WARNING: Spoilers for X-Deaths of Wolverine #2
In a preview for Marvel Comics upcoming X-Deaths of Wolverine #2 the iconic Jane Foster, known as Valkyrie, continues to help Moira X without knowing that she had just betrayed all of Krakoa for her own selfish ideals. Foster, who battled cancer while she was operating as the first female Thor, has been helping Moira figure out why she appears to be dying and protecting her from the vengeful Mystique, accidentally siding with Moira in a battle against the mutants.
Foster first became Thor after picking up Mjolnir in 2014’s Original Sin event and operated as the Human-Asgardian warrior until 2019’s War of the Realms event, where she took up the mantle of Valkyrie after all the Valkyries were slaughtered in the war. Foster has been through a lot, and a massive part of her character over the past decade has been her battle with breast cancer, so it makes a lot of sense that she would help Moira with her cancer-like condition. During the X-Men’s Inferno event, Moira MacTaggert’s secret mutant identity and plan to remove the X-Gene from all mutants, effectively erasing the mutant race, was discovered by Mystique and her wife Destiny, who transformed Moira into a human before Cypher and Krakoa freed Moira and let her escape in Inferno #4.
X-Deaths of Wolverine #2 – written by Benjamin Percy with art by Frederico Vicentini and Dijjo Lima – while touted as a Wolverine story, has mainly been focusing on Moira’s escape from Krakoa and her attempt to survive as a human, albeit with a Phalanx-esque techno-organic arm. In X-Deaths of Wolverine #1 Moira visits Jane at the hospital where she works, and Jane informs her that she has Stage 4 lung cancer. While Foster is out of the room Mystique is able to gain access and attempts to kill Moira for her betrayal of Krakoa and Destiny, before Jane as Valkyrie bursts through the doo, stopping Mystique from killing Moira and allowing MacTaggert to escape. Mystique is, understandably, enraged, screaming at Foster, “Stay out of this, Valkyrie!” Unfortunately for Foster, she decides to NOT stay out of it, setting her up to be an enemy of Krakoa.
In X-Deaths of Wolverine #2 MacTaggert continues to show that she is one of the most selfish characters in Marvel Comics, setting Valkyrie up to be reviled by the Quiet Council of Krakoa. Moira, after having cut and dyed her hair, is once again on the run when she gets a call from Dr. Foster, to whom she gives a half-hearted apology to while continuing to not explain anything about what transpired in Inferno. From there, Moira finds out that the cancer she has in her lungs is being spread by a Krakoan floronic agent, confirming that the Quiet Council gave her the cancer-like illness. Foster asks Moira, “What are you going to do?” before Moira destroys the phone, severing Jane’s connection to the woman she just saved and any possible answers she might get about why Krakoa is hunting her down.
Frustratingly, Valkyrie almost certainly would not be helping Moira if she were actually honest about her betrayal, or least Foster would have been a bit more thoughtful about how she helped Moira. Valkyrie, who reportedly will be joining the Avengers soon, does not have a lot of established history with mutants or the X-Men, but that doesn’t mean that she would want to become their enemy, especially to protect a woman who was planning to enact genetic genocide on a population. To make your own decision on whether or not Jane Foster, the hero known as Valkyrie, should be helping Moira MacTaggert make sure to read X-Deaths of Wolverine #1 by Marvel Comics before picking up X-Deaths of Wolverine #2 when it debuts on February 9th, 2022.
