Phoenix #9 annotations
PHOENIX #9
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Alessandro Miracolo
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Annalise Bissa
PHOENIX
This version of Phoenix has embraced her cosmic role and describes herself as “the guardian of cosmic balance”. All this somewhat ties back to issue #5, where Eternity gave her a speech about not letting her human side hold her back, and becoming a true cosmic entity. At that point, Jean’s main concern was that she wanted to hold on to her humanity, but in this story her narration is dismissing that sort of concern as compromise and weakness.
While her immediate aims are completely sensible – she wants to stop Adani from using her fraction of the Phoenix power to damage reality – she also casually brushes aside Rocket and Nova’s offer of help. Her plan to defeat the Shadow Realm is to create a “vast” fracture in reality, which doesn’t sound good, and indeed seems to have the sky shattering on random planets. And her narration is talking about how her fear of her own powers has been selfish and help her back from doing everything that she’s capable of. That said, she does get a lot more human when she’s talking to Adani, whom she still seems to regard as a kindred spirit.
GUEST CAST
Rocket Raccoon and Nova offer help and get teleported to a beach resort for their trouble. Rocket is there to flag up Jean’s lack of humanity for us, while Nova gets to do some comic relief about how hot Jean looks in her new costume. (Each to his own.)
Captain Marvel and Sif don’t appear, but apparently they’ve already “finished assisting the Galactic Council in restoring order” after the defeat of Thanos. That was quick.
VILLAINS
Adani. According to Phoenix, Adani’s fragment of the Phoenix power is tearing her apart, “and the very fabric of reality along with her.” Adani, meanwhile, is frustrated at her link to the Phoenix starting to wear off, and angry that Perrikus hasn’t been able provide her with more power. In Adani’s mind, Jean has misunderstood her: Jean saw them as kindred spirits who didn’t trust their cosmic power (of course, precisely the attitude that Jean has also jettisoned in this issue), while Adani considers herself a perpetual victim who grabbed at the opportunity of control when it came along. She hopes to kill Jean and take the whole Phoenix Force, with a plan that somehow involves the demonic creatures from the Shadow Realm and the Nexus of All Realities.
Her face develops a sort of fracture pattern, which is apparently meant to be a sign of the Phoenix Force tearing her apart – though the rest of her body looks fine.
The Dark Gods. Only Zelia and Perrikus have speaking parts, but once again Slototh, Adva, Tokkots and D’Chel are standing around in the background. The plan is to manipulate Adani into using her power in a way that not only finishes restoring the Shadow Realm, but goes on to consume all of existence. Zelia claims that without Adva, “the Shadow Realm will be nothing more than what we see before us”, which begs the question of where all these Shadow creatures are coming from. Perhaps what Zelia means that the part of the Shadow Realm which has been brought into the real world will be limited to what she’s already conjured up. It sounds as if, even though Adani was told last issue that the goal was to “bring back” the Shadow Realm, the aim is actually to bring the entire dimension into the regular Marvel Universe as a means of conquest.
The Shadows. Apparently the inhabitants of the Shadow Realm – I guess we’re assuming that Narcisson, from the original Thor storyline, was the name of their city, and the Shadow Realm is the name of the dimension. The Shadows are monstrous black things with tentacles and loads of eyes.
FOOTNOTES
And again, we’ll just go with the story page numbers.
Page 3 panel 2: The Warlock’s Eye was blocking Phoenix from locating Thanos in issue #6, but it was damaged in issue #7.
Page 4 panel 1: Phoenix temporarily surrendered her power to Adani in issue #7.
Page 7 panel 3: I’m not sure Perrikus ever literally promised to give Adani power, but he certainly strongly suggested to her in issue #2 that she’d obtain it by allying with him.
Page 9 panel 2: Adani saw Perrikus kill her father in issue #1, and was taken to the God Quarry in issue #3.
Page 14 panel 2: “Most believe darkness consumes light…” Do they? Seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of the light bulb.
Page 16 panel 4: Adani “couldn’t stop Perrikus” when he killed her father in issue #1, and “couldn’t get [Jean] out of [her] mind” in issue #6.
“while Nova gets to do some comic relief about how hot Jean looks in her new costume.”
Scott seemed jealous of Nova in issue 6, so I think we’re really supposed to believe that Nova has a crush on Jean. I’m not sure what the point is, since it looks like Nova will be getting reinvented in Imperial in a few months. (One of the reasons it was a mistake to kill off Namorita was that she was Rich’s best love interest and right now I don’t anyone is clear about whether she’s back from the dead or it’s still a version of her from the past.No wonder writers don’t want to use her.)
“Zelia claims that without Adva, “the Shadow Realm will be nothing more than what we see before us”,”
Without Adva? You mean without Adani, right?
Newsarama reports that Jonathan Hickman is “revolutionizing” Marvel’s cosmic landscape:
https://www.gamesradar.com/comics/marvel-comics/jonathan-hickman-imperial-marvel-cosmic/
I wonder if Phoenix (and maybe Storm?) will get folded into that plan somehow.
Another attempt after the failure of G.O.D.S?
That was more Dr. Strange/supernatural cosmic/multiverse oriented. This is going to be more outer space/space opera/Giffen, Abnett & Lanning-style cosmic, featuring concepts like Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, the Imperial Guard.
I’m sure this is what Brevoort was referring when he said that Phoenix was going to tie-in to Marvel’s reinvention of its cosmic titles. I doubt Storm will be involved. Storm’s usage of cosmic is more attuned with GODS, rather than Hickman’s new Imperial project. Thankfully, Marvel chose a top name like Hickman to write this instead of throwing it to Gerry Duggan or someone like that.
Hickman said Imperial is going to be similar to his successful Ultimates project. It’ll be a mini-series to set up the premise, then lead into a relaunch of a bunch of interrelated titles by different creative teams (like the new Ultimate line, except based in Marvel 616’s outer space characters).
I think where both Phoenix and Storm fall over is that you can’t have humans inhabit/merge/whatever with cosmic entities and concepts, with diminishing the cosmic part. It’s no longer big, weird, inscrutable. The more we’re showcase them the less interesting or mysterious it is. Diminishing returns!
That, and Jean and Ororo are more interesting as, you know, actual people interacting with their teammates. Cosmic is unrelatable. X-Men always goes off course when it detours into space!
The Annihilation refresh was some of the best cosmic marvel in years which lasted until. Bendis was tasked with aligning the guardians with the MCU, that version of the team alongside replacing Richard Rider with Sam Alexander made the cosmic books less operatic and with our the big crossovers that side of the 616 has needed a real kick for about a decade
I really don’t know what is meant by claims that G.O.D.S. was a failure. It was creative enough, plenty entertaining enough and told plently competently enough.
Yes, it is not being referenced or followed up to any significant degree. Does it have to be? If so, why?
That said, I _do_ hope we see more of that much welcomed refreshing of the mystical side of the MCU.
@Luis- As I understand it GODS was unable to sell enough to make a profit and had to be cancelled early. Part of this might or might not have been because of Hickman’s expensive salary.
G.O.D.S. wasn’t exactly prematurely cancelled so much as not extended beyond its initial order (the first trade was always going to be eight issues), but yes, it was meant to be an ongoing.
Thanks for the info.
I suppose that counts as failure, or at least “lack of success”.
Still a well above average read IMO.