Phoenix #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
PHOENIX #1
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Alessandro Miracolo
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Tom Brevoort
I haven’t decided yet how many of the second-tier X-books I’m going to do in the “From the Ashes” era, but I’ll probably cover at least the first issues of everything and see where we go from there. So: this is the first Phoenix series, although there was a short-lived Jean Grey ongoing about the time-travelling Silver Age version of the character.
PHOENIX
Phoenix is Jean Grey, and following Rise of the Powers of X, she’s now at full-blown cosmic power – but presumably without the risk of going mad like in the Dark Phoenix Saga. At least, nobody seems very worried about that. As foreshadowed in the X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic, Jean is off in outer space, doing cosmic things.
Her power levels are pitched as insanely high here. She can stabilise a star by absorbing energy from it. She can stabilise a black hole by… dancing with it? It seems to be a way of trying to visually represent her being in harmony with the universe, and it’s certainly more interesting to look at than a page of her thinking really hard. She can casually hold telepathic conversations with Cyclops back on Earth. It’s suggested that – much like classic Superman – the risk with Jean is not that she gets outpowered by anyone, but that she’s tricked into doing the wrong thing or overlooking the real threat. Specifically, there’s a suggestion that she’s a god who still thinks like a mortal and risks getting her priorities wrong as a result. She’s still too inclined to save the lives right in front her rather than look at the bigger picture. Or so the narrator suggests.
Jean doesn’t give a very concrete reason for wanting to be in space. When Cyclops asks her when she’s coming back, she simply says that ‘I’m not sure how long I’m staying out here. I just know I need to be here.” She seems to be on yet another redemption drive, which is something we’ve seen before. This time, she’s using her cosmic powers for grand-scale feats of planetary life-saving. And to be fair, when you’re capable of doing this sort of thing, what’s the moral justification for hanging around on Earth and punching Sentinels?
Many of the people Jean saves are absolutely terrified of her, because she’s Phoenix and her reputation precedes her. This is consistent with the original Dark Phoenix Saga, where the Shi’ar were already familiar with her before she did anything. Cyclops tries to argue that they’re really scared of the Phoenix, not Jean – which is the distinction that was intended to exonerate Jean of genocide when she was brought back from the dead in the 1980s – but Jean immediately rejects this argument on the grounds that she is the Phoenix. So clearly we’re not relying on that back door any more. Still, Jean is finding the reaction heavy going.
Although Jean doesn’t technically need a ship, Cyclops has provided her with one, which we only see in one panel; it seems to be designed to resemble the Blackbird. She regards it as a necessary reminder of home. It also gives her somewhere to talk to her supporting cast, I suspect.
The narrator (and again, more of them in a bit) is surprisingly keen to remind us of Jean’s back story from Bizarre Adventures #27. This is the story with the flashback to Jean’s telepathic powers emerging when her childhood friend Annie Richardson is hit by a car and dies in her arms. The trauma puts Jean in a semi-catatonic state, which she ultimately emerges from with the help of Professor X. The narrator seems to treat this traumatic experience almost as if it were the actual cause of her psychic powers, and casts it as a sort of symbolic death and rebirth which made Jean capable of becoming Phoenix.
GUEST STAR
Nova was last seen in a coma on Arakko towards the end of X-Men Red, but evidently he got better and he’s back to working as an outer space superhero. Specifically, he’s helping out on a prison called Kyln 2 (presumably he responded to a distress call or just happened to be passing). Kyln 2 is new, but it’s evidently a replacement for the original Kyln prison, which first appeared in Thanos #7 (2004) and was destroyed by the Annihilation Wave in Annihilation #1 (2006). It’s located in a black hole, which is on the verge of collapsing and killing all the inmates. Presumably nobody much cared about that risk, but Nova is determined to stop them all getting killed and calls in Phoenix to help.
SUPPORTING CAST
Cyclops is hanging around at the Factory being domestic. He and Jean seem to be back to being a happy couple together, although there’s a definite sense that Scott isn’t entirely happy about Jean heading out to space with no real indication of when she might come back.
Adani is a new character who serves as our narrator – although that isn’t made clear until page 2. The natural assumption in a solo book is that the title character will narrate, and presumably page 1 is being deliberately ambiguous. Since Adani kicks us off by stridently asserting their atheism and their view that religious worship is a form of subservience, it’s an unexpected first page. Adani is among the people whose star is stabilised by Phoenix in the opening scene, but their narration tells us that this was “years” ago – apparently, Adani is recounting the story from a standpoint years in the future.
According to Adani, their father was a priest who had once been a member of the Universal Church of Truth. The UCT were Adam Warlock villains, introduced by Jim Starlin in Strange Tales #178 (1974). They were the Magus’s religious empire, which either converted worlds or destroyed them if they refused – as Adani describes her. Adani’s father is said to have left the UCT as a child, and to have disagreed with this sort of behaviour. But the priest in the opening scene is presumably Adani’s father, and is still clearly a religious fundamentalist. Adani describes his views in terms which would apply to most monotheistic religions, and views his beliefs as fearful and reactionary. In a possible over-correction, Adani sees the terrifying stories about the Phoenix destroying worlds as a further example of such cringing religious conservatism (despite the fact that they’re true). At any rate, Adani spends a lot of this issue priming us for a story about religion.
I don’t think Adani’s gender is directly confirmed in dialogue, and no on-panel character is unequivocally identified as Adani. However, the priest from the opening scene seems to be the same one that Perrikus murders on page 32, which suggests that Adani is meant to be the character yelling “Father!” That character seems to be drawn as a girl. On that basis, Adani may also be intended to be the character in the bonus page, who is older, carrying a bloody sword and asking whether Jean Grey deserves to find peace. She comes across as less sympathetic to Jean on that page than she does in the story, though still rather philosophical in tone.
VILLAINS
Wow, we’re miles from regular X-book territory here.
Morg is a former herald of Galactus, who was a regular character in Silver Surfer in the early 90s. He was supposed to have died in the Annihilation Wave, but inexplicably showed up alive and well in Dan Slott’s Fantastic Four in 2022 along with all the other former Herald characters. Presumably he’s in jail for the whole “helping Galactus to eat worlds” thing. He’s here mainly to serve as a villain who’s more or less in Nova’s league, though he does have the upper hand until Phoenix shows up to beat him in three panels just by thinking about it.
Perrikus was a major villain in the 1998 Thor series by Dan Jurgens and John Romita Jr; he makes numerous appearances in that book in 1998-2002 and hasn’t been seen since. The Dark Gods were a sort of dark version of the Asgardians, with Kirby-ish designs. They briefly managed to overthrow Asgard, and in his early appearances Perrikus was pitched as an apocalyptic threat. He doesn’t seem to have appeared since Thor #53, when Thor cut off his arm. He wears a cloak over that side of his body in this issue, but the arm does indeed seem to be missing.
Perrikus escapes the Kyln while Phoenix is busy saving the prisoners, and we’re given to understand that this will turn out to be the wrong call in the long run. Perrikus winds up on Adani’s world and promptly kills a priest who, as noted, seems to be Adani’s father. Perrikus claims, perhaps sarcastically, to be releasing the priest from his fear – which suggests a view of religion not so far removed from Adani.
CAMEO APPEARANCES:
Page 33 seems to be a symbolic flash forward to some future event. It shows Phoenix fighting alongside Corsair and the Black Order, who are normally villains. Specifically that’s Black Dwarf (the guy with the axe top left), Proxima Midnight (with the balck mask and yellow spear thing), Ebony Maw (top right), Corvus Glaive (with the scythe thing) and Supergiant (the hooded one in the background).
The guy fighting Phoenix in the second panel of the bonus page is Gorr the God-Butcher, a villain from Jason Aaron’s Thor run.
SPECIFICS:
Page 7 panel 3: “the crash-landing that resulted in the rebirth of a woman forever bonded with the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix Force.” X-Men #100-101, where Jean first becomes Phoenix.
Page 7 panel 4/page 8 panel 1: “stories of a murderer who would destroy worlds, consuming suns for sustenance, killing entire species and planets in the process.” The reference is to X-Men #135, where Dark Phoenix destroys the D’Bari homeworld.
Page 10 panel 2: “the death of a friend when she was an only child…” Jean’s origin story from Bizarre Adventures #27, as mentioned above.
Page 12 panel 2: “You didn’t recover from a coma just to die with these prisoners, Nova.” Nova was put into a coma by Pestilence in X-Men Red #16.
Page 26 panel 2: “It’s Perrikus, Jean! The Dark God who once defeated Thor!” This is the main storyline from the first year of the 1998 Thor series.
Adani is the name of a huge mining company that has a highly controversial new coal mine in Australia. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to read this comic without being thrown out of the fantasy world every time I read that name.
I find it intriguing the setup is that Jean messes up (trying to do good) in a way that causes the death of someone(s), leading to lasting consequences and reputational damage of Jean (not the Phoenix).
This is a direct reversal of the Dark Phoenix saga when The Phoenix carelessly ate the D’Bari homeworld (and it’s later implied other worlds), creating lasting hatred/consequences and reputational damage to the Phoenix that Jean has had to deal with over the years.
A lot of people didn’t like Adani as the narrator. It’s easy to see why. Her argument that Jean was responsible for what Perrikus did to her father and her homeworld is just ridiculous. Jean had to choose between letting hundreds of people die or letting an obscure Thor villain who hadn’t been active in years escape. Saving hundreds of lives was the obvious choice. And instead of blaming Perrikus or the idiots who decided to build a prison near a black hole. Adani blames Jean. I’m not sure how seriously we’re supposed to take Adani’s argument but it’s just ridiculous.
“The narrator seems to treat this traumatic experience almost as if it were the actual cause of her psychic powers, and casts it as a sort of symbolic death and rebirth which made Jean capable of becoming Phoenix”
But Adani also says that Jean became Phoenix “not because of these experiences but in spite of them”.
I like how the geniuses who created Kyle didn’t think to create a backup prison in case something went wrong.
Morg is usually written as about as powerful as the Silver Surfer, so Jean being able to easily defeat him is another example of how overpowered she is.
I thought it was obvious that the character on the bonus page was an adult Adani.
Man they had something good going with Jean after she came back, struck out on her own, and formed her X-Men Red team.
Everything since has been not to my taste at all.
Sigh.
1. Adani, a white-passing woman, appropriating a Black hairstyle? Check
2. Black as Bad stereotype reinforced? Check
3. Alessandro Miracolo, a white Italian dude, tracing the work Olivier Coipel, a Black man? Check
4. Jean, a white character, replacing Storm, a Black character, in said panels? Check
And most criminal of all? It’s just another boring introductory issue.
Brevoort: 0/2
That Bizarre Adventures story has been referenced a fair amount whenever talking about Jean’s past. Perhaps most notably in the first Inferno, where it’s one of *Madelyne Pryor’s* first memories.
@Uncanny X-Ben: Agreed. I think X-Men: Red was the last time someone tried to actually develop Jean as a character inside the X-universe.
Her big contributions to the Krakoa era seem to be “mildly disagreeing with husband” and “lounging seductively while dying.” Not great.
Removing her from contact with other X-characters is a weird choice. Why, as X-fans, should we care about generic aliens, Thor villains, and/or Nova? I’m much more interested in who Jean is in relation to the people she’s known for decades.
@Thom H: “Her big contributions to the Krakoa era seem to be “mildly disagreeing with husband” and “lounging seductively while dying.” Not great.”
That, and… ensuring Hope’s creation, reforming the X-men alongside Cyclops, forming the Phoenix Force retroactively, saving the entire timeline from the Dominion…
I found this issue lacking, partly because the art was so mediocre. the coloring was fine, but I thought a lot of the linework was static and ugly. The storytelling was mostly functional, but why couldn’t there have been a clear establishing shot on page 2 showing who the narrator was? Also, I hate going from a narrator to dialogue within a scene and back. More often than not, that style of writing is choppy and annoying.
Reforming the X-Men would make for more of an impact if we knew the X-Men were disbanded…
…but that’s relitigating my ‘Hickman sucks’ case and now that the Krakoan Age croaked it’s last I should probably drop that.
Does Brevoort suck? Only time will tell. I’ll wait at least until we get the first issues of every series from this opening salvo.
But while X-Men #1 was good, but not captivating, Phoenix #1 is… fine, but… I feel it should be a mission statement. Why is Jean a cosmic hero at this point? Well… because she feels like it, I suppose?
I wonder if the narration is the issue. Nothing against Adani, but… nothing for her, either. She’s a nothing character who doesn’t really appear in this issue – but also doesn’t let us into Jean’s head, just says some things about her we already know.
Maybe it’s too obvious to do a solo ongoing with first person narration by the hero of that ongoing. Everybody’s doing it, after all.
But maybe there’s a reason everybody’s doing it.
I get that Phoenix acted as a deus ex machina, but that’s not the same as Jean having an actual personality.
From the brief attempts at giving Jean some kind of point of view, we know that she is a mutant visionary (Morrison) and a villain reformer (Taylor).
So during the Krakoa era, a time of grand mutant vision and villain reformation, she decides she doesn’t like any of it and she’d rather be a superhero. Until she has to be Phoenix again to magically save the day.
I’m deeply unimpressed with the way Jean was handled on Krakoa, which is obviously not the fault of anyone here. I just wanted to see her revolutionary spirit on display instead of more cosmic lore that only further alienates her from the rest of the cast.
Perhaps the D’Bari homeworld is supposed to act as Jean’s ‘Uncle Ben’, but, if sufficiently leveled up, shouldn’t she at some point think, “Huh. I guess I could go ahead and recreate the D’Bari homeworld and resurrect every living thing on it.” Or do the old ‘pull it through time at the moment of it’s destruction’, or copy-and-paste it, or whatever. Sure, it’s a bit of a ‘bend’ on her powers, but when has that restriction hobbled a writer?
(I always thought this would be a good way to end Jean’s story, or at least cap her time as Phoenix: she gets over-juiced to handle some cosmic-level threat, but, in the aftermath, holds too much power to survive, and decides the best way to go out is to right that defining wrong.)
I thought page 33 was depicting Jean and Corsair running AWAY from the Black Order…
I’m perfectly happy to see Jean in a new context. That’s a fine way to shed new light on a character, especially one so often previously defined by her relationships with her usual cast mates. The idea of her usual ethics as a mismatch for her new powers is interesting, too. And I liked seeing Morg and Perrikus pop up here, since I enjoyed both characters’ 90s heydays and their appearances felt like old-school examples of Marvel Universe interconnection. I’m less excited by the return of the Black Order.
I only got this first issue because it was a light week for me and I wanted a little more reading material, but I might pick up the next installment.
I don’t think we had enough in this issue for me to have much of an opinion about whether it will be a good series.
This was mostly set-up. Reasonable at that. We finally see some meaningful dialogue between Jean and Scott and at long last Jean is somewhat distanced from her role as a living, walking stereotype. We have some real spotlight for her as a person. And we put her in some situations which she hasn’t faced before, all the while reminding us that, yes, the X-Men share their universe with other characters; no, being a mutant does not have to be the decisive trait for their lives; and yes, being ridiculously powerful does not mean that there are no challenges or missteps in their lives.
I’m predisposed towards this new phase, but there is nothing really wrong here yet.
It was a light week for me, Hellblazer #7 and Into the Unbeing #2, so I decided to pick up some back-issues of Action Comics vol. 1. I do not regret my decision.
No. I have nothing to add to this conversation.
[…] #1. (Annotations here.) If you’re going to go down the line of making Jean Phoenix, and making Phoenix a full-on […]
@MoonstarDynasty,
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery , and the entire history of human civilization IS cultural appropriation , duh!
“Black hairstyle”
I haven’t even read the issue and I bet I can visualize what @MoonstarDynasty thinks she is saying.
I wouldn’t grant the premise though. .
Ciao, Miracolo
Let’s maybe not make this yet another space of hostility towards legitimate critiques of racist representation…? Let alone without engaging with the actual comic.
These tropes are tropes for a reason, and more often than not grounded in violence. And I think the overall whitewashing of the main casts is cause for concern – at least, from what we’ve seen and heard so far.
I really wanted to like this comic, in part because I really appreciated a lot of X-Men Red (maybe not so much towards the end).
But I agree with folks who think this is off to a shaky start. I’m not sure you can really consolidate any if these solo series without folding into it some of the core cast or core mythology – and that’s where I think this really misses the mark.
No inkling of a memory or concern over Krakoan; nothing about the Phoenix’s own awkward genesis via Hope Summers; nothing touching in the White Hot Room or the Phoenix Corps, or other trickier aspects of the Phoenix story.
I get all of this could be quite off-puting for a general audience – but without any of that, why should we care?
Granted, it’s bound to be a bit too generic under the Brevoort missive of “make it simple, stupid”. But the seeming teaser pushes further away from X-Men lore still.
Still some decent ideas, but reads a bit tired and unoriginal already. Here’s hoping!
I’ve deleted one comment here because I think it goes beyond disagreement into personal attack. I don’t see a basis for the allegation of bad faith beyond thinking that the other commenter’s opinion was clearly wrong, and in my view, that’s not enough.
Fair enough.
Sailoh- Breevort said on his blog today about Jean’s series- “Plus, it gives us a platform from which to being to reconstruct our cosmic area of titles—but I’ve said too much, you’ll hear more about all of this in the days to come.”
I don’t think this was the ONLY reason for Jean’s title- but it was one of them. That’s why he featured non X-Men villains in this issue like Morg and Perrikus,, and an encounter with Gorr was teased at the end.
(Of course, the problem is that all of these villains are relatively minor.)
But the problem with that is that while the other X-Books feature “traditional” X-Baddies (One of the members of 3K is rumored to be Cassandra Nova, one of the villains of NYX is supposedly Empath), Jean’s series features villains that are disconnected from the X-Men’s mythology. This is a separate problem from Breevort’s desire to keep things simple.
“Also, I hate going from a narrator to dialogue within a scene and back”.
YES. It’s way overdone in modern comics, and to get any kind of flow you have to read all the narration then go back for the dialogue (or vice versa). It’s terrible storytelling.