{"id":4964,"date":"2020-01-25T20:53:06","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T20:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4964"},"modified":"2020-01-25T20:53:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-25T20:53:06","slug":"the-complete-moira-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4964","title":{"rendered":"The Complete Moira: Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For part 1, see here.<\/a> For part 2, see here.<\/a><\/em> For part 3, see here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Proteus arc over, Moira… well, drifts for a bit. This is the period where she becomes the X-Men’s scientist friend who pops up regularly to explain the plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #133<\/a> and #135<\/a> by Chris Claremont, John Byrne & Terry Austin (“The Dark Phoenix Saga”, May and July 1980).<\/strong> Moira reviews some scans of Phoenix and confirms that it’s all looking very bad. Beyond that, she doesn’t get involved. Surprisingly, she doesn’t seem to be at Phoenix’s funeral in issue #138.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #141<\/a> and Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #142<\/a> by Chris Claremont, John Byrne & Terry Austin (“Days of Futures Past”, January and February 1981).<\/strong> Moira and Charles Xavier testify before Robert Kelly’s senate committee on mutants. As you’d expect, Charles is keen to promote peace and tolerance, while Moira is mutteringly darkly about gas chambers – something that fits perfectly well with Hickman’s Moira. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What doesn’t fit quite so well is Moira’s reaction to the main plot. Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants shows up to try and assassinate Robert Kelly. They’re defeated by the X-Men, who are being steered by a time-travelling Kitty Pryde from the future (swapping minds with the teenage Kitty of the present day). On learning that Kitty is a time traveller, Moira tells Charles – privately – that “if time travel is possible, if as a result history is … mutable, we’ll have to redefine our concept of reality itself. We’ll never be completely sure what … is … from one moment to the next. That’s frightening!” Clearly, post-Hickman, Moira is herself a multiple time traveller, so this reaction no longer makes sense at face value. You can fudge it if you think it’s the first time she’s encountered another time traveller, or if she thinks that travelling during your lifetime is somehow more destabilising. Or at a push, maybe she’s putting on an act for the benefit of anyone might overhear. But it’s not ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story also features Destiny, who immediately points out that there’s something anomalous about Sprite, but says nothing about Moira (who she also perceives as an anomaly, according to House of X<\/em> #2). That’s easier to explain, since Destiny and Mystique already knew about Moira, they would have expected her to be there, and they probably hadn’t filled in their Brotherhood teammates about her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #146<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Joe Rubinstein (“Murderworld!”, June 1981).<\/strong> A makeshift stand-in X-Men team rescues a bunch of supporting characters from Arcade. Moira is just here to make up the numbers for the hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #148<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Joe Rubinstein (“Cry, Mutant!”, August 1981).<\/strong> This is the debut of Caliban, but it has a subplot where Sean Cassidy is introduced to his long-lost daughter Siryn (Theresa Rourke), who met the X-Men in Spider-Woman<\/em> vol 1 #38. Moira is conflicted – she’s happy for Sean, but worries that Theresa will be a rival for her affections. She’s specifically concerned that Theresa will represent the possibility of fatherhood, which Moira feels she can’t offer to Sean, because she isn’t willing to repeat the experience of Proteus. This is a slightly odd thing to worry about given Sean’s age, and the fact that Theresa already provides him with a daughter. As a specific concern, it never comes up again. But it establishes a theme that Moira is understandably anxious about anything that brings Proteus to mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Powers of X <\/a><\/em>#2<\/a> by Jonathan Hickman, RB Silva & Adriano di Benedetto (“We are Together Now, You and I”, October 2019)<\/strong>. Moira and Charles go to Island M to approach Magneto and offer an alliance. By showing him Moira’s memories, they persuade him to join in their plan. Later, Moira writes about this in her diary, as seen in Powers of X <\/strong><\/em>#6.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This scene is tricky to fit in. In the original stories, Magneto only uses Island M as a base for a very short window. He raises it from the ocean floor not long before Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #150. He flees the island at the end of that issue, and the X-Men seize it. Presumably Moira is expecting the island to appear, because it happened in a previous life. If so, Moira and Charles may be playing dumb in…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #150<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Joe Rubinstein & Bob Wiacek (“I, Magneto…”, October 1981).<\/strong> Moira and Charles join Carol Danvers and Peter Corbeau in searching for the missing Scott Summers, who has gone missing in a storm in the Bermuda Triangle. In fact, he’s been washed up at Magneto’s Island M. After the X-Men drive Magneto away from the island, Moira joins them there for a picnic. She doesn’t do much in the issue itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X-Men Annual<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #5<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Brent Anderson & Bob Wiacek (“Ou, La, La – Badoon!”, 1981).<\/strong> Moira appears briefly, to run some tests on the Invisible Woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #158<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Bob Wiacek (“The Life that Late I Led”, June 1982).<\/strong> Professor X is in a coma following a recent trip into space. He’s brought to Island M, currently serving as the X-Men’s temporary base, where Moira treats him. From here on, Claremont seems to treat Moira as a de facto medic. (She also has plenty of opportunity around this time to explore Island M, if that’s relevant to any upcoming stories.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moira suggests that the X-Men go and erase the US government’s records of them, which they duly do (without any further involvement from Moira). This bit fits rather well with Hickman: on his take, she normally influences events through her alliance with Charles, but with him out of commission, she starts steering the X-Men more directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #159<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Bill Sienkiewicz & Bob Wiacek (“Night Screams”, July 1982).<\/strong> The Dracula story. Moira appears in the epilogue, where she summons the X-Men back to Island M, reporting that Xavier has taken a turn for the worse. As it turns out, it’s false jeopardy, because there seems to be no real urgency about his condition in the next issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issue #160 is the story where little Illyana Rasputin is trapped in Limbo and returns as a teenager. Moira doesn’t appear, but we’re told that she examines Illyana on her return, and pronounces her healthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #161<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Bob Wiacek (“Gold Rush!”, September 1982)<\/strong>. <\/strong>Charles emerges from his coma (after a lengthy flashback which takes up most of the issue), and Moira is there to see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #163<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Bob Wiacek (“Rescue Mission”, November 1982).<\/strong> This is part of the Brood storyline. The X-Men are missing in space, and Professor X is in a deep depression (partly because he thinks he’s killed off another team, partly because he’s infected by the Brood). Moira, Havok, Polaris and Corsair help to supervise the reconstruction of the X-Men Mansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #165<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith & Bob Wiacek (“Transfigurations!”, January 1983).<\/strong> The X-Men are still off in space fighting the Brood, Charles is still brooding in his study, and since there isn’t much else going on, Moira, Illyana and Stevie Hunter are enjoying the Mansion’s swimming pool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed Richards writes, asking if Charles can help with new mutant Xi’an Coy Manh (who debuted in Marvel Team-Up<\/em> #100). Charles refuses out of hand, but Moira guilt trips him into it by threatening to either train Xi’an herself, or pass her to Magneto or Emma Frost. She tells Charles that her big mistake with Proteus was to try and deal with him alone, instead of coming to him for help. She might well be sincere about that, but she could just as easily be pushing Charles back on track by telling him what he wants (or needs) to hear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marvel Graphic Novel<\/a><\/em> #4<\/a> by Chris Claremont & Bob McLeod (“Renewal”, December 1982).<\/strong> This is the origin story of the New Mutants, if you don’t know. It is<\/em> on Marvel Unlimited, but it’s very hard to find, because it’s wrongly listed as “The New Mutants Marvel Graphic Novel” – and on top of that, it’s filed under “T” for “The”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Rahne Sinclair’s mutant power to turn into a wolf emerges, a lynch mob led by Reverend Craig pursues her onto Kinross land. Moira finds her, takes her in, and brings her to the X-Men Mansion. There, she helps Charles run tests on both Rahne and Xi’an, and keeps on pushing him to reopen the school. She also helps track down Roberto da Costa (Sunspot), before dropping out of the plot so that the New Mutants themselves can take centre stage. Charles duly re-opens the school to train the New Mutants, including Rahne (as “Wolfsbane”). New Mutants<\/em> vol 2 #11<\/strong> has a flashback which slightly expands on Moira taking Rahne in, but it doesn’t add anything important. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marvel Graphic Novel <\/em>#4 has several references which suggest that Moira’s father is still alive – as noted back in part one, that contradicts later flashbacks. But we never see him, so it doesn’t really matter. If he is indeed still alive, presumably he dies at some point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahne also mentions that Moira (somehow) manages to get appointed as her “guardian” even during the course of this story. That really doesn’t make much sense, unless there’s some serious manipulation of the courts going on, but run with it. At this stage, it’s merely a device to justify Rahne enrolling in Xavier’s school; the idea of Moira as Rahne’s adoptive mother won’t come alone for a while. In fact, having enlisted Rahne in the New Mutants, Moira flies straight back to the UK – accompanied not by Rahne, but by Illyana, who won’t join the New Mutants for a while yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Mutants<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #1<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Bob McLeod & Michael Gustovich<\/strong> (“Initiation”, March 1983).<\/strong> Moira and Illyana meet with Gabrielle Halller, who wants Moira to help with her autistic mutant son David Haller (Legion). Moira tries to steer Gabrielle towards Charles Xavier but is shocked when Gabrielle reveals that Charles is David’s father. This sits a little oddly with Powers of X<\/em> #6, which implies that Moira actively identified potential mates for both herself and Charles who might parent reality-altering mutants. Under Hickman, Moira probably has to be putting on an act for the benefit of Gabrielle and Illyana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Mutants<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #3<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Bob McLeod & Michael Gustovich (“Nightmare”, May 1983).<\/strong> Moira has an angry phone call with Charles, who by this point is heavily under the influence of the Brood, and is acting wildly out of character. Later, Moira and Sean discuss David. Moira is uncomfortable with saving Charles’s son, partly because they could have been parents themselves if their relationship had panned out, and partly because treating David reminds her of Proteus. This never really comes to fruition, but Claremont seems to be positioning Legion as Moira’s opportunity for a do-over with Proteus. In the event, though, we don’t get back to Legion’s storyline for another 23 issues!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #167<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith & Bob Wiacek (“The Goldilocks Syndrome! (Or, Who’s Been Sleeping in My Head?”, March 1983).<\/strong> The X-Men return and defeat the Brood. Moira helps Sikorsky (the Starjammers’ medic) to clone a new body for Xavier using alien technology, and then to transplant his mind into that body. Obviously, this is all massively useful experience for Moira in the Krakoan era – but she doesn’t have much to do in the issue itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After this, Moira seems to drop off Claremont’s radar for the next year or so, aside from a couple of cameos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #168<\/a> by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith & Bob Wiacek (“Professor Xavier is a Jerk!”, April 1983).<\/strong> If you look closely, Moira’s in the Danger Room control booth in one panel of a montage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #175<\/a> by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Paul Smith & Bob Wiacek (“Phoenix!”, November 1983).<\/strong> The wedding of Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor. Moira and Sean are among the guests. They seem very happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Mutants<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #22<\/a> by Chris Claremont & Bill Sienkiewicz (“The Shadow Within”, December 1984).<\/strong> Warlock showed up in the previous issue, so Moira and Charles examine him and discuss his unusual physiology. This is a tricky scene to square with House of X<\/em>, which gives Moira plenty of knowledge of techno-organic beings and the existential threat they pose to mutants. Moira should certainly be interested in examining Warlock, but she and Charles probably shouldn’t be quite this surprised by the basics. You can argue that they’re putting on a show for Warlock. Generally speaking, though, one of the issues with the Hickman retcon is that Moira has spent a fair amount of time hanging around with techno-organic characters and if she’s got a big issue about them, she hides it very well. We’ll come back to this when Moira joins the cast of Excalibur<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Mutants<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #23-24<\/a> by Chris Claremont & Bill Sienkiewicz (“Shadowman” \/ “The Hollow Heart”, January and February 1985).<\/strong> This is the storyline that guest stars Cloak & Dagger. Moira gets to talk down a crazed Sunspot. But for our purposes, the main point of interest is that Moira and Rahne are now talking as if they were in a mother\/child relationship – emotionally, and not just on paper. In practice, of course, there’s been no real opportunity for that relationship to develop, and very little on the page to support it beyond the fact that both characters insist that it exists. And this will remain the case – Moira and Rahne will spend very little time together, yet both will generally insist from this point on that they regard each other as mother and daughter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could certainly read this as a relationship that both characters really want to believe in for their own reasons. As we’ll see, writers have a range of takes on this relationship – some take it entirely at face value, some seem to be more sceptical. Claremont seems generally to believe in it, but gives Rahne some reasons to be insecure. Once again, it fits the model of giving Moira a second chance at parenthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Mutants<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #26-28<\/a> by Chris Claremont & Bill Sienkiewicz (“Legion”, “Into the Abyss” and “Soulwar”, April to June 1985).<\/strong> Moira has a prominent role in this story, but it’s not really about her. When David Haller’s unstable powers start causing psychic “explosions”, Moira calls in Professor X to help. He duly arrives on Muir Isle with half of the New Mutants in tow, including Rahne. Rahne is understandably worried that Moira isn’t actually that interested in her (particularly as Moira actually shows more interest in Sean at first), and also wants to talk about her conflicted feelings about her powers; Moira is reasonably maternal towards her here, though her protestations of love feel a bit over the top. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before all that can go any further, Moira and Wolfsbane are drawn into Legion’s mindscape, soon followed by Charles, Mirage, Cypher and Gabrielle Haller. Inside, they meet many of Legion’s alternate personalities and the permanently-absorbed persona of Jemail Karami, a reformed terrorist who is now trying to fix Legion’s mind. At the end of the story, David’s multiple personalities are supposedly reduced to four (his own, Jemail, and alternate personalities Jack and Cyndi), and he emerges from his coma. The end of the story is meant to tie in to a scene in Secret Wars II <\/em>#1<\/strong> (also featuring Moira) where Charles senses the Beyonder coming, but the two don’t actually fit together very neatly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X-Men Legacy<\/em> vol 2 #3 and #24 have very brief flashbacks of Legion being treated on Muir Isle, with Moira in the background. They’re cameos at most, and besides, they’re probably better understood as panels showing how Legion imagines<\/em> his parents treating him. (Basically, Legion imagines Charles abandoning him in order to go and do more important things. This is sort of true – once Legion falls into a coma in 1991, Charles does seem to forget about him. But it’s not really how things played out in the 80s, when Charles wound up leaving Earth shortly after this story, and didn’t return for several years, at which point he did in fact return to Muir Isle as a top priority.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At any rate, Legion will indeed remain on Muir Isle with Moira for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #199<\/a> by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr & Dan Green (“The Spiral Path”, November 1985).<\/strong> Moira drops by the Mansion to tell Cyclops and Wolverine about Charles’ terminal illness, as mentioned above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mirage & Wolfsbane story in <\/a>Marvel Comics Presents<\/a><\/em> vol 1 #22<\/a>, by Sue Flaxman, Rod Ramos & Jose Marzan Jr (“Suffer a Wolf to Live”, June 1989).<\/strong> Moira frets when Wolfsbane goes missing for a few days (to have an exciting adventure with magical wolf people). This is placed is way out of publication sequence, but it requires Rahne and Dani to be spending some time on Muir Isle for no obvious reason, so it might as well go in the aftermath of the Legion arc, when both characters were there. We can also shoehorn in X-Man<\/em> #12’s anecdote about Moira and Rahne having storytelling sessions on the cliffs of Muir Isle. This window after the Legion arc is one of the most plausible times for that sort of relationship-building to take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next time we’ll cover the remainder of the original Chris Claremont run – which is to say, the Shadow King storyline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For part 1, see here. For part 2, see here. For part 3, see here. With the Proteus arc over, Moira… well, drifts for a bit. This is the period where she becomes the X-Men’s scientist friend who pops up regularly to explain the plot. X-Men vol 1 #133 and #135 by Chris Claremont, John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moira"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4964"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5043,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964\/revisions\/5043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}