PROTEUS

 

PROTEUS

Real Name: Kevin MacTaggert

First Appearance: The Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #125, September 1979

Powers: Proteus is an omega-level mutant able to manipulate and alter reality in any way he can imagine via psionic influence exerted over fundamental forces and principles. His power was limited by line-of-sight and could only affect matter within his visual range. He most commonly used his ability to ripple space and matter around him, like objects seen through swirling water. This can be extremely disorienting and even maddening to living beings. He can dramatically restructure matter and energy, such as turning a rifle into a snake or Cyclops's optic blast into a harmless spray of flowers. This effect could also animate non-living matter, turning buildings into anthropomorphic constructs or making objects seemingly come to life and attack people. He could make solid structures crumble to the ground or explode violently. Proteus could also manipulate gravity in order to levitate and fly or increase the weight of other people and objects.

Proteus also possesses telepathic abilities that enable him to read minds and attack at psychic levels. He could use his telepathy to communicate telepathically or erect mental shields to block other telepaths. Proteus could also absorb information from people or computer systems by touching them, and cross dimensional barriers at will.

In his natural form, he existed in a vulnerable, but dangerous state of pure psionic energy. Originally, he could take possession of human bodies to contain his vast energies and could possess anyone within a few feet of his position. Possession gave Proteus access to all his victim's memories and emotions. His energies would eventually “burn out” his host bodies (as he did with his own natural body), killing them in the process. His energies quickly ate away at their physical frame, causing them to shrivel like a used up husk until the body could sustain him no more and he needed to find another.

His energy form had a natural aversion to metal, making it the only thing that could block his powers or possession, and disperse his energy state. Upon his first resurrection, Proteus had bonded with the energy-absorbing mutant known as Piecemeal, effectively removing his weakness to metal and need for host bodies, until he committed suicide and returned to discorporation. He was resurrected again under the House of M reality with all his classic weaknesses, but later escaped Wanda's reordering of the universe by traveling to another dimension. During the Exiles' hunt for Proteus, he possessed Angel of House of M, Mimic of the Exiles, Justice of the New Universe, and Hulk of 2099 in turn, assimilating portions of their psyches in the process. The Exiles ultimately caged him when he found a non-degrading host body in the Exile known as Morph, and the Exiles used the Behavior Modification machine from Earth-S to reprogram him to believe himself to actually be Morph. His return to the 616 Universe during the events of Necrosha left him with the ability possess multiple host bodies at once.

MOIRA X

 

MOIRA X

Real Name: Moira Ann Kinross MacTaggert

First Appearance: The Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #96, December 1975

Powers: Moira MacTaggert possesses the mutant power of reincarnation. Upon her physical death, the sum total of knowledge and life experiences Moira has undergone is transmitted backwards in time, entering her still developing mind in the womb. She then relives the same period of time repeatedly from birth until the next time she dies by natural causes or other means. Moira reportedly has an eidetic memory, perfect recall of everything she has ever learned or experienced across ten lifetimes of activity. Through trial and error, Moira determined that her life would instinctively play out the same way unless she intentionally acted differently, causing new events to unfold.

It’s been presumed that Moira's power doesn’t create new timelines with each iteration, but rather annihilates the old timeline in place of the next one. However, this would mean that the progression of all of time and space is suspended indefinitely until Moira becomes immortal or her power is blocked somehow, which seems counter-intuitive. Furthermore, it has been speculated that Moira's x-gene still activates at puberty like a normal mutant. And so, while she always is born with her prior knowledge, the ability to cast her knowledge back in time does not activate until she's thirteen. Consequently, it’s presumed if Moira died in her lifetime before puberty, she would presumably die permanently.

Some form of secondary mutation linked to Moira's mutant power is a form of passive invisibility that conceals her mutation from others. Telepaths can scan Moira's mind without noticing her true nature, and Moira may even be able to actively block telepathic intrusion from someone who knows what she is. Similarly, during her third life, the precognitive mutant named Destiny confessed that Moira was difficult to read or predict at first, although after she learned Moira was a mutant her senses seemed to recalibrate, allowing her to perceive even reincarnated lives that Moira had not reached yet (although, given the circumstances, Destiny could have been lying). Finally, it seems implicit that mutant-detection technology like Cerebro has also proven incapable of detecting Moira.

Dr. Moira MacTaggert is of genius-level intelligence and was a Nobel Prize-winning geneticist. She earned a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Oxford and is one of the world's leading geneticists, with special expertise in the study of superhumanly powerful mutants. Her 10 lifetimes (over 1,000 years) have armed her with significant experience, including expertise in the fields of anthropology and genetics, firearms mastery, and leading various mutant survival movements until their eventual downfall.