WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Powers of X #3 by Jonathan Hickman, R.B. Silva, Marte Gracia, VC's Clayton Cowles and Tom Muller, on sale now.
X-Men fans who were eagerly anticipating the release of Jonathan Hickman's House of X and Powers of X were shocked to learn just how important Moira MacTaggert would be to the dual stories. Of course, we got our first clue when Marvel Comics released a teaser featuring Moira and Charles Xavier for the most important scene in the history of the X-Men.
The reason for Moira's importance was revealed in House of X #2, as readers discovered Moira was secretly a mutant all along with the power of reincarnation. Using the knowledge she's gained through the course of all of her lives, Moira's been manipulating events from behind the scenes for years to save mutants from a doomed future.
One of the data pages in House of X #2 also introduced all of Moira's ten lives, with specific checkpoints featuring key moments that took place. In a surprise twist, the Nimrod-controlled future in Powers of X was revealed to take place in Life 9 instead of the current Marvel Universe. This timeline has Moira disregard the teachings of Xavier and Magneto for Apocalypse, forming a powerful union that leads to the creation of the X-Men.
But what if Moira played an even greater role in Apocalypse's life and history? Powers of X #3 teases this with a data file for an unidentified pureblood mutant named Mother Akkaba. And since Moira is a pureblood mutant and shown in a stasis pod, it stands to reason that she could be the inspiration for the loyal Apocalypse cult.
The Clan Akkaba and its roots date back to ancient Egypt. Apocalypse was the offspring of one of its members, but his freakish appearance made him an outcast who was eventually left behind, one of the many incidents that led him to become one of the most fearsome villains in the Marvel U. Different variations of Clan Akkaba have appeared throughout Marvel's history, most notably in Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña's Uncanny X-Force.
Of course, it could merely be a coincidence that Apocalypse has named Moira after the Akkaba. For example, Moira was born hundred of years before Clan Akkaba was formed. But if there is anything we have learned from Moira's cycle of reincarnation, it's that each new timeline that's created is different from the other. If Clan Akkaba didn't exist in the ninth life of Moira X prior to her birth, then her informing Apocalypse of everything she knows regarding the survival of the mutant race may have led to the genesis of the name.
Another interesting addition to the Moira X timeline is a group of vertical lines that cut through all ten lives. The reason for this, along with the missing Life 6, is one of the many mysteries left to be untangled as House of X/Powers of X continues.