Moira MacTaggert

Moira MacTaggert
Moira MacTaggert, as she appeared on the variant cover of House of X #1 (July 2019). Art by Mark Brooks.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	The Uncanny X-Men #96 (December 1975)
Created by	Chris Claremont (writer) Dave Cockrum (artist)
In-story information
Full name	Moira Kinross MacTaggert
Species	Human Human/Sentinel cyborg (formerly) Depowered human mutant (formerly)
Team affiliations	Muir Island X-Men Excalibur X-Men
Abilities	Limited reality-warping reincarnation powers Perfect memory Invisibility of her true nature to mutants and mutant detection devices and methods Genius-level intellect

Dr. Moira MacTaggert, more recently known as Moira X, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #96 (Dec. 1975) and was created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum. She works as a geneticist and is an expert in mutant affairs. She is most commonly in association with the X-Men and has been a member of the Muir Island X-Men team and Excalibur.

For the first 44 years of publication, Moira was traditionally depicted in comic books as a supporting character to the X-Men and a human love interest for central character Professor Xavier. In 2019, as part Marvel's House of X and Powers of X relaunch of X-Men comics by writer Jonathan Hickman, Moira's backstory was fundamentally changed, revealing she had been a mutant all along, with a rare power that let her redo her life every time she died. The story set the stage for a major status quo change for X-Men comics, including the formation of the mutant nation state of Krakoa. Later still, Moira betrays the mutant cause and becomes an antagonist to the X-Men.

Moira MacTaggert has appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand, portrayed by Olivia Williams, as well as X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Apocalypse, portrayed by Rose Byrne.

Publication history

Moira MacTaggert was created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, and first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #96 (December 1975). Moira was one of the major supporting characters in Claremont's Uncanny X-Men run. She worked as a geneticist and was an expert in mutant affairs. She was romantically involved with Professor X. She would eventually found a foundation center on Muir Island centered on mutant research.

Moira MacTaggert received an entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update '89 #4.

Grant Morrison wanted to use Moira on their run on New X-Men as the team scientist, but she was killed prior to the start of the series causing them to use Beast (Henry "Hank" McCoy) instead.

Moira was one of the feature characters in the 2011 two-issue limited series Chaos War: X-Men.

She is one of the main characters in House of X and Powers of X, written by Jonathan Hickman. House of X #2 retconned established continuity, revealing her to be a mutant with the ability to reincarnate within her own timeline; on her death, she is returned to the moment she is conceived with full knowledge of her previous lives. Her knowledge of potential futures, when divulged to Professor X and Magneto, leads to the formation of the nation-state of Krakoa and the new status quo for the X-Men books following House of X and Powers of X.

Fictional character biography

Early years

Born Moira Kinross to Scottish parents, Moira MacTaggert was one of the world's leading authorities on genetic mutation, earning her a Nobel Prize for her work. She was the longest running human associate of the X-Men and was Professor Charles Xavier's colleague, confidante, and also once his fiancée, having met and fallen in love with him while they were postgraduates at Oxford University. She ended their engagement for unknown reasons and returned to Scotland. She was married to her old flame, the late politician Joseph MacTaggert which caused delays with her former engagement to Xavier: Joe had proved to be an abusive husband; Moira separated from him after he beat her into a week long coma and, as it is implied, raped her, leaving her pregnant. She kept her son's existence a secret, and when Joe refused her a divorce, she allowed people to believe she was widowed.

She eventually created a Mutant Research Centre on Muir Island, off the coast of Scotland. Moira was forced to contain and imprison her son Kevin, later called Proteus, when he developed reality warping abilities and severe psychosis. One of Moira's goals was to understand human/mutant genetics, in order to cure her son.

First appearance from Uncanny X-Men #96.
Art by Dave Cockrum.

Moira's connection to the X-Men began long before the team formed. The silent partner in the founding of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and co-creator of Cerebro, Moira assisted Xavier in helping the young Jean Grey recover after the traumatic triggering of her mutant abilities.

Moira was a kind woman who took to helping humans and mutants alike. She rescued a young Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane) from an angry mob, and adopted the girl. She even attempted to treat Xavier's son, a mutant known as Legion who suffered from dissociative identity disorder. When a confused, traumatized Cable first arrived from the future, he washed up in Scotland unable to speak English, and it was Moira who stood up for him against an angry mob. Taking him back to Muir Island, he scanned her mind and learned English in the process, as well as the truth about her son, and promised to keep her secrets. She taught him literature and the customs of the time and introduced him to Xavier. They became close friends ever since, being the first kind person Cable met in the present timeline, her later death devastating him enough to leave the X-Men. When Magneto was reduced to infancy, he was entrusted to Moira's care on Muir Island, where she altered his genetic code in an attempt to keep him from reverting to villainy.

Involvement with the X-Men

Moira appeared at Xavier's call to act as "housekeeper" for the team while they were on missions (a position that required her to demonstrate her proficiency with an M16 rifle against a demon within hours of her arrival). Though each of the X-Men formed some sort of relationship with the "Widow" MacTaggert, Moira and Sean Cassidy (Banshee) hit it off immediately, forming an on-and-off relationship that would last for the remainder of her life. Proteus' escape and eventual destruction at the hands of Colossus and the X-Men left Moira in a position of ethical compromise again: though Banshee stopped her from cloning her son, she saved his genetic structure on disk to allow herself the future option of bringing him back.

After finding out that her foster daughter, Rahne, was a mutant, Moira was the catalyst for change. She talked a discouraged Xavier into opening his school to the next generation of New Mutants, with Rahne becoming an initial member. She was also an integral part of the support for the X-Men and the New Mutants, providing medical aid including cloning Xavier after the Brood attacks, transferring his mind into a new body and restoring his ability to walk after a Brood embryo nearly killed him.

Muir Islanders (Muir Island X-Men) on the cover of The Uncanny X-Men #254. Art by Jim Lee and Dan Green.

With the apparent death of the X-Men, Moira and Banshee formed an alternate team based from Muir, and carried on as the leader of the team without him when his duties with the X-Men called him away. Her behavior became unpredictable, her temper impressive, and her decisions harsh and unforgiving as she displayed behavior that made all who knew her suspicious. On Muir, she began to pit her charges against each other in an arena in merciless battles, supposedly allowing her the opportunity to study mutants in action.

Moira and her islanders were involved in the return of Proteus due to the influence of Advanced Idea Mechanics. This was a four-part story in 1991, that ran through that year's annuals for the New Warriors, X-Men, New Mutants, and X-Factor. The Shadow King, the corrupting entity behind the island, allowed the Islanders to act heroically in defense of innocent lives.

Eventually, the entire population of Muir Island was identified as being possessed by and mentally corrupted by Shadow King, pitting the Islanders against the combined forces of the X-Men and X-Factor before Xavier freed them from his control.

Moira confronted by Magneto in X-Men #2. Art by Jim Lee.

Moira's alteration of Magneto did not go unnoticed indefinitely. Enraged when he discovered Moira had tampered with his free will, Magneto took Moira captive and forced her to perform the procedure on half of the X-Men, turning them against their teammates. While Moira's alterations worked, it was revealed that, due to mutants' powers requiring their body chemistry to operate in a specific manner, use of a mutant's powers would cause them to automatically resist the 'programming' and reverse the effects of the procedure, so anything Magneto had done was of his own free will. While hostage on Asteroid M, Moira witnessed Fabian Cortez draining Magneto of his powers and manipulating him into placing him as his right hand. Though Cortez fled, it was an observation that would eventually put Moira back in the hands of the Acolytes. Back on Earth, Moira was unable to accept her betrayal of her surrogate family and her own infallibility, and fled the X-Mansion, with Banshee in pursuit.

Excalibur and the Legacy Virus

When a mysterious virus began attacking the genetically engineered mutate population of Genosha, Moira volunteered her services as a geneticist and was forced to watch as the former slaves were decimated by disease. Returning to the X-Mansion, Moira found Illyana Rasputin suffering from the same illness, later identified as the Legacy Virus. Moving back to Muir Island after the girl's death, Moira became the key figure in working for a cure to the disease (during this time, she also worked on curing Wolfsbane's artificial bond with Havok).

The European superhero team Excalibur took up residence on Muir Island after assisting Moira. She had been attacked by agents of Mister Sinister who was seeking the genetic information on her son. Moira became an official member of the group, acting as their medic, team mother, and morale officer. An information leak revealed her to be the only human infected by the Legacy Virus—a bizarre turn of events possibly caused by her long exposure to the infected on Genosha, her autopsy of Illyana, or some susceptibility because she gave birth to a mutant. Despite these events, she maintained a strong outlook on life, helping to maintain discipline, reduce tension, and increase the team's effectiveness throughout Europe. She convinced the team to stay behind when Onslaught emerged, telling them they might be needed if other heroes fell.

Conferring with the X-Men's Beast did not result in appreciable progress. Locking herself in quarantine in a final attempt to cure the virus without endangering any of her teammates, Moira found her attempts foiled by her foster daughter, Wolfsbane, and Douglock. Wolfsbane originally leapt through the closing doors of the laboratory as the quarantine took effect. She soon found herself a willing assistant to her foster mother's work. Douglock later caused much unintentional damage, his judgement clouded by personal feelings for Wolfsbane. Moira takes time off from her research to attend the bachelorette party and the wedding for her friends Meggan and Brian Braddock.

Final moments in X-Men vol. 2 #108.
Art by Leinil Francis Yu

Moira did eventually find a cure for the disease, when the terrorist Mystique manipulated her research to force the virus to target only humans. Mystique, partly assisted by Sabretooth, then destroyed Muir Island, de-powered Wolfsbane with the power nullifier once developed by Forge, and brutally injured Moira. Bishop, Wolverine, and Rogue attempted to save Moira's life. Despite Rogue's powers temporarily granting her medical knowledge, she was unable to do so. Moira clung to life long enough to mentally transfer the information to Xavier in one final embrace between the former lovers. Xavier nearly went with her into death, but Jean Grey and Cable intervened on the astral plane, talking him down. She appeared to have died in the X-Men's jet, far above the Atlantic Ocean, and was later buried in Scotland. A psychic representation of Moira was seen as an active portion of Xavier's consciousness as he worked on rebuilding Genosha though "she" claimed she was just a manifestation of his imaginations.

Moira is next seen in the afterlife, in which she, Mockingbird, Gwen Stacy, and Dead Girl assist Doctor Strange in battling a being known as the Pitiful One. Moira finds herself more interested in the book club she formed with Mockingbird and Gwen Stacy than in battling evil.

X-Men: Deadly Genesis

After the events of M-Day and upon the reawakening of Vulcan, significant portions of Moira's history with Xavier and the original X-Men are called into light. During the early years of Xavier's Academy, Moira founded and ran a secondary facility not far from the Xavier School, in which she had her own students—youths whom she took out of bad situations and adopted as her wards, training them in their abilities without the highly militant regimen of Charles' X-Men.

When Krakoa captured the original X-Men, it was Moira's students whom Charles went to first—not the second team of Wolverine, Storm, Banshee, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Thunderbird and Sunfire as it was originally believed—putting them through the psionic equivalent of boot camp and allowing them to believe they were being trained over months as X-Men. Charles took them from Moira's care immediately.

Moira's students—Vulcan (Gabriel Summers, the lost brother of X-Men Cyclops and Havok), Petra, Darwin, and Sway—were apparently all killed, and Xavier suppressed even the memory of them from his own students to keep them from going back to save them. Only Moira's project tapes—one made directly after the event before Xavier could suppress the memories—and an abandoned research center remain as clues.

Chaos War

During the "Chaos War" storyline, Moira MacTaggert is brought back from the afterlife, alongside the fallen X-Men members John Proudstar, Banshee, three Madrox dupes, and Sophie and Esme Cuckoo, after what happened to the death realms. After escaping from the Apache god Carrion Crow, the group discovers that Moira has been possessed by Destiny's ghost.

House of X

In 2019's House of X, it is revealed that Moira is actually a mutant with the power of reincarnation, starting her life again in the womb after each death, possessing full memories of her prior lives. She is also revealed to be alive, having replaced herself with a Shi'ar golem that went on to die at the hands of the Brotherhood. It can be assumed that the golem contracted the Legacy Virus, was seen in the afterlife following her death, and brought back to life during the Chaos War. Moira is revealed to be living her tenth life.

Powers and abilities

Moira is a mutant who can reincarnate, which allows her to manipulate the course of history by changing her own actions and thereby affecting people and circumstances that result from her presence. Her lifetimes have armed her with significant experience, including expertise in the fields of anthropology and genetics, firearms mastery, and leading various mutant survival movements until their eventual downfall.

Telepathic intrusions on her mind will only see the memories of her current lifetime, however, telepaths can see all her lives' memories as long as she allows it.

Reception

• In 2014, Entertainment Weekly ranked Moira MacTaggert 61st in their "Let's rank every X-Man ever" list.

Other versions

Age of Apocalypse

In the 1995-1996 "Age of Apocalypse" storyline, Moira is married to Bolivar Trask and head of the London-based Human High Council. As resistance to Apocalypse's reign, Moira and her husband designed the Sentinels and armed the human resistance with an impressive weapons array. Their main focus was a plan to destroy Apocalypse's forces in their North American positions, even though this would mean the deaths of many innocent civilians that had not yet escaped the country. The tyrant however, backfires by activating his Sea Walls, slaughtering the council and those within the Sea Walls’ reach.

Cross-Time Caper

Reichsminister of Genetics Moira MacTaggert, who hails from a reality in which Earth is dominated by Nazis, is featured in Excalibur #10 and 11 when she is brought into Earth-616 by the actions of a confused Widget. Making the trip with her is her personal bodyguard, a Nazi Callisto and Moira's personal train, powered by an alternate Lockheed. It was also hinted that this Moira was behind the Super Team Lightning Force (a Nazi version of Excalibur). Moira's violent actions ultimately result in Excalibur team being sent on a long and arduous cross-dimensional trip.

House of M

In the House of M reality, Moira MacTaggert was declared a criminal for attempting to cure her son Kevin of the mutant gene and his psychosis. King Magneto's mutant supremacy saw this as an act against mutantkind, and Sentinels were dispatched to destroy Muir Island and capture Moira. Though Moira escaped, Kevin was also freed, sending him on a gruesome killing spree that was attributed to Moira as failed experiments, as she chases him across the globe. When the reality-hopping Exiles caught Proteus's attention, Moira emerged from hiding to warn them about her son, who was intrigued by their presence and desired to ruin the realities they attempted to fix. When he attacks the team, Moira shot him, exposing him to the metal that was his deadly allergy and only weakness, forcing him to find a new body. Unsurprisingly, he chose to possess his mother, and rather than allow her son to possess her and use her against them, Moira commits suicide.

New Exiles

On the world of the Sons of Iron and Daughters of the Dragon, the New Exiles face a squad of alternate 'core X-Men' who are loyal to Lilandra. These X-Men include an alternate version of Moira MacTaggert who is not married on this world or is going by her maiden name, Kinross. Moira's codename is Hypernova and her powers are energy blasts. It is not known whether she is a mutant on this world or has gained powers through another method.

Ultimate Marvel

In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Moira MacTaggert is the ex-wife of Charles Xavier, and their son David MacTaggert is Proteus. This version of Moira needs two crutches in order to move around. Moira runs a school/hospital for sick mutants, and assists in the Xavier Institute from behind the scenes. She does this even though Charles left her to join Magneto's dream of a mutant society, abandoning her to raise their mentally ill child on her own. When Proteus escapes and begins body hopping, Moira calls in the X-Men for assistance. After murdering hundreds, Proteus is seemingly crushed to death under a car.

Later, the X-Men learn that Moira has been funding her hospital by producing and selling "Banshee", a lethal and addictive Mutant Growth Hormone which amplifies mutant powers, made from the genetic material of Wolverine. When Wolverine attempts to destroy her Banshee supply, Moira attacks him with the previously unknown mutant ability to emit a deafening sonic cry. Wolverine quickly defeats Moira and leaves her to die in the exploding hospital, but she is later shown to have somehow survived when Quicksilver finds her emerging from the smoldering ruins. Her ensuing conversation with him implies that she is now in league with Quicksilver.

In other media

Television

• Moira MacTaggert appears in X-Men: The Animated Series, voiced by Lally Cadeau. This version is the girlfriend of Banshee, an old lover of Charles Xavier's, and mother of Kevin.
  • Moira appears in X-Men '97, voiced by Martha Marion. As of this series, she and Banshee have become engaged and joined Genosha's ruling council before they are killed by Sentinels.
• A character partially based on Moira MacTaggert named Yui Sasaki appears in Marvel Anime: X-Men, voiced by Yoshiko Sakakibara in the Japanese version and by Gwendoline Yeo in the English version. Similarly to MacTaggert, Yui is a geneticist and owner of the Sasaki Institute who was previously in a relationship with Charles Xavier.

Film

• Moira MacTaggert appears in X-Men: The Last Stand, portrayed by Olivia Williams. This version is a nurse and an old colleague of Charles Xavier's. In the post-credits scene, she attends to a brain-dead patient that Xavier sends his mind to.
• A young Moira MacTaggert appears in X-Men: First Class, portrayed by Rose Byrne. This version is an American CIA agent. While investigating the Hellfire Club's activities in the 1960s, she discovers their mutant abilities and seeks out Xavier's help. She later becomes a liaison to his fledgling X-Men while they work to stop the Hellfire Club from using the Cuban Missile Crisis to cause World War III, though she inadvertently contributes to Xavier becoming paraplegic while trying to stop rogue member Magneto. Following the mission, Xavier erases her memory of them to keep his newly founded school for mutants secret and protect her from the CIA's retribution.
• Moira MacTaggert appears in X-Men: Apocalypse, portrayed again by Rose Byrne. Having maintained her interest in mutant activity through to the 1980s, she investigates a cult in Egypt that was formed upon the existence of mutants being revealed to the public, only to inadvertently reawaken Apocalypse. Upon learning of this and partially because he missed her, Xavier invites her to the X-Mansion, during which she reveals she had a son via an unnamed father, whom she later divorced. Following an attack by Apocalypse and his Horsemen, MacTaggert joins the X-Men in foiling his plans, serving as their pilot. Once Apocalypse is defeated, Xavier restores her memories and enters a relationship with her.

Video games

• Moira MacTaggert appears in X-Men Legends, voiced by Michelle Arthur.
• Moira MacTaggert appears in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, voiced by Jane Carr.
• Moira MacTaggert appears in Marvel Heroes, voiced by Tara Strong.

Miscellaneous

• Moira MacTaggert appears in the novelization for X-Men: The Last Stand, which depicts an alternate ending that sees her join Magneto for a game of chess.
• Moira MacTaggert appears in The Legacy Quest novel trilogy, by Steve Lyons. Exploiting her guilt, Sebastian Shaw forces her to help him find a cure for the Legacy Virus.
• Moira MacTaggert appears in the novel X-Men: Search and Rescue, by Greg Cox.

External links

• Moira MacTaggert at Marvel.com
• Moira MacTaggert (Ultimate) at Marvel.com