Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Rise of the Powers of X #5!
The release of Rise of the Powers of X marks the end of an era for the X-Men franchise. This issue wraps up the epic, yearslong saga that began in 2019’s House of X and Powers of X. Krakoa has fallen, but what remains in the aftermath of the final battle between mutantkind and Orchis? Do mutants still have a nation to call their own? Are the X-Men still immortal? And what is the final fate of Moira MacTaggert, the endlessly resurrecting mutant whose powers sparked this whole story in the first place?
As the dust of this massive conflict settles, we’re here to break down the big developments in the Rise of the Powers of X finale and what it all means for the X-Men going forward. How is the status quo changing as Marvel gears up for its X-Men: From the Ashes relaunch? Read on to find out.
The Eleventh Life of Moira X
House of X and Powers of X completely revamped the X-Men franchise using one fundamental plot twist as a foundation. In House of X #2, we learned that Moira MacTaggert, the woman long counted among Professor X’s greatest human allies, is actually a mutant. Moira’s power causes her to reincarnate back in the womb after every death, retaining all the memories of her previous lives. Moira has spent multiple lifetimes trying to establish a future where mutantkind survives the scourge of the Sentinels and thrives. Thus far, she’s failed each time.
Now in her tenth life - a life Moira was warned may be her last - she’s launched her most ambitious plan. United with Xavier and Magneto, Moira has helped establish a mutant nation on the living island of Krakoa. Mutants are finally flourishing, especially now that they’ve unlocked the secret to immortality.
Unfortunately, a lot has changed since the creation of the mutant nation. After many betrayals and setbacks, the reality of Krakoa has fallen short of the utopian dream. Moira herself has turned heel, losing her mutant powers and becoming a vindictive cyborg in service of Orchis, the anti-mutant cabal that’s become the overarching threat of the Krakoan era. And in the wake of the third and final Hellfire Gala, Krakoa is all but destroyed and most of the world’s mutants have gone missing.
In Rise of the Powers of X, Moira has turned her back on both humans and mutants. She’s thrown her lot in with Enigma, a technological god that exists outside of time and space. Moira hopes to break the resurrection cycle by becoming a small piece of the whole that is Enigma. (We’ll talk more about Enigma’s origins in a minute.)
Xavier has other plans. Earlier in the series, he traveled through time to kill Moira at the beginning of her tenth life, erasing Krakoa but ensuring that Enigma never comes to be. Ultimately, he didn’t pull the trigger. Xavier was convinced to seek a better path that didn’t involve murdering a 13-year-old girl. His ultimate solution is simple - appeal to Moira’s still lingering humanity.
Xavier telepathically communes with Moira one last time, evoking the imagery of their original, fateful meeting when Moira first proposed the idea of Krakoa. Xavier reminds her that serving Enigma means she’ll spend an eternity wallowing in the guilt of her actions. He pleads with her to do the right thing and reveal her whereabouts to Jean Grey, so that the reborn Phoenix can destroy Enigma once and for all.
It all comes down to Moira’s final choice, something that was foreshadowed all the way back in House of X #2. There, Destiny tells Moira, “I see ten lives, Moira. Maybe eleven if you make the right choice at the end, but that is all.” Now, at the end of her tenth life, Moira makes the right choice. She signals the Phoenix and is almost immediately consumed by flame.
This isn’t the end of Moira MacTaggert. The Phoenix’s fire doesn’t just consume her, but allows her to be reborn in a new, eleventh life. This time, Moira is human, free to seek out any life she chooses without the fear of everything resetting upon her death. The cycle has finally been broken.
Phoenix vs. The Dominion
The original Powers of X established the concept of Dominions. Dominions are the ultimate evolution of machines and artificial intelligence, occurring when an intelligence becomes so massive and powerful that it collapses into a singularity and evolves into a godlike being that exists simultaneously across all time.
Much of the Krakoan era of the X-Men franchise has dealt with Mister Sinister’s quest to evolve himself into a Dominion. Sinister built a “Moira Engine,” a series of Moira MacTaggert clones that he could use to research Dominions, reset the timeline and feed information back to himself. All along, Sinister has been in a race with the other clones of Nathaniel Essex - Doctor Stasis, Orbis Stellaris and Mother Righteous - to become a Dominion.
But in true Lord of the Rings fashion, they were all of them deceived, for there was another. Essex not only created four clones of himself, but also forged an AI backup of his mind called Enigma. This is the Enigma that Moira would eventually seek to join with. It waited as the clones competed against one another, before stealing their research and using it to become a Dominion itself. And as the Krakoan era ends, Enigma stands as the final and greatest threat to mutantkind. If it has its way, Enigma will consume Earth and add its knowledge to its vast database.
Dominions are so powerful that only cosmic entities like Galactus and the Phoenix Force are capable of opposing them. Fortunately for the X-Men, Jean Grey has just been reborn as the Phoenix thanks to the heroic sacrifice of Hope Summers. Enigma and Phoenix are locked in a battle across time, with Enigma sabotaging key moments in the history of the X-Men and Phoenix repairing the damage. But as long as Enigma’s true location remains hidden, Jean remains powerless to stop it.
Once Moira relents and signals the Phoenix, Jean is able to bring the fight to Enigma. Summoning the power of each of the hundreds of thousands of mutants trapped inside the White Hot Room (the pocket dimension where the Phoenix was born), Jean strikes Enigma with a massive telepathic blow that obliterates the intelligence. Because it exists outside of time, Enigma is trapped in the moment of its destruction forever.
Does Krakoa Still Exist?
A triumphant Jean returns to Cyclops and the X-Men on Krakoa, basking in the glow of a hard-fought victory. Orchis has been destroyed, and Enigma is no more. Unfortunately, the cost was immense. The mutant nation is effectively gone, and the vast majority of the world’s mutants are still trapped inside the White Hot Room. Earth’s mutant population has dwindled once more, and humanity hates and fears them as much as ever.
Powers of X ends with another bleak development for mutantkind. In order to get close enough to Moira, Professor Xavier was forced to align with Orchis, even agreeing to sabotage an attack vessel sent to protect Earth from Nimrod’s attack. Now disgraced even among his own students, Xavier turns himself into custody at the end of Powers of X #5. We know that the upcoming From the Ashes relaunch includes a subplot where a character named “Inmate X” is being held inside the former Xavier Institute, and all signs point to Xavier himself being that mysterious prisoner.
Powers of X #5 establishes a new status quo where the remaining X-Men are forced to rebuild without the guidance of their founder. In Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman’s X-Men, Cyclops will spearhead a new team that operates out of an abandoned Orchis facility in Alaska. In Gail Simone and David Marquez’s Uncanny X-Men, Rogue leads a team of her own based in New Orleans. In Eve Ewing and Carmen Carnero’s Exceptional X-Men, Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost will mentor the next generation of mutant heroes. Stephanie Phillips and Alessandro Miracolo’s Phoenix series will explore what’s next for Jean Grey as she grapples with once again being bonded to the Phoenix Force.
On the bright side, while the era of Krakoa has ended, this isn’t entirely a return to the usual status quo for the X-Men. For one thing, mutants still have a world of their own on Mars, which has become the new home for Krakoa’s sister island Arrako. And the mutant nation lives on inside the White Hot Room, where hundreds of thousands of mutants are now free to build a new society without fear of human reprisal. The dream of Krakoa hasn’t truly ended, but the time has passed when the X-Men could separate themselves from the world they’re sworn to protect.
For more on the current state of the X-Men franchise, check out our interview with MacKay and Stegman about the upcoming X-Men relaunch, and learn all about the upcoming Wolverine: Revenge.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
