Real
Name: Dr. Moira Kinross MacTaggart
Occupation: Geneticist
Identity: Publicly known
Legal Status: Citizen of the United Kingdom with no criminal
record
Other Aliases: None
Place of Birth: Kinross estate, Scotland
Marital Status: Widowed
Known Relatives: Lord Kinross (father), Joseph MacTaggart
(husband, deceased), Kevin Proteus (son, apparently deceased)
Group Affiliation: X-Men
Base of Operations: Mutant Research Center Muir Island,
Scotland
First Appearance: X-MEN #96
Final Appearance:
History:
Dr. Moira MacTaggart is the daughter of the powerful Scots nobleman
Lord Kinross. She proved to be a brilliant student of the biological
sciences and selected genetics as her specialty. Moira married
Joseph MacTaggart, a Royal Marine Commando with political ambitions.
But this marriage proved to be a disastrous one.
As
a college, student she met Charles
Xavier who was working toward a doctorate at Oxford University.
The two fell in love with each other immediately and their romance
lasted for years. Eventually they became engaged to be married,
pending the annulment of her own marriage to Joseph MacTaggart.
But then Xavier was drafted into the military. She promised
to wait until he was released from military service. However,
while he was recovering in a hospital from battlefield injuries,
Xavier received a letter from Moira breaking off their engagement
with out explanation and stating that she was returning, home
to Scotland.
Joseph
MacTaggart had proved to be a brutal husband, and finally, while
they were in New York City, he beat and sexually assaulted her,
causing her to be hospitalized for a week and leaving her pregnant.
From then on Moira lived apart from her husband, although he
refused to grant her a divorce, and she kept the fact that he
had a son secret from him for twenty years.
Moira
MacTaggart led a brilliant career as one of the world's leading
geneticists, earning a Nobel Prize for her work. She founded
a Mutant Research Center on Muir Island off the coast of Scotland.
Eventually she renewed contact with Xavier during a period he
spent in England working on a degree in psychiatry. Xavier and
MacTaggart discussed the possibility of establishing a school
for training, superhuman mutants in the use of their powers.
Eventually, MacTaggart became Xavier's "silent partner"
in founding this school,
which trained the team of mutant adventurers known as the X-Men.
When
Moira's son began to manifest destructive mutant powers, she
attempted to cure him, but her efforts were in vain, and she
was forced to keep him imprisoned at her Mutant Research Center.
It was there, too, that she treated the mutant known as Legion,
Xavier's illegitimate son by a former lover, Gabrielle Haller.
(Xavier himself remained unaware of Legion's existence for years.)
Moira took as her ward the orphaned Scots girl Rahne
Sinclair, who would herself demonstrate mutant powers in
years to come. Xavier would sometimes turn over captured dangerous
mutants to Moira for study.
Moira
MacTaggart finally made her presence known to the X-Men when
she arrived at their doorstep claiming to be their new housekeeper.
The X-Men soon learned her true profession and visited her Muir
Isle research center. Moira fell in love with Sean Cassidy,
the X-Man known as the Banshee,
and their relationship persisted on.
Moira's
son, Kevin, who was code-named "Mutant X" but called
himself Proteus, escaped from
confinement at Muir Isle and began using his powers to possess
the bodies of others and drain their life energies and to warp
people's perceptions of reality to terrorize the Scots countryside.
The X-Men attempted to stop Proteus, and Moira warned Joseph
MacTaggart about him. (At this point it had been twenty years
since she had left him.) Proteus took possession of his father's
body, ravaging it, and attempted to kill his mother. Instead,
however, Proteus was himself apparently destroyed by the X-Man
Colossus. Joseph MacTaggart
died as a result of being possessed by Proteus.
Sometime
afterward, Moira discovered that Rahne Sinclair had the mutant
ability to transform herself into wolf-like form. Dr. MacTaggart
brought Sinclair to Xavier and persuaded him to establish a
new team of superhuman mutant trainees who became known as the
New Mutants.
Shortly
before the last time Xavier left Earth for the Shi'ar
Galaxy, MacTaggart and Gabrielle Haller finally revealed to
him that Legion was his son.
Moira
MacTaggart continued to operate her Muir Isle research center
and has proved to be a valuable ally to mutants who have trained
under Xavier's guidance.
With
the first human to contract the Legacy Virus, Moira was one
of many frantically working on a cure, even to the point of
self-quarantining herself at one stage. Moira also assisted
Charles and the Beast in analyzing the Skrull Wolverine impostor.
Moira
died as a result of internal injuries caused by the destruction
of the Muir Isle facility by Mystique and the Brotherhood of
Mutants. Just prior, Moira had discovered the cure to the new
strain of the Legacy Virus that Mystique had created; one that
only infected humans. Moira clung on to life long enough to
survive a trans-Atlantic flight to transfer that information
to Charles, then died in his arms.
Height:
5 ft. 7 in.
Weight: 135 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown
Strength
Level: Moira MacTaggart possesses the normal human strength
of a woman of her age, height, and build who engages in moderate
regular exercise.
Known
Superhuman Powers: None
Other
Abilities: Dr. Moira MacTaggart was one of the worlds leading
geneticists and possessed special expertise in the study of
superhumanly powerful mutants.