Hi, I'm David Harth, and we're gonna talk about Powers Of X #3. If I'm honest, while it's a great comic, it doesn't have the big spoiler-y moments that really demand this week's column, but that doesn't mean there aren't a few things to unpack and talk about in greater detail. If you've my review of the issue (which is here, by the by), you'll see that I talked about one of the big moments in the comic in said reviews. I couldn't really help it since it's probably the biggest thing that makes the comic work so well.

Let's get into a little more detail, then, shall we?

So, we found that all the stuff we've seen so far in X-Men: Year One Hundred is from Moira X's ninth life. As I said in the review, this changes how readers look at this book and, by extension, House Of X. It adds a bit of uncertainty to the proceedings. Before this moment, we could say that what we were seeing was the Marvel Universe that we've always known, and in a way it still is. Moira, as far as we know, doesn't go to other universes after she dies. She just re-does her life in the 616 again.

Now, the question is, what are we seeing from her tenth life? The one that we've ostensibly been reading about for all of these years? Or have we been reading about her tenth life at all? There's a timeline for it, and the events line up with what we know. But that doesn't mean that's what we've seen for decades. Hickman already kicked the box over with his reveal of Moira's mutant powers, but this issue does it again and it may give an answer to something a lot of reader's have been wondering- how are so many people that we just watched die in Matthew Rosenberg's Uncanny X-Men run (a run which I've learned that most people don't think very highly of and I agree from a story standpoint, however, I will say I stand by my grades for it in my reviews because it was well done) alive in upcoming X-Men comics?

My initial theory was that Krakoa had something to do with the resurrection, but maybe, it's just Moira, changing things one more time. Her ninth life was the one where she teamed up with Apocalypse, which explains why the X-Men are basically servants of Apocalypse at this point, since Moira and Apocalypse killed Xavier, and the whole thing with the genetically engineered Chimera mutants fits in with Apocalypse's whole survival of the fittest view. The strange thing about this is why Apocalypse would allow her to take information back that will eliminate Nimrod and save mutants. If mutants couldn't survive on their own, then Apocalypse would see they aren't the fittest and be okay with them dying… or he could see Moira's power as the ultimate testament to his philosophy, proving that mutants can and should survive because of her.

This opens up a whole other can of worms for her tenth lifetime, though, since she basically abandons Apocalypse's teachings and goes right to Xavier for help. Granted, Apocalypse will be a player in the new X-Men books, but does anyone really see Apocalypse allowing himself to be second fiddle? Only if it fits his plans for the world. However, this whole thing brings me to another thought.

That thought being this- about why the mutants that died in Uncanny will be alive is because her tenth life isn't the one we'll be getting, but the one that Hickman writes the new books in will be her eleventh. And while we're here... Since Moira has been remaking the timeline over and over. What will the rest of the Marvel universe do if and when they figure it out? Will they be okay with it because she's trying to make the future better? Or will they feel manipulated and violated? This is a very valid question because if there's one thing that the heroes of the Marvel Universe love more than stopping evil, it's fighting each other.

And, honestly, in this case, we've learned that there were several times that Moira took the side of mutants like Magneto and Apocalypse and helped wipe out so many people. Moira isn't so innocent anymore. We always saw her as the intrepid scientist, but she's a killer when it comes right down to it. Maybe she's gotten to the point where she's manipulating everything for her own purposes, and those purposes aren't so good. There's really no way to say… yet. That could be one of Hickman's reveals.

There's so much that can happen in these two books, and half the fun is just speculating. Jonathan Hickman has shown that he's proficient at long-form storytelling and while we're definitely going to get a full story from these two stories, I doubt that will be the end of all of the story points that are brought up in these two series. I, for one, can't wait to see what comes next.

So, that's pretty much all the speculation I can squeeze out of the issue. It's probably not all of it, and none of it is probably even right, but that's one of the joys of Hickman's X-Men so far. Everything is so open-ended that it lends well to this type of theorizing. House Of X returns next week, so join me for my reviews and this little column. Will we get more answers? More questions?

Hopefully both.