PROTEUS: MOIRA'S SON AND THE FIGHT THE X-MEN COULDN'T WALK AWAY FROM

PROTEUS: MOIRA'S SON AND THE FIGHT THE X-MEN COULDN'T WALK AWAY FROM Spoilers for the original Proteus saga. I'm only covering things up to where I've read, through the Muir Island Saga. I've been working through X-Men chronologically, and I want to go back to Proteus for a minute, because there's a lot more going on here than the X-Men fighting somebody with ridiculous powers. This is Moira's son. The person they're trying to stop is the same person she spent years trying to understand and help. Kevin MacTaggert was the son of Moira and her estranged husband, Joe. Moira had survived an abusive marriage, and Joe didn't even know about Kevin until she warned him that their son was coming for him. That family history is part of the story from the beginning. Moira has this whole life and this whole nightmare that the X-Men don't fully know about. Kevin had been kept on Muir Island as Mutant X. Once he's loose, the reason for those precautions becomes pretty obvious. Proteus exists as energy and takes over living bodies, using them up until he needs another one. The people he possesses aren't just being controlled for a while and then released. Their bodies are being destroyed. He leaves victims behind him as he moves from one host to the next. And possession is only part of the problem. He can change reality around him. The ground, the space around the X-Men, the way their attacks work, all of it can become something else. You can't rely on the usual rules of a fight when the person you're fighting can change those rules while you're standing in front of him. Wolverine is obviously my favorite character, and this is an important part of his early history too. His adamantium gives Proteus a problem because metal is a weakness, so Logan isn't an easy body for him to take. But that doesn't mean he's immune to everything else Proteus can do. Logan gets badly shaken by the experience. So do Nightcrawler and Storm. They're still physically capable of fighting, but Proteus has gotten into their heads through what he's put them through. Cyclops recognizes that and deliberately starts a fight with Wolverine. It turns into this improvised training session, with Scott pushing the team until they start reacting like themselves again. Logan even acknowledges how much of a risk Scott took. That says something about both characters. Wolverine can admit that something scared the hell out of him, and Scott understands that getting his team ready means more than checking whether anybody is bleeding. Meanwhile, Moira is trying to stop her own son. She actually fires at him, and later she warns Joe even after everything Joe did to her. Proteus eventually takes his father's body, then uses Moira as a hostage. She's still telling the X-Men to stop him, even if it costs her life. That's a horrible position to be in. She knows what Kevin is doing. She knows other people are dying. But knowing he has to be stopped doesn't make him stop being her son. The final confrontation comes down to Colossus. Piotr approaches in his human form, gets close enough to attack, and forces the confrontation out of the failing host body. When Proteus is exposed as energy, Colossus uses his steel form against him. Proteus is dispersed, and the immediate threat is over. It's a rough ending for Piotr too. Colossus is incredibly strong, but he's also one of the gentler people on that team. Having him be the one who has to do this gives the ending a different weight than just having the biggest hitter win. He doesn't get to solve it without hurting someone. Moira doesn't get her son back. Sean can be there for her, but he can't fix what just happened. I'm not calling this the permanent end of Proteus, because his energy comes back into play in Kings of Pain, which is also within what I've read. That deserves its own discussion rather than folding the whole thing into this one. But the original story matters on its own. It gives Moira far more than a supporting role at the lab, shows Wolverine genuinely rattled, gives Cyclops a difficult leadership moment, and puts Colossus in a position where being strong means having to make an awful choice. They stop Proteus. They still have to live with how they stopped him, and Moira still has to live with losing Kevin.