Rise of the Powers of X #5: "Now and Forever"

[alliterator]

"Moira is quite big in this story because the end of the X-Men Krakoan era had to come back to her. It had to come back to Xavier as well. Because we basically started with those two people on a bench. For all the big ideas Jonathan Hickman started, it was a very powerful, personal story about these people trapped and wanting to be free. That's the thing that Moira gave everyone; a chance to try things a different way. Of course, in the end, Moira is not reliable or good, but she had a point."
-- Kieron Gillen


Moira finally asks Charles what his plan was with defecting to Orchis. He tells her.

Comments

[shakalooloo]

I always assumed that the reason Hickman depowered Moira at the end of his run was to show that she was done with, to allow future writers to move on without her shackled about their necks. And yet everyone went straight back to using her, poor lass.

[aperturedreams]

Actually, Hickman had in the earliest issues Destiny say she'd maybe have 11 lives if she makes the right choice in the end, so it seems pretty clear he had her headed to this ending

[icon_uk]

Well, that might be true, though Hickman has apparently stated (during his appearance on the Cerebro podcast on Apocalypse), that Moira was never intended to be the big bad guy of the Krakoan era, he had someone else in mind but Marvel editorial went in another direction.

He won't say who it was, presumably out of professional courtesy, but I have to say that even I think it was probably intended to be Doug.

[aperturedreams]

Yeah, that makes sense. Doug would have been interesting...

[alliterator]

Early on he wanted someone else to be the Big Bad, but when editorial said no, he quickly shifted to Moira being a bad guy. I mean, the entire Inferno book was about how Moira's backup plan was to depower everyone. She was clearly meant to be the antagonist by that point.

The rest of her arc -- becoming a robot and afterwards -- wasn't written by Hickman, but it was discussed with him. I think they said he was in the room as they talked about the next two years of stories after Inferno.

[shakalooloo]

Sure, but either Moira made the wrong choice, or Destiny lied.

[alliterator]

I mean, Moira made the right choice in this issue and got her eleventh life.

[blues32]

Twelfth. Being Robo-Moira was her eleventh life.

[shakalooloo]

Yes, but my (completely speculative with no evidence) argument is that that isn't what Hickman intended.

[aperturedreams]

Didn't she make the right choice? This would be life 11, wouldn't it?

[draganoche]

The predicted 11th life would be the robot since Destiny's vision has been limited by the moria engine and Enigma.

But this is thematically Moria's true l1th life.

[aperturedreams]

Could be, though personally I don't think the robot counts, seeing as it was really just a continuation of her life, not a different timeline