Warning: contains spoilers for Nightcrawlers #3The shocking conclusion to Nightcrawlers #3, one of the final issues of the Sins of Sinister event, sees the X-Men traitor Moira X gaining access to a powerful temporal weapon that may give the vengeful cybernetic villain a dangerous upper hand against Krakoa.
The Sins of Sinister event is coming to a close and the horrific timeline, which has seen Mister Sinister turn almost everyone in the universe into Sinister variants before waging a 1,000-year war against the three other Sinister clones, will soon be reset. Before that happens, however, the vile Moira X has gotten her hands on a horrendous weapon.
Nightcrawlers #3 – from writer Si Spurrier and artist Phillip Sevy – finally explains why Mother Righteous had her Nightkin collecting various artifacts of magical power. The Sinister variant explains how she turned these artifacts into the “Ace of Hearts,” a magical virus that would survive the ending of the SOS timeline and give her (and now Moira) 1,000 years’ worth of secrets and power.
Moira X Will Have 1,000 Years Of Secrets And Power
Unfortunately for Righteous, she is killed by the chimera Wagnerine, after which the evil Moira X gets her hands on the Ace of Hearts. With this weapon she will attempt to destroy the X-Men and their nation of Krakoa, once and for all. Mother Righteous has spent the last 1,000 years collecting powerful items like the Soulsword, the Darkhold, a Phoenix Egg, Mjolnir, and countless others. She has combined these items into the Reliquary Perilous, or Ace of Hearts, a reference to the powerful Siege Perilous from X-Men lore. Righteous reveals to Banshee’s Spirit of Vengeance that she never planned on using the Ace of Hearts to purge the Sinister Strain from the universe. Instead she’s been planning on using it as a “cheat code,” sending all the X-Men secrets and magical powers she’s collected back in time to herself 1,000 years in the past.
However, Moira X is missing one key thing that she needs before she can send the Ace of Hearts back in time to herself, giving her a millennium of knowledge and power that would give her a major upper hand against the mutants. Mother Righteous says the magic virus needs a “navigation system,” or a “radiant soul,” to attach to the virus for it to successfully travel back in time to before the SOS timeline started. While Nightcrawlers doesn’t make it clear, it seems like Moira could use Banshee’s soul as this navigation system, but she unceremoniously murdered him before learning how she could have used him. Regardless, Moira X is nothing if not resourceful, so it would be no surprise if she found a new soul as the navigation system. She would then be able to touch the Ace of Hearts to one of her backup clones and then kill that clone, destroying the SOS timeline and sending the magic virus back in time to herself.
Sins Of Sinister May Cause The Upcoming Fall Of X
Interestingly, there is no one more suited to use 1,000 years of knowledge and secrets than Moira X, a former mutant whose ability let her live 10 entire lives – some more than 1,000 years long – before restarting her life upon death, remembering all her past lives, successes, and failures. However now, she is able to use 1,000 years of secrets plucked from various mutants’ hearts by Mother Righteous in current events, not in a “new life.” Additionally, the magic virus may also give her access to all the powers of the artifacts Righteous used to construct the Reliquary Perilous.
Marvel has revealed that the X-Men’s upcoming Fall of X era will start with a brutal war between Orchis – lead by Moira X and others – and Krakoa… which the mutants will lose. Perhaps it is Moira X‘s use of the Ace of Hearts magic virus that gives the X-Men’s greatest traitor the power and knowledge she needs to finally cause the fall of Krakoa.
Nightcrawlers #3 from Marvel Comics is available now in stores.
