Moira Kinross (Joint Venture)

Moira MacTaggert is a scientist and longtime ally of the X-Men. This is the Joint Venture Universe version of the character.

Early life
Moira Kinross was born into the Kinross clan, an old family of Scottish Highlanders. Tempered and hardened by their harsh environs, the Kinross clan had a history as renowned warriors, and that legacy passed on into a storngly traditional family with wills of steel.

Moira was no exception to this rule. Dedicating her life to science and medicine, she became a brilliant student of genetics at Oxford University, earning many accolades and awards befre she was halfway through medical school.

Oxford and Charles Xavier
It was at Oxford that she met Charles Xavier, another dedicated student like herself, who had traveled all over the world in his quest for knowledge. His stories of all the places he had traveled and things he had seen captivated Moira, and the two quickly became fast friends and inseparable partners.

Moira and Charles began to focus their studies on human genetics, and eventually, Charles revealed his geatest secret to her: that he possessed the power of telepathy. Working together, they discovered that Charles' astonishing power was granted to him by a genetic mutation, an "X-Factor" in his genetic code, and so coined the phrase "homo sapiens mutatis mutandis" within the medical and scientific communities to refer to people like Charles, whose genes contained this "X-Factor" which gave them special powers or abilities. Colloquially, they were called "mutants"...among other things, from those less tolerant. Despite this, Moira and Charles' work in the field of studying human genetic mutation earned them the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, and during the aftermath of this momentous occasion, they fell in love.

However, their relationship came under a great deal of strain almost from the outset. Charles, due to his expertise in many different scientific fields, would be called in to consult on many different, diverse cases worldwide. Moira did not begrudge this on a personal or professional level, and in fact assisted with several of these cases that lined up with her fields of study. In addition, she had her own studies to pursue, ventually graduating magna cum laude from Oxford and beginning to work as a genetic researcher and consultant in her own right.

Sadly, being separated from Charles for that long, with only phone calls, e-mails, and other forms of long-distance correspondence to maintain the relationship, sometimes for weeks at a time, would take its toll.

Joseph MacTaggert
Moira's staunchly traditionalist family had always resented the American Charles, and him being away from Moira for so long at a time finally pushed them over the edge. Joseph MacTaggert, a charming up-and-coming politician with many connections, became taken with Moira, and asked her family for their blessing to court her. They were impressed with his pedigree, his intelligence, and his charismatic charm. Moira was not.

Finally, after several weeks of aggressive pursuit, during which Moira and Charles would be forcibly separated time and again by circumstance, her family delivered an ultimatum: concede to marrying Joseph, or lose her inheritance and her freedom to travel as she pleased. Seeing no way to continue her work without the Kinross fortune, Moira would reluctantly accept, sending Charles a "Dear John" letter., along with the engagement ring he hadonly recently sent her.

Moira married Joseph MacTaggert, and almost immediately regretted it. In his pursuit of her, Joseph had been relentlessly charming and chivalrous, overeager perhaps, but well-meaning. Now that her family had forced the marriage, however, Moira saw the other side to the man they had picked for her: he was temperamental, judgmental, backwards, and vindictive. Even though her family had lived up to their end of the bargain and kept her as heir to the Kinross title and land, Joseph insisted on trotting Moira out for political functions, trying to force her into the role of supportive politician's wife, rather than let her continue her own work. When she balked at this, he berated her. He used Kinross family money -- her money -- to fund his campaigns, and her family happily went along with it. He used her in every way possible -- including forcing her to provide him with a child and heir, in a violent act that would put Moira in the hospital for a week.

A Kinross Once More
After the brutal assault, Moira finally told her family the truth about Joseph, with the bank records of Joseph's embezzlement and the marks on her face and body as proof. Loathe as they were to admit that they'd been wrong, the Kinross clan nonetheless gave their blessing for Moira to divorce him and retake the family name. In addition, they made his unspeakable actions against her public, thereby ending the political career they had been unwittingly funding. Moira gave birth to her son, Kevin, and raised him as her own, with the Kinross family's support and their blessing.

Kevin MacTaggert and Muir Island
Now free to do as she pleased with her life, Moira went back to genetic studies. She moved to Muir Island, an inhospitable patch of rock off the Scottish coast that was part of the Kinross clan's holdings, but had never been any real good to them until now. With the clan's aid and her own intelligence, Moira designed and built a genetic research laboratory there, the first of its kind, designed specifically for researching human mutations. Her son, Kevin, was her first patient, as his powers were coming into themselves and had already begun manifesting uncontrollably. Moira developed gene therapies and special training exercises for him, and eventually Kevin's powers came under his control, and he became Moira's first success. Now a young man, Kevin serves as Moira's chief assistant at Muir Island, and is secretly the facility's primary defensive weapon.

After her success with Kevin, Moira was approached by a man calling himself Erik Lensherr, a friend of Charles Xavier's. He and Xavier were building a mutant school together, and they needed help. Leaving Kevin in charge, she flew to the United States and helped found the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, agreeing to help as a medical consultant, and divided her time between the school and her laboratory on Muir Island. Indeed, it was helping Charles and Erik that led her to meet the second great love of her life.

Banshee and the X-Men
Xavier and Magneto brought a young woman to Moira for study. Ororo Munroe was a Kenyan, and had the power to control the forces of nature. She had been possessed by a malevolent telepathic entity known as the Shadow King, and Moira's help was needed to ensure that he had done no lasting damage. With them came a young man, Sean Cassidy, a former agent of Interpol who had been rescued by her former lover. Charles and his associates remained at Muir Island for a time, and Moira got to know Sean, eventually falling in love with him, and he with her. Her family, having learned their lesson with Charles and Joseph MacTaggert, had nothing to say about Moira's new lover.

Although she worried about the possibility of another long-distance relationship. Charles promised to do everything he could to help them stay in contact; Moira's happiness would always be important to him.Thus it was that when Charles, Erik, Sean, and Ororo returned to America to begin forming the X-Men, Sean and Moira continued their relationship, made easier both by Moira's commuting and by Xavier's keeping the Institute, and Muir Island, furnished with the latest communications equipment so they could speak to each other whenever they wished.

Moira still carries on her work, both as a researcher on Muir Island and as a scientific and medical consultant to the X-Men. She even teaches classes, via teleconference. The X-Men are fully aware of how lucky they are to have her on hand, even without any powers.

Powers
Moira Kinross is an ordinary human with no special abilities to speak of. However, she is one of the smartest people in the world, with considerable experience in the fields of biology, biochemistry, and genetics in particular.