, and the story also claims that Muir Isle is a mystically significant place, because it’s a nexus of ley lines.
So even though Moira never died after all, she still shows up as a ghost in a few issues. Oops. But she’s far from the first character where this has happened, and the Official Handbook even has a standing explanation to the effect that confusing and misleading things appear in the afterlife – in other words, it seems to be just generally accepted that this stuff can be ignored with impunity. So her posthumous appearances… didn’t happen. Or rather, they aren’t really her. In Chaos War, the weird mutation into Destiny gives us a hook to hang that on.
So, where does all this leave us? Hickman’s retcon doesn’t fit seamlessly with Moira’s history, but the contradictions are far fewer than you might expect. That’s partly because even though Moira was a regular fixture in the X-books for a long time, relatively few stories were actually focussed on her. Much of the time, she’s doing plot mechanics.
There are maybe three main areas where Hickman’s retcon causes problems that really do call for explanation. One is how on earth she faked her death, how the “golem” thing squares with what we see in “Dream’s End”, and why so many high-end telepaths seem to be taken in by it. But we can be fairly confident that Hickman will get to that in due course, or at least give the benefit of the doubt on that one. Number two is the storyline about her being the sole human infected by the Legacy Virus. The retcon explains why she was the only infected human – she’s actually a mutant after all – but that really doesn’t explain the conversations she has on the topic with Professor X. Number three is Moira’s apparent lack of interest in the techno organic characters that have crossed her path, despite her retconned knowledge of their potential significance. – that’s easier to explain but still something of a tension.
On the other hand, as we’ve seen, there are plenty of places where Moira’s history didn’t make all that much sense to begin with, and where Hickman’s retcon either dovetails nicely with the original, or provides potential explanations that plug existing plotholes. And while there are undoubtedly issues that call for further explanation, the biggest problems affect stories that were unsatisfactory in the first place. It’s not a huge problem if the eventual explanation winds up heavily retconning them – and it most likely will.
As for Moira’s persona, though, it fits decently well with Hickman. There are broadly three main readings of Moira – not that they’re mutually exclusive. In one, she’s a generic scientific genius and medical adviser. In the second, she’s Xavier’s human ally, superhero sceptic, and voice of reason, devoted to her daughter Rahne if sadly forever being occupied with more pressing matters. In the third, she’s actively steering the X-Men, particularly when Charles isn’t there to do it, or isn’t going in the desired direction; her focus on the bigger picture eclipses her interest in Rahne; and she has a recurring theme of survivor guilt, intended to reference Proteus and the victims of the Legacy Virus, but also well suited to the idea that she’s survived multiple previous timelines.
Obviously, there’s nothing in the earlier issues that positively points towards Hickman’s retcon. That goes without saying. It’s a bravura rewrite which imposes a new reading on earlier stories, which the original creators – in particular, Moira’s creator – plainly didn’t intend. You may have an issue with that, and fair enough. But I’m persuaded that Hickman’s retcon is broadly consistent with the spirit of the established character, particularly the third of the readings above. It’s not the only reading of Moira, but it’s certainly a thread that’s there to be found in her stories.
Thanks so much for this Paul.
This was really interesting.
Yes, indeed. This has been a very fun deep dive into continuity, and I can only imagine that it was quite time-consuming. Also that it involved reading quite a lot of stories that Mr. O’Brien might not otherwise have been in that much of a hurry to revisit.
Claremont doesn’t get enough credit for introducing astral porn.
Very much appreciate the time and effort, Paul. Definitely think, with respect, it’s extremely charitable to say it fits better than one would think, given that there are a few very direct contradictions and there’s this vast sea of the most important character in the universe with the most important mission in the universe sitting around doing nothing to advance the most important plot in the universe.
A very comprehensive series of posts. Thank you.
How familiar is Moira with the techno-organic really? She never even saw the Phalanx in person in Life 9, having been stuck in that preserve for god knows how many years. It’s even possible that everything she knows about them could come from that single conversation with the Librarian.
I think it’s perfectly possible that she just didn’t realize the significance of Warlock and company all those years. She didn’t connect the dots.
“But I’m persuaded that Hickman’s retcon is broadly consistent with the spirit of the established character, particularly the third of the readings above. It’s not the only reading of Moira, but it’s certainly a thread that’s there to be found in her stories.”
I have to admit, this series of posts (besides being interesting just generally) have persuaded me as well. As a Claremont devotee, I was certainly dubious of this massive retconning to the character that is, in fact, the first original Claremont creation to appear in “X-Men,” ever.
Given a broad look, it seemed like a terrible fit, but your close reading has found a lot of interesting little gaps and curiosities that — if nothing else — justify a retcon of this scale. I’m not totally persuaded by some of the finer points of the retcon as I understand it. But I find myself perfectly okay with the idea of A retcon, if that makes sense.
Great series of blog posts, for sure. Even without the “retcon question,” it was just fun reading. Kudos.
Moo: “Claremont doesn’t get enough credit …”
Agreed!
“… for introducing astral porn.”
*Shakes fist.* MMMMMOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Grateful to have such a thorough history presented with insight and humor. Thank you for this series, Paul.
As for why now — why not now? What would it take for Moira to convince Charles to finally get on board with her plan? She can’t do it by herself because her mutant power must remain a secret.
Charles is hard-headed and full of himself, so maybe his death at the hands of his prize student is enough to finally convince him that he’s on the wrong path.
We’ve seen him doubt his dream before, but this time he was dead. Being revived might have given him the second chance he needed to do things right.
Or someone is controlling everyone’s minds. Either way.
YLu-It was life six where she was in the preserve and met the Librarian.
Life nine, she stayed in stasis until Apocalypse could survive long enough to discover the information about Nimrod.
I’m pretty sure she did know about the importance of the Phalanx, since that was the end-game that the post-humans were striving towards.
That seems to be something that Moira is very concerned with avoiding.
She finally allowed Wolverine to kill her, after living all those decades, to avoid allowing the Phalanx to achieve final victory.
The mutants will always lose because there is something greater out there, waiting. Also, it’ll make the end of all life on this planet as we know it, not just mutants.
Here’s another thanks. I’ve been seeing people argue about Moira for a while now, and no one else has given an issue-by-issue analysis of the issue to frame the discussion. Bravo.
This new era of X-Men has both the Moira retcon and the Krakoa nation. My feeling is that the Moira parts are really interesting, and when her subplot kicks in (like in X-Men #6), I’m really interested.
But so far, Krakoa still seems underdeveloped and unnecessary. Moira knows from Life 5 that a big mutant settlement leads to destruction, not to mention Genosha.
CJ-Krakoa has the benefit of offering drugs to the world, something which can be used to convince humans to leave mutants alone, unlike during life five.
Besides which, I’m still not convinced that Moira’s plan is actually to save mutants.
@Chris V
Oh right, Life 6! I forgot how complicated that got.
I’m not saying she’s not aware of the Phalanx’s existence or isn’t incredibly concerned about them. She clearly is. But that doesn’t mean she actually knows a single detail about them beyond what the Librarian said to her. It doesn’t mean she’d easily recognize them. She was stuck in a nature preserve, with seemingly no contact with the outside world, in the one timeline we know the Phalanx showed up.
Even so, the Phalanx Covenant probably would have given her some inkling. That was back in 1993, before Ellis’ Excalibur.
Plus, the Librarian went in to a pretty detailed monologue about the Phalanx and Ascension.
Moira also had three more lives to live before her current life. It would seem like she would try to find out more about the Phalanx in those other lives.
I mean, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten the chance, but she did live a long time with Apocalypse.
Besides that, even if she didn’t know specifically about the Phalanx, a mutant-techno organic hybrid like Douglock should have fed in to her fear about the coming man-machine post-humanity.
Paul, this is a really great piece of work. Thanks. I also appreciate the final summary of the three broad trends in Moira’s characterisation, and how that squares with Hickman’s retcon.
To be fair, without this research I think it’s easy to overlook how little Moira actually contributes outside of the original Proteus story, which is fondly remembered from a classic run and therefore looms large in people’s minds. She’s present but not active in many seminal events, but nobody aside from Claremont (and Ellis, and Carey to a degree) actively uses her. She adds nuance to Xavier, but serves to prop his character rather than her own.
So to my mind, that makes her perfect fodder for this retcon and moves the overarching X-plot along into inyeresting new territory. Moira gets a hitherto unknown depth of character and motivation. Can forgive some inevitable inconsistencies along the way as the price for that.
Yes, I agree with everyone else, this has been fascinating to read – thanks very much!
I think as with any retcon, people will either overlook or focus on any inconsistencies depending on how they feel about the retcon itself.
Of course, pieces like this could also help people change their views. Kudos to you Paul for undertaking and presenting so clearly.
For what it’s worth, I’m wasn’t a fan of the retcon itself, but am willing to overlook any inconsistencies since the story itself is trying something different. Hell, if anything, I find this retcon less offensive than some previous retcons we’ve gotten over the years (off the top of my head, Deadly Genesis, Psylocke/Kwannon, and Gambit leading the Marauders to the Morlock tunnels are 3 that come to mind personally for me).
Wow. It has already been over fourteen years since Deadly Genesis. Time passes ever faster.
I have to assume that the statement that Xavier wiped out his own memories twice already is an attempt at explaining his behavior right before Moira’s faking her own death and, before that, before meeting the New X-Men.
Why was the Moira retcon necessary? Charles and Magneto could easily have come up with the Krakoa idea on their own and the status quo would have worked just fine. Was all that weird future stuff and Moira having nine lives and permanently screwing with the entire history of the X-Men worth it just to get everybody on an island when they just could have done that anyway?
I would not call the retcon necessary, but there are several consequences that come from it.
* Moira, obviously, is back. And now she has more complex and more personal reasons to be involved in the plot.
* We have a convenient explanation for some past character inconsistencies from Moira, Charles and Magneto.
* All three characters are now a bit darker (although only negligibly so in Magneto’s case) and more political, and have less obvious motivations.
* We readers know that we are not being told the whole story; our relation to the characters changed. The expectation of seeing the plot grow gradually in front of our view has been broken.
* Exodus, Apocalypse and Mister Sinister have been reintroduced in a more integrated way and we are not asking too many questions on why.
* While they have been nearly neglected since the end of HoxPoX, we now know of Moira’s past lives. They provide a plot-useful level of unreliable prescience and can also be tapped into to provide minor soft retcons if need be.
Unfortunately, most of those are simple breaking of previous certainties and expectations. To take good advantage of them we now need good plotting and good characterization. What we have been receiving is… mixed, IMO.
The Moira retcon exists purely for the purpose of adding unearned weight to the story. It rewrites the past with an “important” character rather than just soldiering forward on the strength of the concept itself. There’s just no other explanation. Even if your stance is that the retcon doesn’t trample on Moira too much, nothing about Moira X has anything to do with Moira. It’s just not the same character at all.
But in addition to bringing sweeping changes, using such a key character and insisting this was the plan all along allows HOXPOX to anoint itself as not just the most important story in X-Men history, but in fact the ONLY important X-Men story. Everything else is at best a distraction in the oppressively long shadow of HOXPOX. In terms of story mechanics, you could swap in anyone else.
I agree with my apparent nemesis wwk5d’s assessment that the level of acceptance of a retcon is directly tied to one’s appreciation of the new story, of course weighed against their appreciation for what is sacrificed. But, again, I think the story is worse and more irksome than if they chose to let the work stand on its own merits and use a new character for their plot device. There was a better way. It just didn’t carry the unearned weight of being THE be-all and end-all X-Men story at the expense of everything else.
So the next step is to go over the Complete Destiny, examining every one of Irene’s appearances and the text of her journals in terms of how well they fit knowing about Moira, right Paul? …Paul?
Seriously, this was a very impressive set of posts. It’s fascinating to see such a deep dive on an often peripheral character, and how they change and transform over different periods and writers. Thank you for doing this.
Yes, great to have something different like this.
Pity though, that every comment section seems exactly the same these days. I can barely tell them apart.
Retconning Moira into a mutant who has lived 10 past lives sets up a few things:
1. No matter who she partners with in the future, mutants are exterminated. No existing ideology is going to work to keep mutantkind alive, and now we have proof that they all fail. So it’s time for something new.
2. Charles and Magneto now have a believable motive to change their behavior. Sure, they could give up on their respective dreams for mutantkind in other ways, but Moira’s revelations provide a quick shortcut to that end in this instance.
3. We also know that the ultimate enemies of mutantkind aren’t humans or machines or even other mutants, but post-humans. We can identify the *real* threat to the race and our protagonists can try to cut if off at its source.
I think without the retcon, the stakes wouldn’t seem so high and the threat wouldn’t be so clear. Not to mention that the retcon has a lot of great drama and interest to it.
I want to add to the chorus of gratitude. Thank you for this!
@Thom: 1. My opinion has always been that seeing something happen 9 times doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. But more importantly, it didn’t need to be Moira at all. Literally anyone could have lived out those lives.
2. Not sure what point you’re making here. And, again, you haven’t suggested any reason it had to be Moira. If anything, lots of Xavier’s and Magneto’s behavior throughout history makes much less sense.
3. Again, none of this has anything to do with Moira MacTaggert as we knew her. Clearly you’ve bought whole hog into the concept, but a brand new mutant could have accomplished the exact same thing, just minus the artificial weight and wholly unnecessary retcon.
Your last comment makes my point for me. She gives the story weight that it would lack if they just used a new mutant and didn’t insist this has somehow been the plan all along. I prefer stories that stand confidently on their own strength and don’t diminish the work of those who came before.
@Moo: it’s possible you’ll blame me, at least in part, for the fact that these comments sections are so similar. But I maintain that the primary reason they’re all the same is that the whole line has been homogenized into a mutant suicide cult. A diverse line that highlighted the characters would create more conversation instead of so much discussion about how things don’t really make sense or how certain story choices are unnecessarily problematic.
As they say, things have never been better for mutants, but paradise comes at a cost.
And please clear this up for me, is this retcon suggesting that Magneto, Moira, and Charles were in cahoots together from the Silver Age to now? If so, that’s bonkers.
Paul, thank you for this series. Funnily enough, when we got to the HOXPOX Moira retcon, my immediate reaction was that it made no sense in light of the issue where she died with all the telepaths involved. And I immediately remembered that issue largely because of your review pointing out how idiotic it was for them to fly her to America instead of, say, a hospital in Scotland.
It’s also a good primer to share with lapsed readers who might not remember Moira’s full backstory (e.g., me), or newer readers who started on the franchise after she was dead.
@Daniel: Xavier/Moira and Magneto have not been in cahoots since the Silver Age. Xavier and Moira have. Magneto joins the alliance in a flashback from Powers of X #2. Paul covers this in #4 of this blog series.
The meeting takes place in Island M, which Magneto raises from the sea circa Uncanny #150. Paul pegs the scene as being slightly before that story. I differ with him since Magneto’s still in full-tilt Silver Age crazy mode in #150 until his sympathetic turn at the end. I place it a bit after, as while the X-Men are using it as a temporary base in #158, they’re back in the mansion in #151. No reason Magneto couldn’t have temporarily moved back. And this puts it after the start of his redemption arc, so it makes sense that he’d be willing to play nice.
Xavier/Moira/Magneto remain in cahoots until X-Men #1-3 when Magneto breaks away. They evidently mended fences eventually, perhaps as late as Xavier’s resurrection via Fantomex in 2018. But Magneto’s been aligned with the X-Men since Utopia, so there’s a lot of flex there. But definitely not allied during the Silver Age through early Claremont, and definitely not in the 90s through god knows when. That help?
And I’ll add another reason:
4. The mutant had to be someone Charles trusted wholeheartedly, which necessitates a long relationship. He wouldn’t trust a new mutant who popped up out of nowhere and claimed catastrophic knowledge of the future. Look at how Rachel has been treated since she showed up in the ’80s.
@Dazzler: We’re going to have to agree to disagree. I have never found Moira more interesting than I do right now.
I love that a long-time associate of the X-Men had a secret agenda all along. I love that a third-tier character has a new sense of purpose. I love that Hickman leveraged her historical weight to make us care about this story. And I literally couldn’t care less if that fits into her extremely patchy and contradictory continuity.
And that doesn’t mean I’ve “bought into” anything. I can see all the strings. I just don’t care that I can see them. You clearly disagree, but making fans of this story sound like we’ve been brainwashed isn’t winning you any friends.
@Allan M
Quite a bit, thank you. My first question was going to be how it could possibly track with batshit crazy Fatal Attractions Magneto or Eve of Destruction. I’m still not really sure it does, but at least those events took place during a break in the alliance. And I guess there’s always the “Magneto overusing his powers makes him crazy” card.
We totally need The Complete Magneto and The Complete Xavier.
One more thing, and this is a serious question not meant to stir up shit. To what extent do you guys think Hickman went to to research this? Do you think he essentially did what Paul did for his own story? Interesting to think about.
“The Moira retcon exists purely for the purpose of adding unearned weight to the story. It rewrites the past with an “important” character rather than just soldiering forward on the strength of the concept itself.”
Which is pretty much true for the majority of retcons…
“To what extent do you guys think Hickman went to to research this? Do you think he essentially did what Paul did for his own story?”
I’m going to say…not as much as Paul did.
Wwk5d that’s largely true, and it’s one of the big reasons why retcons are mostly stupid and bad. The difference here is that this gimmickry is just tacked on. The story mechanics would be the same– and less problematic, if they used a different character for their plot device.
This isn’t like, say, Astra, whose entire story is about how she was an original member of the Brotherhood. That story, awful as it was, hinged entirely on the retcon. HOXPOX would just be a better story without the retcon. It wouldn’t be as self-insistent that it’s the most important thing ever, though. It would have to stand on its own merits, and of course we can’t have that.
Thom, the fact that you just said you like that Moira had this plan all along is the proof that you’ve bought into this whole hog. She plainly didn’t have any plan all along. No plan existed until 2019. It’s your right to buy into this, and you’re the person in these comments section who seems to me like he’s bought into it the most.
Also, Thom, Charles didn’t trust Moira wholeheartedly back in the silver age when they first met and he read her mind, as per the retcon. You’re just buying more and more whole hog into it. They literally met at the fair. Did you read HOXPOX? The superficial weight she adds is to force the readers, not Charles, to believe this is all Very Important.
You’re super into it. You bought right in. Just own it, dude.
Thom H.: And that doesn’t mean I’ve “bought into” anything. I can see all the strings. I just don’t care that I can see them.
Yeah, I’ve found that the key is to let go of the idea that all of X-Men continuity back to 1963 still makes sense as a single coherent narrative. Because it doesn’t. There have simply been too many retcons, too much timeline compression, and too many left-field swerves in characterization over the years. Trying to reconcile it all requires an ever greater level of suspension of disbelief and doublethink.
To put it another way, a reader has got to recognize and accept the soft reboots when the writer re-baselines the core characters and the timeline. DC makes this easier because their reboots are explicit, providing obvious break points. Marvel is far more ambiguous and implicit about it, leaving IMO too much room for interpretation.
The catch, however, is that accepting the reboots discourages emotional investment in the characters. At least for me anyway. I I started reading X-Men in 1991. The Claremont-Harras-era versions of the characters are “my” versions–the ones that I know and care about. Morrison re-baselined the franchise in 2001, and Hickman did it again last year. We’re now two iterations removed from “my” X-Men, and I don’t foresee them in publication ever again. I have no investment in Hickman’s versions of the characters. Indeed, I don’t much like them at all.
But, so far, I do find Hickman’s macro-plot interesting enough to stick around.
It seems to me that some fans can’t or won’t recognize the soft reboots so they keep trying to reconcile the new versions of the characters with the old versions they’re invested in. It doesn’t work, and the cognitive dissonance drives them nuts. OTOH, that dissonance and the arguments that spring from it are pretty much the engine of online comics fandom.
TL;DR: letting go is hard.
@Dazzler: Okay so I’ve “bought into” the retcon. And we can safely say you’ve “bought into” continuity, yes?
Can you see how that doesn’t make either one of us deluded or a fool? We just both like the same characters in different ways. No one’s being tricked. That’s my main point.
“it’s possible you’ll blame me, at least in part, for the fact that these comments sections are so similar”
That would be like blaming a monkey for throwing its poop. I don’t blame you. At this point, I blame everyone *else* that continues to engage with you directly on the subject of the books. Nothing anyone says to you is ever going to get you away from “The current direction sucks and anyone who believes otherwise is rationalizing/delusional. Also, I’m a victim.”
It occurs to me (especially since she is already a plot point in HOXPOX) that this story could be made to work better with Destiny in the Moira role. One could retcon her precognitive abilities to actually be the result of the previous lives.
Moo, that was very rude.
@Daniel
I can’t even square Fatal Attractions Magneto with the end of Claremont version! Why the hell is he coming in full costume to attack the funeral of a small child whom he knew and cared about? Total nonsense. Magneto in Genosha, on the other hand, actually works well with the Hickman retcon – he’s on the outs with Moira and Xavier, so he sets out to build the mutant nation they all want to establish, but by himself. And then it all gets destroyed by the machines as Moira predicted. It’s a perfect example of why Moira is so adamant that all of the mutants have to band together for her plan to work.
The Complete Xavier would be odd in that, with all the Xavier-is-a-bastard retcons folded into his backstory, the 80s-90s Xavier will seem like an oasis of essentially ethical behaviour in a life otherwise defined by manipulation.
As for Hickman and research, I think he did pretty extensive research. Maybe not to the level that Paul did, but between the actual story and the data pages in Powers of X #2 and 6, he had to have a pretty clear sense of X-Men history so he could pick out moments to wedge Moira in. And he got the timeline of her current life dead-on, even little details like a 20-year gap to set up the Institute. He’s also doing some fairly deep cuts in his books. Something tells me that editorial wasn’t demanding that he work the Shi’ar Death Commandos into his story.
The only thing I wonder about in Xavier’s history is how well his sojourn with the Starjammers fits. I haven’t read any of that stuff in a long time, but did he have any specific intention of returning when he left?
Xavier’s dying and needs Space Medicine ™ when he goes off with the Starjammers, which is a very good reason to leave Earth. Can’t enact a master plan if you’re dead! And then the Starjammers are in active danger for awhile, and tell him that he can’t go home.
The awkward one is New Mutants #50, where he makes the conscious choice to not return to Earth. It’s expressly on the basis that Magneto can handle things, so the alliance angle holds up. You can partially handwave it, since the Shi’ar are seemingly part of Moira’s plan, and Xavier cozying up with Lilandra furthers that, but it’s pretty weak.
@Dazzler
The problem is you keep attacking/criticizing people for like this run, then as Moo says, you play the victim. If other people like this run, they don’t have to justify why they do to you or anyone else. Do you really need to make comments about others like
“you’re the person in these comments section who seems to me like he’s bought into it the most.”
Or
“You’re super into it. You bought right in. Just own it, dude.”
I mean really now.
I really don’t know why we’re arguing about whether Dazzler likes a retcon and a story.
What about when Xavier was voluntarily incarcerated after Onslaught? Was there any fear of never being released?
What all this makes me really curious about is who’s going to be doing the upcoming Moira solo title that Marvel described as “dancing between the raindrops of continuity”? It would seem to me that however seamless this will all turn out to be is going to be almost wholly dependent on how carefully he/she approaches this stuff.
Dazzler is trolling, people.
I’m not 100% sure that Dazzler realizes that he’s trolling — although I’m certainly not convinced by the whole “say denigrating things to other people then get huffy when they respond as one might expect” act.
I would admire the old-school craftsmanship of the whole perfomance, as well as the metatextual dimension in which Dazzler holds up the all-the-“main”-characters-in-the-mansion-together status quo of the 1990s as the nostalgic ideal to which all X-books should forever and ever conform matches the way in which Dazzler is replicating the art of trolling as it was developed in the 1990s. I would admire it, except that, as I said, I’m not sure that Dazzler actually realizes that he’s trolling.
But in any case, trolling is trolling. Moo is right: the best practice with trolls is not to feed them.
Dazzler, when you respond to this, feel free to have the last word.
Paul, the only real problem with this endeavor is that now I also need The Complete Everyone Else.
@Kent
I think several people have wondered whether or not Moira could be Destiny, especially after Chaos War. Since one died in UXM 250s and the other in the UXM 390s, and Destiny and Moira have vastly different ages, that would be tricky.
You could maybe think something like, “Destiny is actually a very old Moira who’s somehow suppressed the universe-reset power to ensure that this reality never ends, and once Destiny was killed, Moira began to effect a more independent agenda”. Maybe.
We haven’t seen the likes of Blindfold roaming around, nor have any of her friends like Armor asking about her. That seemed to indicate to me that something was creepy was going on behind the scenes–time will tell.
@YLu: Marvel has taken the path of selective rewriting and reemphasizing of the past of the X-Men with enough commitment to publish a series that spells it out for us readers. Paul reviewed it a year or so ago right here at HtA. It is not against the grain to do the same to specific characters now.