BIOGRAPHY - Page 5
At one point during her ongoing research and studies, Moira was targeted by the enormous Sentinel known as the Master Mold and his smaller avatar, Conscience. Using hypnotic programming, they coerced Moira into formulating the Retribution Virus, a plague designed to wipe out the mutant race. The Master Mold was based on the brain wave patterns of Stephen Lang, a bigoted Sentinel designer, and he relished the delicious irony of using mutants’ greatest human supporter to bring an end to the species he despised so much. The Sentinels used their technology to forcibly put Muir Island’s scarce population into an unstirring sleep at nights while drawing Moira away to work in Master Mold’s laboratory. They then returned her in the morning before sun-up without any memory of the night’s work. However, Banshee uncovered secondary indicators of a foreign presence on Muir Island and of Moira’s nightly wanderings. He called in Cyclops of X-Factor to help him investigate and perhaps confirm his suspicions. Master Mold hated Cyclops personally from past encounters, and was furious over the intrusion on his plans. He pressed Moira to accelerate the timetable for the Retribution Virus.
A Scottish girl named Mary Campbell from Kinross land was chosen by Moira as patient zero, as Moira’s regular check-ups on the girl revealed genetic indicators for the X-gene. After showing signs of illness at home, Mary was taken to the hospital and the virus began to spread. Master Mold and Moira’s role in the virus was revealed, as the Sentinels captured Cyclops, Banshee and Callisto as well. However, Mary’s human brother and the hospital staff also became sick, indicating the lethal virus had mutated and jumped to the human population. An estimated 92.4% casualty rate in the human race with 100% mutant casualties was acceptable to the cold and clinical Master Mold, but his more human avatar Conscience could not support the plan. He released Moira and the mutants to stop the distribution of the spore bombs. Moira 
returned to the genetics lab, no longer hypnotized, and realized she had fought against Master Mold’s programming. Though compelled to create the lethal virus, she had also formulated a cure along the way. She quickly finished her initial work and distributed the cure among the infected patients. Master Mold was defeated and Conscience carried the ship with the virus bombs on-board up into the upper atmosphere before triggering a self-destruct. [Marvel Comics Presents (1st series) #17-24]
With the X-Men believed dead and Charles lost in space, Magneto struggled to continue walking in Xavier’s shoes. His efforts to control the New Mutants while also courting membership in the Hellfire Club led the younger students to abandon him entirely. Moira was unable to convince Magnus to stay true to their alliance, and he flew off to renew his public role as the arch-villain of mutantkind, if only to draw fire away from the others. Doctor MacTaggert was left alone to captain the helm of Xavier’s dream. With the mansion grounds now unoccupied, she sent Callisto back to Westchester to secure the remains of the X-Mansion against intruders. In the meantime, she and Banshee tried to prepare Muir Island for any inevitable attack, as anti-mutant sentiment was on the rise around the globe. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #253]
At first, it seemed like a blessing when Banshee rescued Lorna Dane, Polaris, from a sinking freighter approaching Muir Island. Up until recently, Lorna had been possessed by the Marauder Malice. Now she had freed her mind but lost her magnetic power, developing intermittent super-strength in its place. However, Polaris was now a conduit for negative emotional energy as a source for her new powers. She heightened the darker aspects of humanity just by being around others, then absorbed that excess negative energy from her vicinity to make herself a powerhouse. The end result was to make Moira and her other Muir Islanders wilder and more aggressive without recognizing why.
The sudden change in Moira’s behavior took place while Banshee was away ferrying more allies to Muir Island: the demon sorceress Amanda Sefton and Brigadier Alysande Stuart of the Weird 
Happenings Organization. The X-Men’s cyborg enemies the Reavers chose that moment to attack Muir Island. Moira had been making preparations, and her odd assortment of human and mutant allies in the Muir Islanders were outfitted with Moira’s new environmental body armor X-suits. Defense of the island was supported by the arrival of Forge and Freedom Force on behalf of the U.S. government. The Reavers were driven off, but not before Freedom Force suffered casualties aiding Moira, including Stonewall and Destiny. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #254-255]
[Note: Moira’s loose collection of allies during this time is sometimes referred to as the “Muir Island X-Men.” Most official sources consider them a splinter group, though, and not part of the X-Men’s main roster. The significance of Moira’s past nemesis Destiny dying to protect Muir Island has yet to revisited from the perspective of either woman since the House of X revelations.]
Forge remained behind after the battle and contributed to Moira’s bunker mentality. He redesigned Muir Island’s sensors and security systems to prepare for any future eventuality or line of attack. However, the changes in Moira’s behavior started to concern Banshee. He and Forge planned to go off-island and follow up on Lorna Dane’s report that the X-Men were still alive. In the meanwhile, Banshee had Forge build a back door into this new security net, in case they needed to return to Muir Island without Doctor MacTaggert knowing. Polaris’ influence would have a chain reaction effect on Muir, however. The negative energy allowed Legion’s most self-interested personality, Jack Wayne, to claim David’s body and all his personalities’ powers. While testing a new Cerebro unit for Moira in search of the X-Men, Legion telepathically opened the way for the Shadow King to claim Muir Island as his own. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #257-260]
One of Charles Xavier’s oldest and most powerful foes, Amahl Farouk was a telepath who fed on the darker aspects of the human soul. Lorna’s new powers were essentially an endless feedback loop to empower the Shadow King. Farouk took advantage of the situation and sank his psychic poisons deep into Moira’s mind after meeting her in person with his current host, Jacob Reisz. [Gambit (6th series) #1] Polaris was chained up in Muir Island's lower chambers and used as a psychic nexus, amplifying the corrupting influence of the Shadow King around the globe. Now, Moira and the Muir Islanders were more than aggressive… they were becoming outright malicious. As the Islanders 
grew wilder, they seemed to fluctuate between consciously and subconsciously serving the Shadow King, as he continued his other plotting in the world outside Muir Island. When they weren’t actively responding to the Shadow King’s commands, Moira and the Muir Islanders were still increasingly hostile and territorial to anyone from the outside. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #269]
Whether on her own or due to the Shadow King’s influence, Doctor MacTaggert suddenly showed an interest in reclaiming her foster daughter, Wolfsbane. Rahne had been traveling in Asgard with the New Mutants since Magneto gave up running the school, and Moira used the Mutants’ lack of direction as an excuse to call Rahne home. Wolfsbane didn’t want to leave her friends, but Moira insisted at first and came out to collect her young ward. Moira only hesitated when she learned 
her old contact Cable had just met the New Mutants. Cable had been impressed by the New Mutants and wanted to train them as his new soldiers in the ongoing war with his rivals, the Mutant Liberation Front group of terrorists. Cable’s militant world view appealed to the new Moira, and she agreed that he would serve as a fine new instructor for Rahne. [New Mutants (1st series) #88-89]
She was fierce in her efforts to oppose Genosha when the country kidnapped Wolfsbane and other New Mutants from Westchester. Doctor MacTaggert openly debated with Genosha’s Genegineer David Moreau on the news, objecting to their characterization of her allies as terrorists, and ready to rip apart the man who stood between her and her child. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #271] When Moira briefly reconnected with Banshee via hologram after the Extinction Agenda, though, she was passionate about reuniting with him, yet showed no concern over Wolfsbane, who was left behind on Genosha (albeit by her own choice after the old government was overthrown). The X-Men were teleported out into space again immediately thereafter, delaying any reunions for the time being. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #273]
The Shadow King’s plotting was interrupted when X-Force and the New Warriors made a surprise visit to Muir Island. Moira and her Islanders were rashly territorial and started a fight at first with the united young heroes, but they got her attention when they revealed their visit involved her son, Proteus. Two different groups, Genetech and Advanced Idea Mechanics, had been independently contracted to find the means of resurrecting Kevin for a pair of mysterious backers. An armored mercenary named Harness conscripted a mutant energy-absorbing boy named Gilbert Benson, or Piecemeal, into collecting the dispersed packets of Proteus’s energy matrix from around the globe. All parties involved believed an abused child like Piecemeal becoming host for Kevin’s 
pattern was inevitably going to end poorly. Harness’ final move was to bring Piecemeal to Edinburgh, where Proteus’ energy first scattered in his fight with Colossus. Moira and the assembled heroes responded, and Doctor MacTaggert attempted to prevent Piecemeal’s energy accumulation while also draining the siphoned energy he already held. Their efforts failed. Piecemeal was destroyed from the inside out by a self-resurrecting Proteus, and the gestalt mind of Kevin and Gilbert emerged as a mighty new entity.
Returning to life as a stable energy being with no need for a body and no allergy to metal, Proteus was more powerful than ever. Proteus had experienced a form of consciousness in non-existence, finding peace away from the physical demands placed upon him by his unstable body. He banished the heroes who confronted him to a pocket of nothingness to show them what he had experienced, while using his powers to forcibly re-engineer the reality of Edinburgh to match his desires. Kevin kept Moira by his side, as well as Harness, who was revealed as the abusive mother of Piecemeal, Erika Benson. This Proteus was monomaniacal but not malevolent, and he wanted his mothers to understand his desire to remake the world. Moira objected to Kevin experimenting with reality and altering people’s lives against their will, but Proteus countered that that was all Moira ever did with him. Eventually, Moira and the united heroes managed to 
convince Proteus that – even with all his power – he would never be accepted as he was, or be able to make reality into what he truly wanted. Faced with no good options, Kevin MacTaggert chose to end his life rather than have an unfulfilling one. As Edinburgh reset itself to normal, Moira fought to accept the fact that she talked her only son into killing himself because she couldn’t love him how he wanted. [Kings of Pain crossover]
Eventually, the Shadow King moved into his endgame, creating a feedback loop of hatred escalating around the globe as a means of feeding his appetites. Back on Muir Island, Moira had begun aggressively training her Islanders in a combat arena, adding the likes of Rogue and Guido to Muir’s residents and the Shadow King’s pawns. The Shadow King’s interest was piqued when the X-Men returned from space with Charles Xavier, absent for many months. Xavier escaped the King’s pawns, but Banshee and the X-Men were captured by the Islanders when they investigated the suspicious reports coming from Muir Island. Moira was used as a puppet by the Shadow King against Xavier, X-Factor and the remaining free X-Men in the final battle. She personally attacked 
Sean until Forge injected her with the neurosynaptic buffer he had created to block the Shadow King’s telepathic wavelength. As the conflict was dramatically resolved, the Shadow King was apparently destroyed, but Legion was rendered vegetative while acting as his host, Xavier was crippled again, and a massive chunk of Muir Island was obliterated in an explosion. [Muir Island Saga crossover]