For previous posts, see part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

We left Moira just after the first Legion storyline. This time, we’ll be covering the rest of Chris Claremont’s first run on Uncanny X-Men. Frankly, this is all quite scattershot – Moira gets tied up in various storylines during this period but very few of them are really about her.

New Mutants vol 1 #44 by Chris Claremont, Jackson Guice & Kyle Baker (“Runaway!”, October 1986). Legion’s alternate personalities are causing trouble again. The New Mutants deal with it. Not much to see here, Moira-wise.

New Mutants vol 1 #46-47 and Uncanny X-Men #212-213 by Chris Claremont and various (December 1986 and January 1987). These are issues from the Mutant Massacre crossover, in which the Marauders slaughter the Morlocks. Magik teleports Moira to the X-Men Mansion so that she can co-ordinate the medical treatment of the survivors. This continues a tendency to treat Moira as a doctor even though she’s meant to be a scientist (and even though trained nurse Sharon Friedlander is right there with her). Storm also puts Moira in charge of the New Mutants during the crisis, but being the New Mutants, they promptly wander off to have an unrelated adventure with the Magus. New Mutants vol 1 #47 isn’t technically part of the crossover, but it has a subplot scene of Moira worrying about the missing New Mutants and discussing the situation with Magneto – their first on-panel discussion since he reformed. There’s not much to it, though.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #216-217 by Chris Claremont, Jackson Guice, Dan Green & Steve Leialoha (“Crucible” and “Folly’s Gambit”, April and May 1987). The surviving Morlocks are evacuated to Muir Isle, which Moira is now running as a de facto hospital. So are the X-Men who were injured in the Massacre, namely Kitty, Kurt and Peter. From this point, Callisto also becomes Moira’s bodyguard.

Issue #217 claims that in all the time Moira has been a friend of the X-Men, “she’s never felt so threatened, or looked toward so bleak and hostile a future”. That fits well enough with Hickman’s retcon if she sees the Massacre as a sign that things are not going to plan.

Fallen Angels vol 1 #1-2 by Mary Jo Duffy, Kerry Gammill & Tom Palmer (April and May 1987). Worrying that he lacks the skills to run the school, Magneto asks Moira to come and help out. She does, and she brings Siryn and Multiple Man with her, because they’re needed for the plot. Moira isn’t, once she’s provided her taxi service, so she’s not mentioned again. We never find out what her advice for Magneto was.

Fantastic Four versus the X-Men #1-2 by Chris Claremont, Jon Bogdanove & Terry Austin (February and March 1987). This miniseries is centred on attempts to cure Kitty (who’s been stuck in intangible form since the Morlock Massacre). Naturally, Moira and Muir Isle appear in the first couple of issues, but the plot then moves elsewhere.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #227 by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & Dan Green (“The Belly of the Beast”, March 1988). This is the climax of the X-Men’s “Fall of the Mutants” storyline, where they all seemingly die fighting the Adversary in Dallas, setting up the Australian era. In a subplot, Kurt wakes from his coma, and Kitty reports the news that the X-Men have dies. Moira is…. there.

Moira’s diary entry in Powers of X #6 about Apocalypse’s public emergence presumably refers to his public battle with X-Factor during the same crossover. Kitty and Kurt soon leave Muir Isle to form Excalibur, but Moira’s not involved at that stage.

Excalibur vol 1 #4 by Chris Claremont, Alan Davis and Paul Neary (“Still Crazy After All These Years”, January 1989). You might notice that Moira’s appearances have slowed to a crawl, since she’s no longer appearing regularly in Uncanny X-Men or New Mutants. You might have thought that the UK-based Excalibur would have more use for her… but instead it quickly meanders off into alternate realities. In this issue, Moira and Callisto are taking the train to London in the hope of running some tests on Rachel Summers when Widget randomly transports them to another world. Is this setting up an exciting Moira adventure…?

Excalibur vol 1 #11 by Chris Claremont, Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin (“The Price”, August 1989). No, it isn’t. Moira and Callisto wind up in the Nazi-dominated world of the Lightning Force (the Nazi Excalibur), but their role is simply to be traded back to Earth in a prisoner exchange. Thanks for coming, Moira.

The Cyclops story in Marvel Comics Presents vol 1 #17-24 by Bob Harras, Ron Lim & Bruce Patterson (“The Retribution Affair”, April to July 1989). The Master Mold mind-controls Moira and makes her create a mutant-killing “Retribution Virus”. Master Mold claims to have the downloaded mind of its creator Steven Lang – but so does the Master Mold’s robot aide Conscience, who seems much more human in appearance and behaviour. When it turns out that the Retribution Virus is fatal not just to all mutants but also to 90% of humans, Master Mold doesn’t care. But Conscience is appalled, and helps Moira to develop a cure (which isn’t too hard, because she left notes for herself while developing the virus in the first place). The cure not only saves Sean Cassidy, but restores his mutant powers. Master Mold is defeated by Sean and Cyclops (who is ostensibly the hero of this thing, even though I’ve been able to recap the plot without mentioning him until now). Not only does this have a major plot development with Sean, it’s a dry run for the Legacy Virus and it’s got the man-machine themes that interest Hickman. You’d think somebody would do something with it.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #253 by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & Steve Leialoha (“Storm Warnings!”, November 1989). We’re now past the Australia era, and into the period where the X-Men have split up and the team members are scattered around the world. This is a rather odd issue that doesn’t really have an A plot, just an awful lot of subplots.

In one of them, Magneto and Moira argue about the direction of mutantkind. With the X-Men supposedly dead, and X-Factor and the New Mutants missing, Magneto has decided to become a public supervillain in order to distract attention from Moira. (This was presumably meant to justify Magneto’s throwback villain role in the upcoming Acts of Vengeance crossover.) Moira understandably thinks this is a very bad idea. She sends Callisto to secure the remains of the X-Men Mansion (which was blown up during “Inferno”), and also makes plans to bring the New Mutants to Muir Isle once they resurface, and to secure the island against attack. In Hickman’s terms, this is another example of Moira starting to act directly now that her usual intermediaries are either missing or refusing to play along – so it fits quite well with the current take.

Later on, Moira and Sean are woken by a shortwave distress signal from Lorna Dane, who is aboard a freighter where all of the crew have inexplicably gone mad and started killing each other. Sean rescues her and brings her back to Muir Isle, kicking off a lengthy storyline that will climax in the Muir Island Saga.

The Muir Island Saga is rather convoluted; during it, the islanders’ minds are affected by three separate force. The clearest explanation is in X-Factor #69. Lorna has recently got new powers, which make her a catalyst for human emotions. Her arrival on Muir Island prompts Legion to start messing with the islanders’ minds too, making matters even worse. In issue #259, Legion tries to use Cerebro, and attracts the attention of the Shadow King, who promptly possesses him. Shadow King then tries to lock down the island and keep everyone else at bay, while getting the oblivious islanders to build a big psychic weapon for him, to be powered by Lorna and her new powers.

Despite it being a Muir Island storyline, Moira has little role in resolving it. For our purposes, the main thing to know is that Moira’s behaviour will become increasingly erratic from this point on. The fact that the Shadow King was messing around in her mind for such an extended period probably also has implications for Hickman’s retcon if anyone wants to go there, since he surely must have picked up on the broad details of her history.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #254-255 by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & Dan Green (“All New, All Different – Here We Go Again!” and “Crash & Burn”, both December 1989). Moira is already starting to wear sexier clothes, because that’s apparently what you do when you’re under outside psychic influence. (I suppose we’re meant to take it that Legion is responsible for this, which is all rather creepy.) The Reavers attack, and Moira unveils her new X-Men uniforms, for the makeshift Muir Island X-Men to wear. The “X-Men”, Freedom Force and Forge drive off the Reavers, but Legion plays both sides against the other and secretly murders Destiny (for reasons that were never altogether clear, and that Hickman might be able to fill in).

After the fight, Moira enlists Forge to help secure Muir Isle, and Forge and Banshee decide that once that’s done, they’re going to hunt for the missing X-Men. Moira was interested in securing the island even before people started messing with her mind, but she’s going to get a bit paranoid from here on.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #257-258 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Joe Rubinstein & Scott Williams (“I am Lady Mandarin”, “Broken Chains”, January & February 1990). Two issues from the “Acts of Vengeance” tie-in arc, in which Psylocke gets turned into a ninja. Moira appears in a subplot on Muir Isle, still acting and dressing in an uncharacteristically “wild” way (as the story is very keen to stress). Banshee is even concerned about her figure-hugging new X-Men uniforms, though they don’t actually look that odd by period standards.

Alpha Flight vol 1 #88 by Fabian Nicieza, Michael Bair & Mike Manley (“Building Blocks, part 2”, September 1990). Alpha Flight drop in at Muir Isle to ask Forge for help with a storyline that doesn’t really concern us. The islanders are all paranoid and aggressive, as per their current storyline. (This comes out of publication order because Forge is still on Muir Isle.)

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #259 by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & Dan Green (“Dream a Little Dream”, March 1990). Still in Bad Girl mode, Moira decides that it might be a good idea to try and trace the X-Men using her version of Cerebro. Unfortunately, to do that, she needs a telepath. And the only one available is Legion. Since Legion is clumsy and inexperienced at this sort of thing, all he achieves is to attract the attention of the Shadow King, who promptly possesses him. From this point on, the Muir Islanders aren’t just being toyed with by Legion; they’re pawns of the Shadow King. He takes a couple of issues to really ramp it up; Banshee and Forge leave the island in issue #260, before it fully takes hold.

New Mutants vol 1 #88-89 by Louise Simonson, Rob Liefeld & Hilary Barta (“The Great Escape” and “The Gift”, April & May 1990). The New Mutants and X-Factor are both back in New York, so Bad Girl Moira shows up to fetch Wolfsbane “home” to Muir Isle. She seems to have lost interest in getting the rest of the New Mutants back, perhaps because the Shadow King prefers to keep strangers off his island. It’s not obvious why he’d make an exception for Rahne, so perhaps this is a case of Moira’s genuine concern for Rahne cutting through the mental fog.

Anyway, Moira is persuaded to change her mind by the rest of the New Mutants and the freshly-debuted Cable. Moira instantly recognises him (their back story is later explained in Cable #-1), and agrees that Wolfsbane should stay to aid in his “grave mission”. Legion expressly agrees with all this, so the implication is that Shadow King doesn’t want Cable anywhere near the island at this stage in his plans. At this time, they were making up Cable’s back story as they went along, but this issue fits perfectly well with what followed.

Excalibur vol 1 #26 by Michael Higgins, Ron Lim & Joe Rubinstein (“The Times They Are A-Changin'”, August 1990). A random fill-in issue, in which Mastermind escapes from prison on Muir Isle. According to a caption on the first page, it’s supposed to take place before the Cross-Time Caper arc. Unfortunately, that’s impossible, because Widget is there, and there’s no point in time before the Cross-Time Caper where Widget is both present and awake. (At a push you could shoehorn it between a couple of pages of issue #11, but Moira’s still in the other universe at that point, so it doesn’t solve the problem.)

The result is that this story completely ignores the Shadow King stuff, and Moira looks and acts normal. You can just about rationalise that as the Shadow King playing it safe, but why he doesn’t take advantage of having Mastermind on the island is hard to rationalise away. It’s also the first time in years that the island has been presented as a jail. On the whole, it’s a story best quietly ignored.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #269 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee & Art Thibert (“Rogue Redux”, October 1990). Rogue and “Carol Danvers” are separated after going through the Siege Perilous. (That’s the “Carol Danvers” persona that Rogue absorbed years previously and stuck around as a voice in her head.) “Carol” winds up on Muir Isle, where Moira and Amanda Sefton are now stark raving mad, and have strapped Lorna to a scary-looking machine. (It’s meant to tap her new emotion powers in order to access the astral plane and empower the Shadow King, as explained in X-Factor #69.) Shadow King promptly packs “Carol” off to fight Rogue.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #271 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee & Scott Williams (“X-Tinction Agenda, part 4”, December 1990). Moira cameos, giving an uncharacteristically aggressive news interview about events in Genosha.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #273 by Chris Claremont and various (“Too Many Mutants!, or Whose House is This Anyway?”, February 1991). Another cameo to keep the subplot ticking over. Banshee and Moira catch up by video link, and he worries about her behaviour.

Excalibur: Weird War III by Michael Higgins, Tom Morgan and others (December 1990). The Marvel Universe temporarily merges with the world where the Nazis won World War II (the same one Moira went to before). The merged version of Moira is a mixture of our version, and the “Reichsminister of genetics”, but “our” Moira’s personality dominates. So she helps Excalibur on their way with the plot, and that’s about it. The Shadow King stuff is ignored, but that’s easily explained given the overriding reality warp.

X-Men Annual #15 & X-Factor Annual #6 by Fabian Nicieza and others (“Kings of Pain, parts 3 and 4”, 1991). “Kings of Pain” was a four-part crossover featuring the Muir Island X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force and the New Warriors. As you might imagine, it’s a bit of a mess, because it has a ludicrously large cast, most of whom have nothing to contribute. If you dig into it, though, there’s a coherent Moira story at the core.

New villain Harness is forcing her son Piecemeal to absorb mysterious energy, which she believes will be a source of power. In fact, Piecemeal is simply re-forming Proteus. X-Force and the New Warriors find out about this, and alert the Muir Island X-Men. Apparently the Shadow King doesn’t like the sound of Proteus returning, because he steps back and lets the Muir Island X-Men help (though they remain oblivious to their recent out of character behaviour, and Moira is still seriously shouty in this story, even threatening to kill Legion if he doesn’t do as he’s told). Eventually, Piecemeal is overloaded by energy and turns into a merged Piecemeal/Proteus energy being with serious hang-ups about its two mothers.

Remembering how lovely and peaceful it was when he was dead, Proteus tries to create pure order by turning Edinburgh into an equation. Moira encourages him to just go back to being dead, since he was happy that way (and Harness encourages Piecemeal to kill himself too, because she hates him). Eventually Proteus and Piecemeal agree with their mothers and commit suicide, restoring the world to normal. In an interesting epilogue, Cable (of all people) reprimands Moira for not doing the conventionally heroic thing and trying to save Proteus. Moira claims to have been showing enlightened compassion, but there’s a definite suggestion that she might have been under the Shadow King’s influence in making this choice. It’s not a good story, but it does have a reasonably solid take on Moira and Proteus.

Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #278 and #280 and X-Factor vol 1 #69-70 by various creators (“The Muir Island Saga”, July to September 1991). After all that build, Moira gets remarkably little to do in the climax of the Muir Island Saga. X-Factor and the real X-Men finally make it to Muir Island, where Moira is now dressing as a chieftain and the islanders are engaging in gladiatorial combat. The arriving heroes defeat the Shadow King, without Moira having very much to do with it. The research centre is supposedly blown up, but it’s working pretty much as normal in the epilogue (where Moira is back to playing generic medical support, helping Charles to try and wake Legion from his coma).

Moira’s diary entry in Powers of X #6 about Professor X and Magneto recruiting Mr Sinister probably comes here. Her diary places it shortly before Magneto turns on them (which happens in the next story), and the flashback showing Sinister’s recruitment has Xavier in his 90s floating wheelchair.

And that concludes Chris Claremont’s run on Uncanny, though there’s still his farewell story in X-Men to go. Next time, Moira in the 90s.