Powers of X #6 - "House of X"

[laughing_tree]

I have some general philosophies on what kind of work you should do at Marvel, that I try and adhere to. I think the stories should be big. Any time you can mine your continuity and the existing continuity of the company in a way that evokes a response from audience and not confusion, that’s powerful, and you’re crazy not to utilize it when you’re writing these books. The cardinal rule beyond that is at the end of the day, after you’ve torn up the playroom and scattered all the toys, you put everything all back on the shelf. Don’t be an a—hole and leave a mess. You want to tell stories that matter, but the way you write things that matter in Marvel is that you’re not destructive, you’re additive. -- Jonathan Hickman

Comments

[wizardru]

I'm not sure I'd read too much into that as some sort of statement about anything, but rather as a story element to get Hickman where he wanted to go. If anything, it's that possibly you shouldn't try and go backwards? Moira had lived and loved to an old age, but the young woman who fell in love with her husband in the first timeline no longer existed. People evolve and it sounds like she had a 'been there, done that' take on things. The man she loved when he was old was still decades off and maybe older Moira just wasn't into the young man who she married previously. That Moira might not be the best person exists as a possibility in this, too.

Especially if you'd lived through several eras and saw how society changed...and realized you didn't have to let it restrict you. It's almost like playing an RPG like Fallout or Skyrim on a second-playthrough: you already know how things end up, so you're rushing through to get to stuff you didn't the first time through and maybe seeing how things could go differently based on your choices (which Moira literally does).

[shadowkat]

Agree. Also people (human or mutant) tend to be somewhat selfishly motivated by design. Moira does what interests or furthers Moira's cause, not really looking past Moira. It doesn't matter to Moira if the children she had in the previous life make it into the next one. It doesn't matter if she had helped anyone as a teacher. Her ego wants more than that. She wants to either save or eradicate the mutant race. When she tries to "cure" or "eradicate" it --- Destiny intervenes and pushes her on the opposite path. But Moira's motivations are all in her own self-interest. She accuses both Magneto and Xavier of being arrogant, but truly she is -- because of her past lives, she thinks she knows everything and how to stop it. It's an interesting take on the savior complex.