History of X - Dive Deep into the History of Marvel's Merry Mutants!

The latest entry in my bimonthly X-Men column on Comics Bookcase is out this week! History of X looks at how modern continuity changes and revelations alter classic X-Men storylines. Check the new entry out here! In this entry, I focus on how the updates to X-Men ally Moira MacTaggart’s history change and recontextualize the early work of X-Men writer Chris Claremont. Check out an excerpt from the piece below and use the link above to read the whole piece on Comics Bookcase.

The death of Thunderbird and the death/rebirth of Jean Grey are shocking moments made all the more shocking when you apply Moira and Charles' advanced knowledge of potential events to them. In House of X #2, a data page tells the reader that if Moira plays a passive role in events, they will play out as they have in previous lives. On panel many events in Moira’s 4th life are shown to directly mirror events that take place in her 10th. With the knowledge that Moira and by extension Xavier have, it’s surprising that they don’t more actively try to prevent the suffering of fellow mutants. 

This perhaps is reductive, or an oversimplified view of how things play out. It’s unclear to what degree things can be changed, as Moira points out when she reveals to Charles that mutants “always lose” the war for survival. Some events may in fact be inevitable — it’s easy to imagine the Phoenix force entering Jean Grey’s life regardless of earthly intervention — but in some cases at least, it’s clear that Charles and Moira allow terrible, perhaps preventable, things to happen to the innocent in service of “the dream.”