As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

PHOENIX #5
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artists: Alessandro Miracolo & Marco Renna
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa

PHOENIX

Last issue, Phoenix fought Gorr and was seemingly killed by him. The final page showed her body stirring, Perrikus’ narration talked about how she always came back stronger from death, and the final panel showed her coming back to life surrounded by the Phoenix Force effect. But… no, this issue opens with her just dead again, and she comes back to life on page 11 in a way that looks different. So god knows what we were meant to take from the final page of the previous issue, but in practice we should apparently just ignore it.

While dead, Jean meets Eternity, who gives her a pep talk about needing to think like a cosmic entity instead of an overpowered human. A similar point was made in issue #1 when she let Perrikus escape the prison. Eternity is basically arguing that if Jean is going to be Phoenix, then that means transcending her humanity and ascending outright to the Marvel pantheon of cosmic beings – even saving the odd planet here and there is small scale stuff.

Jean was drawn to space precisely in order to ascend, but is resisting the loss of her humanity. Eternity argues that Jean would not be lost by an ascension, so much as transformed. Jean also worries about becoming Dark Phoenix again, but Eternity simply says that it isn’t a problem. This really doesn’t make sense, because the Dark Phoenix saga also involved the real Phoenix, and it turned into an insane genocidal killer. Eternity gives no real reason why it should be different this time, though they might plausibly have argued that it was precisely the attempt to be human and cosmic at the same time that went wrong in the past.

While “dead”, Jean appears as a normal human with the Phoenix as a firebird flitting around her.

On being resurrected, Phoenix reiterates to Gorr that she is not a god, just as she claimed last issue. This time, however, her claim is based on the fact that the cosmic entities are higher up the Marvel pecking order than the gods.

SUPPORTING CAST

Eternity gives a speech as de facto spokesman of the cosmic entities. Eternity is generally used as the personification of the Marvel Universe, either alone or in combination with his sister Infinity. His appearance here, with the stylised mask, is a redesign from the G.O.D.S. miniseries.

VILLAINS

Gorr. On returning to life, Phoenix promptly kills Gorr and turns him into a star. She claims that Gorr couldn’t be allowed to keep his All-Black weapon and would inevitably die without it. But Gorr was separated from the All-Black in King Thor #4, and it’s still less than clear how he got reunited with it to appear in this story in the first place.

Perrikus is ostensibly the main villain in this arc, but in this story he stands by and lets Gladiator make his argument for him. Gladiator argues, not unreasonably, that Phoenix is a law unto herself and that the Galactic Council shouldn’t tolerate this. When Phoenix addresses the Council directly, Perrikus does interject to point out that “Turning a living creature into a star isn’t the kind of help they were looking for”, and Phoenix seems to recognise him as the real threat.

The Galactic Council – Nymbis, Mentacle, Paibok, Smasher and Kuga – actually appear split on what to make of Phoenix. Most of them seem appalled by her demonstration of power against Gorr, but Paibok argues her corner, and Mentacle claims to be mostly concerned about the lack of due process.

Bizarrely, Perrikus offers to deal with Phoenix if the Council agree to surrender leadership to Thanos. I really have trouble with the idea that anyone could get a majority for that, especially on the spot. Phoenix isn’t that pressing a problem. To be fair, we don’t actually see the Council accepting the offer, so maybe they dont. The fact that Thanos shows up and declares himself owner of the galaxy seems an odd way of winning them round.

Adani somehow or other winds up in the same place that Phoenix chooses to rest after the fight with Gorr, and yells at her about letting Perrikus escape (thus leading to the death of Adani’s father in issue #1 and Adani’s own transformation at the God Quarry in issue #3). Phoenix offers to help reverse what was done to her, but she isn’t interested. However, Adani’s sword apparently gives her uncontrolled psychic abilities that let her hear people around the universe calling for help; Phoenix shuts that off in order to preserve Adani’s sanity, in what might be an echo of Professor X sealing off her own telepathic abilities (in Jean’s origin story from Bizarre Adventures #27). Adani interprets this as unwanted interference with her mind.

OTHER REFERENCES

Page 6 panel 5. “I assume my mind came here – a psychic pocket of some kind – as a defence mechanism after Gorr’s attack. Wouldn’t be the first time.” This is probably referring to Phoenix’s encounter with Death immediately after dying in the Dark Phoenix Saga, in Classic X-Men #43.

Page 8: An assortment of other cosmic entities are seen dancing around Eternity in this double-page spread (some of whom also appear in the background of later panels). Like Infinity, many of them received radical redesigns in G.O.D.S., which are used here.

• The black and white figure in the top left, with the four spikes coming out of its head, is Entropy, one of the children of Eternity.
• The yellow figure on the left with a similar mask to Eternity is Infinity.
• The yellow glowing figure dancing with Infinity is the One Above All, which personifies the creator(s) of the Marvel Universe – i.e., either God or Jack Kirby depending on who’s asking.
• The floating head at the top of the left hand page, with the giant extra eye and the tentacles, is Epoch, who has responsibility for the Protectors of the Universe, and was a supporting character in Quasar back in the day.
• The weird angular thing near the middle of the page is the Living Tribunal.
• The swirling, dragon-like thing is Oblivion.
• The black and white figure dancing with the dragon is the In-Betweener.
• The hooded skeleton is Death, of course.
• The blue glowing man in the suit dancing with Death is Fulcrum, from the 2009 Eternals series – another ambiguous God/Kirby figure.
• The four Celestials in the top right are Eson the Searcher (with the staff), Arishem the Judge (in red), Ziran the Tester (in blue and purple) and Nezarr the Calculator (in black).
• The robed guy in front of them is a Watcher, although you’d think they’d be a bit too far down the pecking order to qualify for this meeting.