Inferno #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and the page numbers go by the digital edition.
INFERNO vol 2 #3
by Jonathan Hickman, R.B. Silva, Stefano Caselli, Valerio Schiti, Adriano di Benedetto & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1. Professor X and Magneto fight Nimrods. Or rather, just the one Nimrod, in his multiple bodies.
PAGE 2. Data page. Our opening quote comes from Omega Sentinel, and we’ll get to it on page 28. At this stage, the natural assumption is that she’s referring to one of Moira’s past lives, but that’s not the idea, as we’ll find out.
PAGES 3-5. Flashback: Professor X shows Cypher his plans.
We’ve seen this scene before, in Powers of X #4. Specifically, this is a repeat of page 19, which takes place after Cypher has already been introduced to Krakoa. The difference is that this time we get to see what Professor X showed Cypher. It seems to be the official vision of Krakoan society, rather than any of the secrets that the Professor learned from Moira.
PAGES 6-7. Flashback: Cypher and Warlock befriends Krakoa.
Warlock was, until “X of Swords”, quietly pretending to be part of Cypher’s arm. Presumably Professor X doesn’t pick up on that – though other stories have suggested that Professor X can’t read Warlock’s mind, but can detect it (it’s more like a book written in a foreign language).
“[W]hat happens if the island tries to eat me?” Krakoa was trying to consume mutants in its debut in Giant-Size X-Men #1. Cypher gives a weird explanation on page 7 that for the moment Krakoa and Warlock are feeding off each other (which doesn’t sound like it makes sense), but this story broadly confirms the explanation given in X-Men vol 5 #3, that with a large mutant population, Krakoa can feed off them unnoticed.
“Just like that time you died while I was in space having sex with a bird lady.” Cypher died in New Mutants vol 1 #60, at which point Xavier was off in the Shi’ar Empire with Lilandra Neramani.
PAGE 8. Flashback: The two deceased Stepford Cuckoos are revived.
This is the first resurrection, and takes place only a month after Cypher started work (despite his original estimate that he would need months). The two being revived are Sophie and Esme. The shadowy figures holding hands must be the Five.
The art strongly echoes the opening scene of House of X #1, though that’s a different resurrection
PAGE 9. Flashback: Cypher shows habitat and gateway flowers to Professor X and Magneto.
These are two of the three mutant-use flowers introduced in House of X #1, though the habitats don’t get mentioned as much as the gateways.
PAGE 10. Flashback: Cypher gives the human flowers to the Beast.
These are the three flowers for humans, also mentioned in House of X #1. The difference between them hasn’t come up much, but they’re called L (which extends human lifespan by five years, presumably if you keep taking it), I (which is a universal antibiotic) and M (which cures diseases of the mind). For some reason we’re told that they only work on humans, which has always sounded deeply suspect – why would an antibiotic not work on mutants? – and the fact that the Beast was involved in them makes them all the more dubious, considering his depiction in X-Force as an amoral nationalist schemer.
PAGE 11. Flashback: Cypher, Warlock and Krakoa discuss the No-Place flower.
This is the final flower that was mentioned in House of X #1, obviously intended to provide a hidden space within Krakoa. We know that Moira will live in one of these. What we discover here is that Cypher and Warlock are bugging the No-Place and know much, much more about the grand schemes than they let on. (Or is Professor X really unable to see this coming…? Remember, he’s not exactly been loyal to Moira’s plans.)
This flashback expressly takes place before House of X #1. The timescale given – “two months ago” – is probably best thought of as figurative. Trying to make Marvel timelines work in that sort of way is a sure route to madness, not least because of the sliding timeline. But for what it’s worth, two months really isn’t enough time to cover the Krakoan era. If you want nitpicky references, then X-Force #21 has a flashback set “months ago” which shows Kid Omega wearing the costume he got in issue #17, and Hellions says several times that a month passes between issues #11 and #16. But more to the point, XENO’s premise is that it was organised after Krakoa became known to the world, and two months just isn’t credible long enough for Krakoa to start selling drugs and getting rich. So it’s not just that it is too short, it feels too short, which is a bigger problem. There’s a reason why writers generally try to avoid being too specific about this stuff.
PAGE 12. Flashback: Cypher and Warlock watch Moira demanding Destiny’s death.
This is billed as “two days ago”. What Cypher is watching is page 35 of Inferno #1, which was interweaved with scenes of Mystique recovering everything she needed to bring about Destiny’s resurrection. Since those scenes were said to take place four weeks ago (in issue #2), this only works if the Mystique scenes are an unlabelled flashback, but I don’t see any obvious problem with that. Either that, or Cypher is watching a recording, and has perhaps only just got around to seeing this. Intriguingly, the core of Krakoa appears to be heavily techno-organic here, and of course a big part of the point of coming to Krakoa was to avoid machines and conventional technoloogy because of the fear of the rise of Nimrod.
PAGE 13. Recap and credits.
PAGES 14-15. Mystique and Destiny meet the Cuckoos.
“Who are these delightful creatures?” Destiny died long before the Cuckoos debuted (or did anything likely to register on her visions of the future).
“A naturally occurring mutant circuit.” Mystique casts the Stepford Cuckoos (or just “Cuckoos”, apparently) as the first example of Krakoa’s great vision of mutant synergy – five individuals acting as one. One of the Cuckoos responds quite firmly that they are a single person in five bodies, and have tried individuality and rejected it. In fact, during the Krakoan era we’ve seen two of the Cuckoos form individual relationships – Esme with Cable in his own book and Phoebe with Quentin Quire in X-Force. Cable has gone back to the future, and Phoebe was pressured into breaking up with Quentin in X-Force #24. With hindsight, perhaps that was due to the Cuckoos closing ranks in response to Esme getting hurt by Cable.
Different writers have wavered back and forth as to how much individuality the Cuckoos have; Hickman’s line seems pretty clearly to be that they are five individuals but at times they deny their individuality and disappear into a collective identity.
“Why does one of you wear black?” The Cuckoos have generally stuck to wearing four white uniforms and one black one throughout the Krakoan era; this is the first time anyone has asked them why. The explanation given seems to be simply that it makes them less eerie.
“Changed forever … in Otherworld…” Destiny seems to be predicting that one of the Cuckoos will die in Otherworld and, as shown in “X of Swords”, be resurrected in a completely new incarnation of themselves, rather than being restored to their previous selves.
PAGES 16-20. Mystique and Destiny meet Emma.
The other “eventful” feature of Emma’s last 24 hours is presumably something to do with the box that Mystique gave her issue, to buy her vote for Destiny’s seat on the Quiet Council.
Emma promptly tells Mystique and Destiny what she learned from Professor X last issue. She then shows Mystique and Destiny how they killed Moira in her second life. This apparently makes Destiny aware of Moira for the first time – in which case, Destiny was lying in issue #2 when she claimed that in all Moira’s future lives, she (Destiny) would already be there and aware of her.
Emma states explicitly the logical implication of Moira’s power: every time she dies, the entire timeline is obliterated. Emma also suggests that this can in some way be stopped. Way back in House of X, we were told that Moira could die permanently if she was killed in childhood, before her mutant powers emerged. Presumably, the same would apply if she were to have her powers removed now, in adulthood.
It’s not obvious that Emma is necessarily right in interpreting Moira’s powers this way. After all, time travel exists, and we know the Marvel Universe does have a far future. Another way of looking at it may be that every time Moira dies, a DC-style Crisis takes place, and a fresh continuity begins – but each continuity still plays out all the way to the end of time. After all, in a world with time travel, how could it not? Karima’s story later in this issue also expressly assumes that time carries on to the end of the universe – though we’ve seen in Powers of X that it’s at least possible for Moira to live that long. At any rate, despite all this, Xavier also assumes later on that if Moira had died, they simply wouldn’t be there any more.
Page 20 seems to be intended to echo the conversations between Professor X and Moira in House of X #2.
PAGES 21-22. Moira is captured by Orchis.
This is the same Orchis cell that Mystique apparently covered up the reports of, last issue. Essentially, Mystique and Destiny have located Moira and sold her out to Orchis.
PAGES 23-27. Professor X and Magneto talk.
The fact that Xavier picks up Moira’s thoughts here seems to confirm that it’s definitely her in the previous scene.
Xavier and Magneto seem to be discussing whether this is an endless cycle, possibly due to Moira’s powers inevitably resetting everything. They’re also more than a little concerned that if the mutants do win this time round, they’ll simply become the villains themselves.
Apparently, Emma wasn’t shown an accurate version of Moira’s memories last issue, and she was told that the mutants always win. So far as Moira is concerned, the truth is the opposite.
PAGES 28-30. Omega Sentinel and Nimrod.
Nimrod challenges Omega Sentinel on where she came from. This scene (and those that follow) finally explain what Karima is doing with Orchis. She has been sent back in time from an alternate future where the mutants were dominant – presumably, the one where Magneto and Professor X did indeed win, and the mutants may have failed to behave as mercifully as Xavier hopes (though she’s vague about details). Karima has been sent back in time, possessing the body of her younger self, to change this. This is, of course, the plot of “Days of Future Past”, with the mutant and Sentinel roles reversed, and Karima taking the role of Kitty Pryde. It continues the theme of Orchis being a parallel version of the X-Men.
PAGES 31-35. Omega Sentinel’s future.
The Children of the Vault were set up as a major threat in Hickman’s X-Men, precisely because they were posthumans capable of transcending mutant evolution. The five characters seen in page 31 panel 1 are, left to right, Aguja, Perro, Serafina, Fuego and Sangre.
According to Karima, they wind up getting beaten. She says they “fall to Krakoa”, but the art actually shows them being defeated by Apocalypse, Genesis and the original Horsemen of Apocalypse, none of whom are actually Krakoan right now. So either they come back to help deal with the Children of the Vault, or Karima’s account is unreliable. She specifically says later on that she was sent back in time by a “trickster Titan” which has the power to interfere with minds, which might well suggest she isn’t to be trusted.
Karima then gives an account of Nimrod being created in the future, and sent back in time to “fight mutantdom in its infancy”. This seems to allude to the original Nimrod coming back in time in pursuit of Rachel Summers in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #191, but he was from the Days of Future Past timeline, and this appears to be a different Nimrod.
Dominions – cosmic machine collective consciousnesses – were mentioned at length in Powers of X as the end point of posthumanity. Karima portrays them as the great hope of machine life, being extinguished by mutants using the Phoenix power. The “Phoenix blade” which Karima mentions is apparently meant to be the Rook’shir blade from Ed Brubaker’s Uncanny X-Men run, as wielded by Korvus, which is namechecked directly on the upcoming data pages. The art shows something more like a spear, though.
Karima also claims that she removed Killian Devo’s eyes and gave him the artificial ones that he has now – he now has false memories of having been to her future, which is what motivates him to join Orchis. There’s a strong suggestion that Devo isn’t really all that bad; he’s been manipulated. Karima downloading her memories of an alternate future into Devo seems to parallel Moira doing something similar with Xavier in House of X #2.
PAGES 36-38. Data pages – a timeline showing the “original” Moira Life 10 timeline, where Karima originated, and then the divergent timeline which has been created by Karima travelling back in time.
Most of this is just spelling out things that are already in the narrative. The first few entries in the timeline relate to Karima’s transformation into an Omega Sentinel, and feature the same steps that were listed on a data page in House of X #3. It’s worth noting, though, that the original page lists an eighth stage – “Omega – total machine state” – which is missing from Karima’s list. She has reached stage 7, “Adaptation – total integration of host and machine.” However, the Omega symbol with the numbers around it, on page 36, also comes from that data page, and it does feature a number 8 here.
PAGES 39-45. Professor X and Magneto are lured into a trap.
Apparently, Moira’s arm was cut off in order to create a suitably strong psychic signal that lures Professor X and Magneto into the trap. Since they can’t reveal her involvement, they’re forced to go it alone, and are therefore vulnerable to Nimrod. But hey, it’s still two omega mutants – we’ll see how they do next issue!
PAGE 46. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: MYSTIQUE.
Hickman won me back with this issue after the lacklustre second issue.
Hey! Some of my guesses were correct.
I figured out the Sinister Secret referred to Warlock and not Krakoa.
Well, I’m giving myself a point for Omega Sentinel. I thought she was from life nine and not the future. I think Hickman’s original plan was that she was from the sixth life, but he made the change when he had to redo his storyline. Who knows?
It was nice to see the Phalanx and Dominions involved again. I knew Hickman would return to that plot thread.
This is bleak.
I was thinking that humans and mutants would find a common cause in fighting either the machines or post-humanity.
That did indeed, happen.
Then, the humans and mutants went to war…
Who is the reader meant to see as the good guys here? There really aren’t any.
I don’t want to support any of these sides.
Actually, Destiny’s promise to Moira was that she would be aware if Moira ever attempted to betray mutantkind again.
We see from Omega Sentinel’s future that Moira did not betray the mutants.
Therefore, Destiny apparently has no reason to “see” Moira unless Moira broke her promise.
So, Destiny wasn’t necessarily lying to Moira in life three.
God, Hickman is still awful at creating any kind of mythology that’s actually compelling, isn’t he. What’s all this about a “trickster Titan” now? And when did this become about machine supremacy? Every other timeline either posited human/machine joint rule or posthumanity. And what exactly is so different about Life 10 that mutants won? It can’t just be that all of mutantkind is on Krakoa, that was the case in Life 9 too
I’m enjoying this too – it doesn’t really have the impact of HoXPoX, but it still manages an epic feel and a sense that unexpected things are going to happen…
Krakoa’s first speech bubble says “Tastes bad but better than starving.” The second says “Gibberish. I believe. Do you believe? Iberith.” 🙂
Oh, I am pretty sure the timeline of Omega’s future shows Apocalypse returning to help Krakoa defeat the Children of the Vault.
So, I don’t see any reason to believe Karima’s memories as untrustworthy.
I don’t know why the Titan is described as a “trickster” though, other than leftover pages from Hickman’s Eternals synopsis, perhaps?
Diana-It was always about machine supremacy.
Look at life six, when Nimrod confronts the post-humans about the Phalanx.
Nimrod says: “How does it feel to know they want us and not you?”
The Librarian goes to Moira and shares his doubts, saying that the Machines are going to win in the end, and does Moira offer any alternative.
Look at life nine. The humans are slaves to the machines, being augmented as post-humans whether they like it or not.
Nimrod rules. Humans worship the Machines.
Moira says that the mutants rescue some of the remaining humans to fight on their side, but it fails.
What is different about this life?
Moira learned lessons from her prior nine lives and finally got it right.
Look at life nine again. Krakoa was about to win the war until Sinister sabotaged the cloning process and the tainted Chimeras decided to destroy Krakoa.
Hence, Moira’s distaste for Sinister.
Almost certainly the Apocalypse thing is meant to be foreshadowing a future storyline (who knows if Hickman will ever write it), but it’s at least possible that in Karima’s original timeline X of Swords played out differently and he never left Krakoa.
This is finally getting interesting, with one issue to go.
I think they had said Moira’s tracker was in her arm, but I may be misremembering.
Yeah giving Beast those flowers is the stuff of nightmares.
Mutants win and become the baddies. Typical!
I thought the Child of the Sun with the Phoenix spear was Sunspot, because Hickman loves him and Deathbird seems to be there.
But I guess Deathbird and Vulcan had a baby?
This was a very good issue. I’m still going to nitpick.
After the reveal of Colossus at the end of issue 2, he’s not in this one at all. That’s odd. I’m not sad, because who cares about Colossus, but it’s a weird thing to set up and not use. Just vote him onto the Council in X-Force if he’s only relevant over there.
After all of the time we’ve spent seeing Mystique get screwed over by Chuck and Erik, it was anticlimactic to see her learn about Moira simply via Emma telling her, rather than by her own efforts. On the other hand, great scene, Hickman writes a good Emma. And it is another way in which the Great Men are direct architects of their own downfall, which is obviously classic Hickman.
The reveal of Omega Sentinel’s deal was excellent, not going to nitpick that. I think it shows that Moira and Karima are both making false assumptions based off very limited sample sizes. “We always lose?” You’ve only tried half a dozen times. Call yourself a scientist.
I think Xavier and Magneto were lured to Moira’s arm at the end via the tracking colony in her elbow, as established in issue 1. Not by psychic signal. So there is a question of how Mystique and Destiny know about it – presumably that was part of Emma’s “gift” to them, but then how does she know? Did Doug approach her?
I don’t think it’s that mutants win and become the baddies.
It’s that everyone involved is awful.
The Machines believe they should be the future and want to wipe out all mutants.
Post-humanity are the enemies of mutants and baseline humans.
The humans and mutants will always go to war for supremacy.
There’s no way for coexistence. It’s so freakin’ depression. Xavier’s dream was always a fool’s dream. It was always impossible.
I find it interesting that members of the X-Men now serving on the Quiet Council include Kate, Piotr, and Kurt–all three of whom were grievously injured and sidelined during the initial clash with the Marauders during the Mutant Massacre–which was of course sparked by Sinister.
Given the new prominence of the Marauders name, the focus on Greycrow in Hellions, and the resurrection of Massacre-era Morlocks (some of whom have shown a desire to get revenge on their murderers) is it a coincidence that these three X-Men in particular are now helping to run the country? I can’t believe that none of the writers haven’t made the same connection.
(Perhaps it’s also just a desire to uplift all of the “classic” i.e. Claremont-era X-Men, since Storm, Scott, Jean, Logan, Hank, are also in positions of power, while Rogue, Warren and Betsy are in key roles elsewhere…)
Speaking of the inevitability of war, what do we make of the conversation between Xavier and Magneto before they are interrupted?
“I don’t believe that.” “I think that used to be true.” I think Magneto is asserting there that they have swapped roles – Xavier is now the mutant nationalist hawk who perhaps doesn’t want a war but is prepared to fight one, while Magneto is tired of it all, and maybe wasn’t fibbing when he said in issue 1 that he was thinking of retiring. Which is a far cry from how energised he appeared to be way back in the first issue of Hickman’s X-Men.
Yeah Hickman has redefined the species war since HoXPoX.
The real battle is mutants vs machines.
Humans always lose. They exist only to bring about mutants and AI.
The best humanity can hope for is being a servitor species to one side or the other.
While I’m not a big fan of everything Hickman has done, it’s a pretty great twist in the X-Men narrative.
Chris V- yeah all the sides are assholes. The only way the any side wins is if they all stop fighting.
It really isn’t a change from HOX/POX though.
We saw in life nine that humans were simply fodder for the mutant/machine war.
Nimrod was bioengineering humans in to post-humanity as soldiers in the war.
Plus, humanity was always going to lose and go extinct.
Their two choices were to be replaced naturally by mutants or take their evolution in to their own hands with the Elite of the species becoming post-human and replacing baseline humanity.
Even in that future, we saw that all roads lead to the Phalanx in the service of the Machine-gods. So, the machines were always destined to win in the end.
I worded it poorly.
I meant he changed the set up in HOXPOX, not since then.
Main thoughts before reading comments here:
Very glad to see things finally get going this issue.
I liked the reveal of how they came up with the disease curing plants…but not how Krakoa just coughed up building growers and interstellar teleporters as well.
Timelines confused me a little before I realised the first Nimrod attempt was ‘classic’ Nimrod. Trying to gauge where life 10A’s mutant/Children/human war came, it seems like late 80s or early 90s?
Original Nimrod would have come earlier than Orchis Nimrod if not for time-travelling Nimrod???
Why are the Children taking longer to emerge?
Strange to be feeling after this issue that it could have been a bigger series when the first 2 issues had so little story in them, but surely the Shi’ar blade and Titan stuff could’ve been the ‘Powers’ to Inferno’s ‘House’.
“But for what it’s worth, two months really isn’t enough time to cover the Krakoan era.”
Ha, yes. Let’s see what they’re trying to cram into those 2 months:
Dropping Mother Mold into the sun in HoXPoX.
Xavier being assassinated.
X-Force overthrowing a plant government.
Apocalypse creating the External gate and Summoner coming to Earth.
The Cotati invasion in Empyre and zombies on Genosha.
Doom’s own Sentinels in X-Men/FF.
X Of Swords.
King In Black.
Hellfire Gala and terraforming of Mars.
An Onslaught attack.
Sinister coming back from Amenth.
Old Cable replacing young Cable and taking part in Last Annihilation.
Those were some busy weeks!!!
I read speculation somewhere that the “trickster titan” is a future Warlock.
It certainly seems like Warlock could have a major role as this plays out. He’s an offshoot of the Phalanx/Dominion machine hierarchy, a “mutant” of his species because of his capacity for empathy, emotionally bonded to a mutant communicator and by extension to Krakoa itself. The Warlock/Cypher/Krakoa trio could be the ones who figure out how to resolve the mutant/machine conflict without mutual destruction.
That would be a great reveal.
I’m not sure how sending Omega Sentinel back to form an organization with the intent to wipe out all mutants is going to resolve the conflict.
Something needs to be done to make this story less dark.
Warlock may be something more than a Technarch. The Technarch were created (unknowingly) as a slave race to the Phalanx.
The Titans are Singularities who are the masters of the Phalanx.
Maybe it is Warlock and Krakoa merged together which evolves in to the “trickster” Titan.
Nbechard on Twitter suggested Warlock’s combining with Krakoa could be the reason Kate can’t use the gates. At this point I’d be fine if that was supposed to be the explanation, I wonder if they’ll talk about it.
re: Magneto retiring,
He’s not on the cover of Immortal X-Men; 11 of the Quiet Council are, joined by a personification of death. Magneto’s helmet in present, but not him.
And Gillen doesn’t list him along with the other QC members in his roll call.
Feels like we will revisit some variation of the 2006 storyline in New X-men that filled some of Nimrod’s origin and established that he had met Forge before going back in time to fight the X-Men in the Claremont/John Romita Jr run. There are at least two reasonable plot devices there for Nimrod to split between alternate timelines: M-Day and Forge’s meddling with his time travelling abilities.
But I find myself more interested in the very overt positioning of Karima as an opposite refletion of Moira. All three of them (Karima, Moira, Nimrod) have now been shown to have travelled back in time in attempts to nudge events of their past to their preference, and all of them are themselves evidence that their own allegiances are not nearly as cut and dried as they want to claim.
I stand even less certain about the actual parameters, nature and limitations of Moira’s power than I was before. For all I know, it may actually be a very specific and perhaps reverse form of Rachel’s ability to “chronoskim” that only works on herself, allowing her to peek into alternate realities without having actually lived through them. I certainly looks like that either her or Karima have to be mistaken about the true reach and nature of their perceptions and powers, or else simply lying.
I’m not sure why either Moira or Karima need to be lying.
Moira has lived through multiple lifetimes, resetting the timeline back to her birth each time she dies.
Moira lived in to the far future of life ten, seeing Krakoa succeed and mutants ascend as the dominant species.
Karima lived to this end-point in the timeline of life ten also. She was the last surviving being on Earth outside of mutants.
The trickster Titan, one of the remaining Titans (the “trickster”) after the mutants used the Phoenix to wipe out the Titans, Strongholds, and Dominions sent Karima through a black hole so she could travel back in time to the 21st century of life ten in order to change the timeline of life ten.
Moira was still alive through all of this, so nothing contradicts her power.
@Paul, I think you said that Destiny killed Moira in her second life, but it was her third (2nd was dying in a plane IIRC).
The Omega symbol surrounding the Dominion symbol in the data page was great.
The data page lists the first Nimrod as “hero/matrix” so I’m inclined to think it’s 1980s-era Nimrod, but not sure how that fits with DoFP. Didn’t Nimrod also appear in X-Force #35 in the 90s?
The parallels between Orchis and Krakoa are a little too pat; it makes me wonder who _their_ Mystique is.
CJ-Yes. The X-Force story was a pretty blatant rip-off of Terminator 2.
X-Force discover that the US military is building a sentient robot with the purpose of hunting mutants at a certain facility.
When X-Force break in to the lab, they discover a data chip from the Days of Future Past-Nimrod left behind in our time was discovered by the US government and has been used to build a Nimrod.
X-Force tells Nimrod’s creator that a Nimrod shouldn’t exist yet, and she grows concerned at the use the US government will put her creation.
Cable takes Nimrod’s creator to the psychic plane where they make contact with the Nimrod AI.
The scientist confronts Nimrod with the possibility of how many civilians could be killed in a mutant war with Nimrod if the Nimrod existed decades ahead of time.
The Nimrod realizes this and deactivates itself, saying it will wait until the appointed time when it is meant to come online.
The military decide to dismantle the machine and the scientist hands the Days of Future Past-Nimrod’s data chip to Cable.
I’m assuming that Hickman wants us to ignore this story.
Interesting that Moira an Karima both show/tell about their futures, it isn’t just played out directly for us to see. A lot of scope for unreliable narrators there.
Hey, what if Moira isn’t even a mutant? What if all the stuff about reliving her life is made up? She could be from the future too, and she’s part of the plan just like Orchis is. I mean, no, but wouldn’t it be fun?
Oh, and I foolishly thought the trickster Titan with mind control powers was Starfox. I didn’t stop to ask why he’d be in an X-Men comic.
I did think at one point that the reveal would be that Moira was still possessed by Shadow King from Claremont’s run.
She isn’t a mutant and everything she told Xavier was a lie to manipulate him.
It was all an elaborate plot by the Shadow King to get everyone on an island and take over their minds.
I didn’t think it seemed fun though, but rather my worst case scenario.
I think Hickman really missed out with Karima though. To really play up the similarities between her and Moira, I think this should have been Karima’s tenth trip back in time in order to attempt to change the future.
Now, that would have been fun.
Paul> This apparently makes Destiny aware of Moira for the first time – in which case, Destiny was lying in issue #2 when she claimed that in all Moira’s future lives, she (Destiny) would already be there and aware of her.
I don’t think Destiny was lying in House of X 2. The key argument Irene was making in House of X 2 / Inferno 1 is that since she was born decades before Moira, she is able to see the point of divergence in Moira’s timeline and all of the different lives Moira will live. If she sees Moira about to betray the mutants (according to whatever Destiny’s personal definition of betray is), she will come for her.
But then Destiny died (an engineered death?) during the Tenth Life. And then she was resurrected in Krakoa years later. Although the resurrected Destiny still has all the memories and personality of the Destiny who died, she was chronologically born 52 years into the Tenth Life of Moira X. She was born into a world where Moira had already been carrying out her machinations for decades. Remember that Destiny can only see the future (all the futures, in fact) but she cannot look in the past before her rebirth. She cannot see the point of timeline divergence (which was the activation of Moira’s powers during puberty) anymore so she is not aware of the divergence. She can only see the future of the current life, Life 10, but she’s having a bit of trouble seeing even that clearly (as she said to Mystique in Inferno 2) probably because Omega’s return from the future has caused all kinds of temporal chaos.
Remember the parallels – Nimrod is Alia’s husband Erasmus reborn, but not quite. Nimrod has lost something Erasmus Mendel once had before he died, his core personality. Similarly, Destiny is Mystique’s wife Irene Adler reborn, but not quite. She’s lost something she once had before she died, a clear perception of Moira’s branching futures.
This is also why the Libris Veritatus (The Books of Destiny) are so important. They contain Destiny’s prophecies from back when she was able to perceive all of Moira’s futures at once. Moira was studying the stolen diaries in order to decipher the future of Life 10 without having to face Destiny’s judgement.
Paul> According to Karima, they wind up getting beaten. She says they “fall to Krakoa”, but the art actually shows them being defeated by Apocalypse, Genesis and the original Horsemen of Apocalypse, none of whom are actually Krakoan right now. So either they come back to help deal with the Children of the Vault, or Karima’s account is unreliable.
Well, the thing is to keep in mind is that the timeline split did not happen when Omega Sentinel went back in time. Instead, the timeline split into Life 10 [A] and [B] when the flawed Nimrod was sent back in time (presumably the Nimrod that arrived in Uncanny X-Men 191). All the events after that (Decimation, Avengers vs X-Men, Inhumans vs X-Men, the Life 10 parts of HOX/POX, Dawn of X, X of Swords, Reign of X) happened in Life 10 [B]. We can speculate that a similar version of events went down in Life 10 [A] but we aren’t told for sure. Omega simply arrived in Life 10 [B] sometime between Uncanny X-Men 22 and House of X 1, years after it had already split off from Life 10 [A].
It’s entirely possible that in Life 10 [A], Krakoa was a venture attempted only by Apocalypse and his followers (+ maybe Moira). After all, humans and mutants worked together to fight the Children, which suggests that most mutants were still living with the humans at this point. When Amenth attacked, Apocalypse reconciled with his family and they stayed on Krakoa as conquerors.
In Life 10 [B], the arrival of the flawed Nimrod (leading to all the Bastion stuff) radicalised the mutants early and Moira, Professor X and Magneto started Krakoa instead, with Apocalypse joining them later. When Amenth attacked, Apocalypse reconciled with his family but this time he left with them back to Amenth to start a life of (relative) peace. It’s entirely possible he comes back to help fight the Children when they inevitably emerge, but that’s a storyline for the post-Hickman writers to decide upon.
Also, the Children that emerged in Life 10 [A] were a mixture of Level 1-3 Children (compare the art here to X-Men 19). We know that in Life 10 [B] the Children have got access to Darwin’s DNA and have decided to not emerge early and are currently upgrading to Level 4 (and beyond). So they won’t be as easy to defeat.
Paul> Apparently, Moira’s arm was cut off in order to create a suitably strong psychic signal that lures Professor X and Magneto into the trap. Since they can’t reveal her involvement, they’re forced to go it alone, and are therefore vulnerable to Nimrod. But hey, it’s still two omega mutants – we’ll see how they do next issue!
Like Skippy says above, Moira’s arm was cut off because the tracker was embedded in her elbow. There is a panel where you can see Magneto looking at the hologram of the tracking mechanism in his hand.
Also this is just a nit-pick, but Magneto is the only Omega mutant there. Jean and Quentin are the Omega telepaths – Xavier is just an Alpha telepath. But that doesn’t matter – since we know that they will both die (presumably at the hands of Nimrod) before being resurrected as shown in Inferno 1.
Regarding Magneto, he does seem to be saying throughout Inferno that he is getting tired of the whole thing. Perhaps like Jack says above, he will retire after his resurrection in Inferno 4. Although just because he’s not on the Quiet Council does not mean that he might not appear in Immortal X-Men.
CJ> The parallels between Orchis and Krakoa are a little too pat; it makes me wonder who _their_ Mystique is.
The ORCHIS version of Mystique is Alia Gregor.
To summarise the ORCHIS-Krakoa parallels:
ORCHIS :: KRAKOA
Locations:
The ORCHIS Forge :: Krakoa Pacific / Krakoa Atlantic
ORCHIS Nodes :: Krakoan Habitats
ORCHIS Translocators :: Krakoan Gateways
Sentinel City on Mercury / ORCHIS Watchtowers on Venus :: Arakko Terraformation of Mars
Personnel:
Omega Sentinel :: Moira X
Dr. Killian Devo :: Professor X / Magneto
Dr. Alia Gregor :: Mystique
Captain Erasmus Mendel (later reborn as Nimrod) :: Destiny (later resurrected as… Destiny)
There is also the recurring thread of Erasmus and Alia wanting to have a child – Hickman’s mentioned it a lot, even after Erasmus became Nimrod, for it to not go anywhere. Destiny and Mystique’s child is Nightcrawler, who is currently a mutant priest of some sort, leading a cultural revolution in Krakoa so I wonder if Nimrod and Alia do manage to get a child, they might become a post-human religious figure. Just a thought.
Magneto and Xavier are clearly shown in this issue to have switched ideological stances at least somewhat, yes. And a big part of that is Magneto voicing a willingness to retire.
But the use of that word may well be a bit of wishful thinking from Magneto’s part. He may distance himself from situations of portent and influence, but he can’t easily erase his own past and significance. Not by just invoking the idea of retirement, anyway.
As far back as of real world 1991 Fabian Cortez went through the trouble of creating a literal group of Acolytes for him to lead without even consulting Magneto himself. For better or worse, his reputation will often be decisive and bring events to him regardless of his actual preference.
@GN I think those parallels make sense…to a degree. You can say “Omega/Moira gave visions to Devo/Xavier and set a grand plan in motion.” But we’ve seen Omega serving in an advisor role to Nimrod a few times now, quite different from how Moira relates to Destiny to put it mildly.
As of this issue though, I have wondered if we’re supposed to have even more doubt about Moira’s testimony and powers. Destiny saw her futures in HoX #2; if Moira’s lying or has false memories, would Destiny see that? Is _Destiny_ lying?
It’s interesting that Mystique refers to the Cuckoos as “naturally occurring”, seeing how they’re nothing of the sort. Does Raven simply not know about their origin, or does Krakoa just not want to credit humans for creating the first mutant circuit?
Nonsensical theory time: At least some of the Krakoan flowers were created using corpses. What dead mutant had the power to create portals in doorways? Ariel. What was Kate Pryde’s first codename? Ariel. Kate can’t use the gateways because they were created from Ariel, and her ghost is jealous.
for why Kate can’t use
Love how much there is to chew on in all of this.
Slightly perturbed that Moira got herself caught so easily! Why does she take these casual walks in Paris. I know it’s lovely, but jeez. 🙂
My only niggle is how much weight is given to Omega Sentinel. Karima’s always been a thin character. It would have been nice if she’d been more developed prior to this. But that’s only minor.
And the other glaring absences are Rogue (for Mystique and Destiny) and Rachel (if we are going to have DOFP redux). But I’m sure we’ll get some exploration elsewhere.
Feel sad there’s only one more issue of this.
@MasterMahan: as far as the nonsensical theory, it’s been made clear in Wolverine’s book that there are likely a few of his corpses lying about, which could be a source of power for the healing flower. I hadn’t thought about tying each flower’s function to a specific dead mutant until I read your post.
I also thought the reference to Trickster Titan was about Warlock. I’m no expert on Warlock’s history, but I thought the technarcy considered him a traitor already and thought of him as a coward (mirroring Karima’s words when referring to the trickster titan).
Also, I don’t think Destiny was lying in life 2. In Inferno #2, Moira says something along the lines of “it won’t take her long to see me. She will be blind for a season.” I read this as saying that Destiny has the capacity to see Moira (or the Moira-shaped hole), but that it will take time for Destiny to find them after her resurrection, time for all those futures to get organized in Destiny’s consciousness. Further, Mystique’s description of Destiny’s first few days after resurrection highlights the confusion of a precog coming back into consciousness after so long (we haven’t seen such confusion illustrated in other resurrections).
Also, yeah, it seems like Rogue should be there, her absence (including in “Destiny of X” teasers) is maybe conspicuous? But who knows.
To be fair, Moira was taking a walk in a version of Paris with exactly zero other people in it, so I’m sure it seemed safe.
What’s been troubling is the mutants are feeding humanity with Technarch-contaminated drugs for months. Who knows how many of humans are Techno-organic creatures now? Also, Black Tom was mentioning about moving things under skin, and boy, he was not complaining. Also, since Xavier and Magneto asked Moira about making peace with machines, could they also be TO by now?
Regarding Destiny’s claim about Moira’s lives: I see 10 lives, maybe 11 if you make the right choice. I think the right choice was to resurrect Destiny, and Moira messed up that one real bad.
Child of the Sun, I think he is Sunspot. The figure looks like him, and we all know how Hickman likes Sunspot. Winged figure could be Deathbird.
Since they are all unreliable narrators, Karima could still be coming from Sixth Life. If she said truth to Nimrod, then she had to describe Moira’s secret as well. Dont know if Nimrod should know about that.
I think it was not ORCHIS that kidnapped Moira, I think Emma helped them with her “gifts”. There were only Raven and Destiny, rest of the men were just telephatic images, and I believe Emma also gave her mutant power supressor gun to them as well. Raven cut her arm off and then left in ORCHIS node to lure Xavier and Magneto to a trap.
The thing that’s always been confusing about Destiny’s line to Moira about an eleventh life is that if Moira needs an extra life, it means she has failed again.
Extra lives are not a prize for Moira.
So, technically, she wouldn’t want an eleventh life.
I wonder if this split in the timelines somehow counts as Moira’s tenth and eleventh lives?
It is basically her eleventh life she is living now.
However, I’m not sure how that has anything specifically to do with Moira.
She did not betray mutants. Krakoa did succeed in the tenth life’s original future.
So, Moira made the right choice. She did not betray mutants. That led to Moira getting an “eleventh life”, but why would she want it?
I’m pretty sure Emma gave Mystique and Destiny her mutant suppressing gun as well.
Moira is probably not a mutant now, which is why Mystique and Destiny would risk killing her.
Doesn’t Krakoa have the ability to resurrect Moira and as a mutant again though?
Xavier knew Moira was a mutant. Sinister might not, but Mystique and Destiny just cut off her arm.
They could resurrect Moira if Mystique and Destiny removed her power.
Destiny could not detect Moira, because she was not active herself, she was using Xavier and Magneto as proxies.
Regarding gates and habitats, remember Arakko has the same abilities as well. So I think it is an internal power.
I also dig the hypothesis about Warlock being the trickster Titan in the future. Karima said it has betrayed its own species to the mutants, so I believe finally mutants hunted this Titan as well, and it said a final f-you by sending Karima to the past. But 10A timeline still functional since Moira is not dead.
Chris V
We still do not know what are the ultimate goals of Moira and Destiny. So far, both acted both for their personal gains and mutantkind. Therefore, the right choice for whom and what? Moira did not want Destiny alive, so it is a wrong choice in terms of Destiny. But why? Is Destiny bad for mutantkind? Mutants win in 10th life, but Moira does not know that because she is still alive. But Moira is dead afraid that if the mutants learn about previous 9 lives, they would panic and lose. But what if they dont, and strenghten their resolve? It is the past actions and experiences affecting your future choices. That’s a psychological fact.
But maybe Moira has ulterior motives, maybe she is anti-mutant now, and she knows Destiny will fail her plans of betrayal and wants to destroy her. Therefore, makes the wrong choice by not resurrecting her.
“We can speculate that a similar version of events went down in Life 10 [A] but we aren’t told for sure”.
The timeline makes it pretty clear that isn’t so. The mutant/Children/human war had already happened quite some time before ‘now’ (so you’d need that war to have remarkably little impact on how events played out after it), and the Dominion War then happened, also earlier than ‘now’. It’s a VERY different series of events.
“It’s entirely possible that in Life 10 [A], Krakoa was a venture attempted only by Apocalypse and his followers (+ maybe Moira)” .
That can’t be the case. Moira meeting Charles and showing him her lives was well before the divergence in the timeline caused by Nimrod, so both 10A and 10B were Moira and Charles and Magneto, since his recruitment on Island I was also before the divergence.
I think everyone”s motives are playing out in a much more straightforward fashion than how they’re being speculated here. This issue confirmed that Moira IS trying to win for mutants. And I see no reason for Omega’s story to be any more complicated than it was spelled out this issue.
I agree with you, Dave.
Also, Hickman includes data pages to give the reader factual information. If Karima was lying, we wouldn’t have gotten the timeline included to validate her version of events and flesh out the alternate-future history.
He’s just telling the story in the most expedient way possible, hence we only hear the abbreviated version of events from Omega Sentinel.
It’s simply due to having only so many pages (although he certainly could have used the space more wisely, I’d argue).
Some people online speculated that we are getting snippets of stories that Hickman wanted to tell during his tenure on the books, but was unable due to the delay in advancing his own storyline and decision to leave early.
———————————
There’s also no reason to think that Krakoa was set up differently than it was in the current timeline, it just seems it was established earlier.
There’s no reason to speculate that most mutants were living off of Krakoa with the humans for the purposes of their alignment against the Children, nor the following war.
I expect it would be similar to a World War.
Krakoa had peace treaties with most nations on Earth, like in the current timeline.
The Children of the Vault emerge.
Humanity unites in a war against the Children joined by the Krakoans.
Apocalypse returns during the war to turn the tide and the human/mutant side is victorious.
Then, something occurs which sets the humans abs mutants against each other. The still-united humanity declares war on Krakoa (or vice-versa, I suppose), with the Krakoans once again proving victorious.
However, I don’t understand how Karima’s actions, vis-a-vis time travel, effected when Krakoa was established though.
Moira’s plans were hampered by the fact that Xavier still clung to his dream of coexistence and the fact that Magneto was arrogant, refusing to admit he needed help to bring about mutant ascendancy.
So, how does this change between timelines one and two?
EDIT:Nevermind, it was definitely humanity which turned on mutants, as I thought.
Humans built the Nimrod, which led to the split.
It’s not obvious that Emma is necessarily right in interpreting Moira’s powers this way. After all, time travel exists, and we know the Marvel Universe does have a far future. Another way of looking at it may be that every time Moira dies, a DC-style Crisis takes place, and a fresh continuity begins – but each continuity still plays out all the way to the end of time.
The way I’ve always interpreted a world that has time travellers from the future and cosmic retcon events, is that the future “exists” for the purposes of time travel, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re actually going to reach it. At the moment, the timeline exists to the end of time, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to continue to do so. When the timeline gets reset, that future just stops existing.
(I don’t defend this idea as actually making sense or anything, but when a theory is based on a foundation of “a world that has time travellers from the future and cosmic retcon events” there’s only so much sense it can be expected to make.)
It also occurs to me that this is a DC-ish concept, and in Marvel terms the default is more “literally everything is an alternate universe”, so it would make sense that Moira is just creating branching timelines in the same way as time-travellers do.
“The mutant/Children/human war had already happened quite some time before ‘now’ ”
This doesn’t appear to be the case, Omega says that ‘soon’ the Children of the Vault will emerge, meaning it hasn’t happened in 10[B] yet. It follows that the reason she knows when soon will be is because that’s when it happened in 10[A].
@Chris V: The thing that’s always been confusing about Destiny’s line to Moira about an eleventh life is that if Moira needs an extra life, it means she has failed again.
Extra lives are not a prize for Moira.
So, technically, she wouldn’t want an eleventh life.
Is that how it works? I realise I’m only getting a partial understanding from these posts, with the Panini reprints still slogging through literally all the opening arcs (we’ve just started New Mutants), but I thought Moira’s power will kick in when she dies regardless of what she has or hasn’t achieved; if she succeeds, it just means she knows that from now on she has to run it exactly the same way. Being told she had a limited number of lives didn’t indicate she was going to succeed within that time, but that for some reason her power was going to fail, so if she didn’t manage to do so, she was stuffed. ICBW.
I took it that the events Karima was referring to which she had come back in time to change had happened after this point in the current timeline also.
I thought that Karima knew when Krakoa would be established, so she came back to this time period in order to found Orchis, so they would be there to stop Krakoa’s ascendancy.
It would seem to make the most sense.
It would also do away with the problem as to why Moira’s creation of Krakoa would be delayed in the current timeline.
However, others seem to think that most of the events from Karima’s original timeline occurred before the current point of this timeline.
Daibhid-It can be read that way also.
There’s nothing that says that Moira is going to succeed.
She has either ten or maybe eleven lifetimes to accomplish her goal.
I figure she must have a contingency plan in place in order to ensure that she is going to become immortal when she does accomplish her goal, because otherwise, it doesn’t actually ensure immortality for mutants.
I might be mistaken about that.
She knows she doesn’t have an infinite number of lifetimes though. She doesn’t know exactly why. I don’t think her powers are going to burn out.
So, what if in life ten she accomplished her goal. She dies and has to restart it exactly as during life ten during life eleven, but she gets hit by a car at the age of seven.
Well, that’s it. She failed. Mutants won in life ten, but now mutants will just lose again and Moira is out of chances.
I just think she must have a way to ensure her immortality if she succeeds in a life. Hickman has never addressed this issue.
We know she found a way to indefinitely suspend her lifespan in life six with Logan though, so she must have some ideas on the subject.