Conspiracy Theory X
Okay. We are 1/3 of the way through Jonathan Hickman’s magnum opus-X and like many of you, I am confused. But with this confusion there is definitely a sense of X-citement. Personally, I like playing the game of conceptualizing what happens next. I did it with the MCU up until End Game, I did it with Game of Thrones, and now that those are both over, I have Hickman’s House of X and Powers of X. Now, it’s needless to say that what I state in this is purely speculation, but I’ll try to keep all of this based on what we know of the 2 series thus far and what I know of the X-Men.
Here’s what we know (the facts):
Moira MacTaggart was a mutant all along.
Her mutant power allowed her to live her life and remember a total of 9 lives prior to the current life, being the 10th life.
She shows Xavier the true nature of her power and also the lives she experienced, along with their outcomes
Professor Xavier established Krakoa as a new mutant state and seeks recognition from the other countries of the world.
As a showing of “peace,” he has offered the human populace 3 miracle drugs: 1. A drug that extends human life for 5 years. 2. A drug that is an adaptive, universal antibiotic. 3. A drug that cures the human mind of any disease.
Both Moira and Xavier recruit Magneto to their cause to create the perfect synergy of the two most influential mutant ideologies.
The sentient island of Krakoa only allows access to universal teleportation passage to “it’s own kind.”
Humans have created a “doomsday network” in defense against mutants called ORCHIS, with members consisting of Hydra, A.I.M, S.H.I.E.L.D., and other Marvel organizations whose names are acronyms.
ORCHIS has set up a satellite in Earth’s atmosphere, The Mother Mold. A floating head in space that produces Sentinels.
There are 4 periods in time in which the story takes place: Year One - The Dream, Year Ten - The World, Year One Hundred - The War, and Year One Thousand - Ascension.
The bulk of Powers of X takes place during the War between Mutants and the joint forces of Man-Machines in Year 100.
The Two leading role mutants in Power of X are Rasputin and Cardinal. In a case file page, Hickman describes how Mr. Sinister established a mutant breeding pool on Mars where he was cross splicing Omega Level mutants to create the mutants of the future.
*There’s bits and pieces that I left out in this list, but not to worry, I’ll touch on those later*
Now that we laid out SOLID facts, let’s begin with my thoughts and speculations.
In the first pages of House of X #1, we are placed in a setting of what looks to be Krakoa. Professor X, in full giant head mobile cerebro regalia, can be seen waiting on pods to hatch. Most notable of these pod-people are two who bear a striking resemblance to Scott Summers and Jean Grey. That scene ended with Xavier’s caption bubble: “To me, my X-Men.” In Moira’s 10th Life, I believe that many, if not all, the X-Men are pod people. As of now, I have no other reference as to whether or not that is true, but I feel Hickman will reveal much more on that in the issues to come.
Also, in HoX #1, we are given a brief heist scene with a team consisting of Mystique, Sabertooth, and Toad. They are the ones who stole the information regarding Mother Mold and ORCHIS. While the heist scene itself hold no wait other than its face value, it’s the end of the heist that stands prominent with me. The trio is stopped by Hickman’s favorite family, the Fantastic Four. While Mystique and Toad scramble for escape is Krakoa Gate, Sabertooth is caught by the F4. But before the First Family of Marvel can celebrate this small victory, who else but Cyclops comes through the gate. The meeting between them isn’t met with hostility. Quite the opposite, actually. The meet turn into a passive-aggressive conversation between Reed and Scott. Cyclops eventually yields but not without leaving ominous words behind. These lines in particular: “Please greet your son for me... and tell him when he’s ready... he has family on Krakoa waiting for him.” That is a heavy line seeing as how pivotal Franklin has been to current state of the Marvel Universe.
In Powers of X, we are given our first encounter with the Chimera Mutants, Rasputin, Cardinal and Clyobel during the war between Mutants and the Man-Machine alliance. Chimera is the classification given to the products of the Mutant Breeding Pool experiments of Mr. Sinister on Mars. Now long before the release of HoX/PoX saga, we were told that the X in Powers of X was the Roman numeral 10. I would go on to assume that these three were of that 10, including Wolverine, a green clad Magneto (whom I believe is Polaris’ son, if not another chimera hybrid), a future Xorn, a giant tree person whom I believe is a chimera mix between Cypher and the Krakoa itself, and their leader, Apocalypse. What I’d like to point out here, that in this timeline, there is no mention of Xavier.
Here’s where it gets a little crazy.
In the timelines of Moira’s lives provided in House of X #2, we aren’t really given the end of Moira’s 9th life. That 9th life being the the timeline in which she becomes a part of Apocalypse’s fold. This theory is also supported by the encounter in the 10th life between Moira and Xavier when Moira shows Xavier the three tarot cards revealing Rasputin, Cardinal and Nimrod the Lesser’s Monolith. That being said, the Chimera X-Men of the 100th year are all a part of Moira’s 9th life to which she is fully aware which also leads to believe that the Ascension Era is also within that same 9th life timeline, seeing as that the one mutant we were shown makes mention of the war between humans, machine and mutants.
Whew.
That was a lot to take in just as much as it was to type.
Where do we go from here? Only Hickman knows. But I am here, with you analyzing every bit of information given, like the rest of you. Trying to find more and more tidbits of information, all while being killed by the suspense. Am I right with these assumptions? Probably not. But it is sure as hell fun and I can not wait to see how it all unfolds.