Phoenix #15 annotations
PHOENIX #15
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Roi Mercado
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa
COVER: Well, that’s Phoenix being a bit upset, I guess.
This is the final issue of Phoenix before “Age of Revelation”, where it’s being replaced by Binary. Spoilers: it’s a bit of a mess.
PAGES 1-3. Flashback: Oblivion is persuaded to join the intervention against Phoenix.
This flashback takes place before the final scene of the previous issue, where Marvel’s pantheon of abstract cosmic entities lured Phoenix to the White Hot Room to confront her about her refusal to destroy Sara Grey. We established in issue #13 that Sara is not Jean’s real sister, but rather a copy inadvertently created by Jean from her memories of Sara in issue #10. We are assured that Sara’s continuing existence leads to a future timeline which is some sort of zombie wasteland, and so she must be destroyed. Why? It just does. But it’s really important to the plot that it just does. It’s literally the entire premise of the plot. So make a note of that, we’ll come back to it later!
Oblivion apparently thinks that the pantheon intend to destroy Phoenix – which he’s opposed to, because he regards Phoenix as serving a vital role of creation to balance out his own function. Eternity insists that this is a last resort, which is apparently enough to persuade Oblivion to participate after all. He was with the rest of the pantheon last issue, after all. The rest of the issue also seems to imply that Oblivion is obliged to serve as the executioner, presumably because… well, he’s Oblivion.
PAGES 4-6. Phoenix and the former hosts fight the pantheon.
I explained who the guest stars are in the annotations for last issue.
None of these guest stars really contribute anything – aside from one line from Rachel, they don’t even get any dialogue. Instead, we move straight on to the point that Sara’s existence will destroy the White Hot Room and all the souls inside it, “followed by the rest of the universe collapsing inward on itself.” In fact, cracks seem to appear in the guest stars just as we’ve seen cracks in the White Hot Room in previous issues of this arc.
So again, let’s just note that it’s absolutely central to the plot that Sara somehow jeopardises existence, even if there’s no apparent reason why that should be the case.
PAGES 7-8. The pantheon decide to destroy Jean.
Oblivion puts up no real resistance to this, and everyone else just recites their agreement.
PAGES 9-12. Phoenix tries and fails to hold the White Hot Room together.
We get a recap of what Jean has done so far in this series: she “reignited stars” and “stabilized black holes” in issue #1, “ended a god-killer” in issue #5 (Gorr), and “stood against the Dark Gods” in issue #10.
Oblivion appears to draw a distinction between Phoenix and Jean Grey, since he claims that she’s changed it for the better – but also immediately claims that she is the Phoenix, which is more in line with current established continuity. In fairness, that continuity still involves the two being separate and distinct entities for extended periods, so Oblivion is probably meant to be conveying that the Phoenix has finally been made whole in its current merger with Jean, both being aspects of one another.
PAGES 13-15. Sara argues for Jean’s life.
Sara makes a fairly standard argument that the gods need the perspective and compassion of mortals. Remarkably, everyone is immediately persuaded by this. However, Eternity immediately reminds us of the problem posed by her existing. He claims that Jean used “a piece of [the universe’s] spine” to create her, and Sara responds by offering her own life.
Now, presumably this is more complex than just killing her, because if Sara was up for that – and by all appearances she was willing to die last issue too – then it would have been a lot easier to just kill her without bringing Jean along to object. And that makes some sense, because presumably she needs to be un-created in some way.
PAGES 16-17. Phoenix refuses to let Sara die.
Jean gives us a greeting-card speech about how her sister is worth the entire universe, and tells us how all life is sacred. She simply refuses to accept the premise that any sacrifice is ever needed for anything, and that difficult decisions ever need to be made. No evidence is provided for any of this – she just asserts it as self-evident.
PAGES 18-19. Epilogue: Sarah becomes “Beacon”.
Sara is now Beacon, a sort of conscience of the gods. The end.
What’s that you say? What happened about the bit where the entire premise of the story was that Sara’s existence would end everything, and we even saw the White Hot Room literally cracking apart as a result of her very existence? How did that get solved? Well, as near as I can fathom, it just stopped being an issue because Jean said it wasn’t allowed to be a problem any more.
Five issues, for that?
Not even universe-wide cosmic threats can challenge the Phoenix now. That’s going to make for a compelling character.
“The entire universe is ending!”
Jean: “Nah. I don’t like that.”
Problem solved.
Cool.
“She simply refuses to accept the premise that any sacrifice is ever needed for anything”
That’s literally the opposite of every single minute Jean has been the Phoenix. Wild what passes for characterization in this book.
Yeah, this was a mess. It’s not easy to write ongoing books about cosmic-level characters. The book did very little to explore any meaningful aspect of Jean’s character. And I hate to say this, but Jean just doesn’t have what it takes to do a solo ongoing book.
They had the pick of the litter when it came to villains, and who do they choose? Some rando from a Thor book that no one has seen in years. The so-called threats just weren’t interesting enough.
I thought they would have better ideas in this book. I thought they would do something impactful, like bringing back the D’bari. And her bringing them back to life would have caused conflict with the Pantheon. But no such thing. Brevoort is damaging the X-Men brand by constantly pushing these clunkers out.
@Uncanny X-Drew
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Bit of a shame to me, this book. It was the only FtA title I found intriguing when the line relaunched. Unlike Sagat, I thought Perrikus was a fun choice of villain, and the theme of morality vs. divine perspective seemed interesting. Miracolo’s faux-Coipel art occasionally looked awkward, sure, but I could accept it.
All that being the case, I gave it four or five issues to grab hold of me. It just never did, though—and these annotations strongly suggest it never would have.
Ah, well. Maybe they’ll retry the concept someday with another creative team.
This is bad. We’ve seen three comics in the past two weeks that failed the most basic tests of storytelling. In Extraordinary X-Men, the whole plot depends on the characters trying to save Past Kitty to preserve the timeline and at the end they just leave Past Kitty to the Sentinel. in this issue, the whole plot involves Jean trying to find a way to save Sara without the universe being destroyed- and in the end, Sara doesn’t die and the universe survives without explanation. In this week’s Uncanny X-Men issue, the entire plot revolved around Proctor’s scheme, and it’s not clear if he was just trying to ransom Ransom’s brother or he was an ideological terrorist or both. What’s going on in the X-Office?
The letters page makes it clear the series is ending. And we know that this is Stephanie Phillips’s last issue on the series proper and she’s leaving after the Binary issues. So do we think Jean will get another series next year with a new writer? Both the sales and the critical response to this series have been horrible. But everyone seems to agree that it’s Stephanie Phillips’s writing people can’t stand and not Jean as a character.
I had high hopes for this series and this specific issue, but… yeah. This one is a dud.
@Moo, I actually put the “lame” emoji in there, but that works too. LOL.
@Michael, well it just shows how all the writers had to quickly end their storylines in a mad-dash hurry to get to the next money-grabbing crossover to drum up poor sales.
Presumably the problem with these storylines ending abruptly are down to the same thing – the writers had to condense six months worth of material into one issue, at short notice.
I’m reminded of a Tales Designed to Thrizzle story, where an actress is playing the lead role in a play, and just as she’s about to go on stage on the opening night, the director tells her “it’s a musical now”.
well then. This was certainly a thing which happened.
Imagine having Quentin Quire as a guest star and he doesn’t say or do anything.
I really want to know what Marvel editors see in Stephanie Phillips to keep giving her series. Though I will lay blame on Brevoort for being a fairly sloppy editor given the overall mess of the line since he took over.
They really should have made a Phoenix book along the line of the first X-Men: Red book with Jean leading a team.
Jean just needs a new codename. My suggestion:
“Dull Character Coasting on Being Fanboy Girlfriend Fantasy Woman.”
There is nothing for me in this series. This goes on while PSYLOCKE dies at 10 issues.
@Moo — I thought “Dull Character Coasting on Being Fanboy Girlfriend Fantasy Woman” was Spider-Gwen/Ghost-Spider?
Or maybe that is Luna Snow now, thanks to Marvel Rivals? Or is she a waifu and that is different? I get my “fanboys pathologically attach to a fictional heroine in a disturbing way” terms confused.
Between Jean and Ororo, as depicted in their own solos, it really is amazing that Doctor Doom has been able to take over the Earth for a year, even with vast magical powers. Jean at least has the excuse of being in space (though Scott could have just used their link to say, “Hey, Jeanie, do me a favor? Blip down here, zap this tin man in a green cape for five minutes? Thanks, sweetie.”
Ororo’s on the Avengers, though, she has no excuse. Then again, she keeps going on dinner dates with Doctor Doom, so maybe she’s sympathetic.
And yes, Tom “The Hat” Brevoort is a terrible editor. He also edits Fantastic Four and doesn’t win any prizes there, either. I actually kept track of his letter columns and earlier in the year he belittled two letter writers who were predicting that FF would relaunch in the summer for the movie, coming close to insulting one of them. Of course, FF did relaunch and they were 100% right. He offered no mea culpa, no apology, nothing. Just business as usual, being a jerk to paying customers. The letters weren’t even snarky about it; Brevoort was just being snotty on purpose.
To be fair, FF is the exact same comic with a new numbering. People were expecting a new creative team, new direction; this was just North continuing along doing what he had been doing but with a new number #1. Brevoort was in an unenviable position, as he could have said, “Who says there will be a new writer?”, but that could be seen as giving away Marvel’s future plans, which editors avoid. If he said, “It could happen.”, fans would freak out that Brevoort was removing Ryan North due to the movie. I’m not sure how he could respond in his position as a corporate yes-man.
His track record on the X-titles, where he seems to not even want to do the job, on the other hand, is very different from the highly competent job he is doing on North’s FF (letting North do his thing).
@
“There is nothing for me in this series. This goes on while PSYLOCKE dies at 10 issues.”
Psylocke: Ninja #1 will be released in January. That’s all I know. I don’t know if it will be a regular series, a miniseries, or a one-shot, nor who will be writing it or the artist…
@ChrisV — the letters weren’t about confusion as to the creative team for a relaunch. The crux of them were that at least some readers don’t like all of the renumberings and volumes and see them as wastes of time and/or bait and switches, since Marvel will “round up” the legacy numberings to sell overpriced anniversaries all the time. I.E. Amazing Spider-Man, of all titles, gets relaunched every 2-3 years despite good sales and bi-weekly shipping, as if Marvel is pathologically afraid of how old the book is…until its legacy numbering, aided by years of double shipping, is nearing issue #1000. Now the solicitations are drooling over it, because Marvel can’t wait to sell a $10 anniversary comic by Q2 2026.
You have to understand, Marvel’s sales tactics are literally more crude, blunt, and unimaginative than a local carnival barker, used car salesman or marijuana dealer. They make no attempt to “hide” the fact that they’re selling fans a load of bull. They just don’t care. The climaxes of a slew of these titles in time for AOR showcases how little they care. Heck, they’re canning Magik, the one solo title THAT WAS A SUCCESS. That doesn’t even make sense on a business level. Magik was outselling Wolverine, for heaven’s sakes!
As for Brevoort, I agree that FF is being managed better, by virtue of it being one book. “Coast behind a popular writer” is literally his only move. It was how he was a “success” editing the Avengers. All he had to do was coast behind Kurt Busiek, Brian Bendis, and Jason Aaron. Truly hard work, that. He was a glorified XL Spreadsheet. He’s the Phil Jackson of comics; an NBA coach who literally spent his entire career coasting behind Michael Jordan’s Bulls and the Kobe/Shaq Lakers, won about 10 rings, yet thought it was HIS stupid “triangle offense,” and not literally having the best players on Earth, which led to his success. Shockingly, any other team he want on failed. Which may be why Brevoort is struggling with X-Men. Beyond the fact that he doesn’t care about the franchise nor like or understand it, he has no singular talent to coast behind for years like he had with Bendis (who was a shadow editor at various points). Jed MacKay is too uneven and Gail Simone is past her prime, and Stephanie Philips is probably blackmailing someone (or works cheap). There’s nobody for an editor with no talent to coast behind like a Bendis or a Grant Morrison right now in the X-Books.
I understand how corporations work. The one goal behind the creation of a corporation is to maximize profits. If something creative comes out of that, it’s an unintentional by-product. To expect a corporation to do anything except attempt to make the most money it can is to misunderstand why the corporation exists. You are basically saying, “That lion killed a gazelle. Maybe it could have eaten lettuce instead, but it killed a gazelle.” The lion did not evolve to consume lettuce and it’s futility to question why the lion is doing what it evolved to do. Although, yes, corporations are a product and creation of human civilization rather that nature, it is still questioning purpose.
You have to understand that comic books are a niche market. They have to attempt to gain short-term profits anyway they can, and that is how Marvel operates.
Tom Brevoort is just a corporate yes-man though. He only has so much power in the corporate hierarchy. I don’t expect it was Brevoort’s decision to relaunch FF yet again. I’m guessing that orders came from higher up the chain of command. “There’s a movie coming out soon. We want to see increased sales on the Fantastic Four comic. Maximize on the attention that the characters will get from the movie. Can you do that?”. Brevoort’s answer? “Sir, yes sir.”
Brevoort could stand up to his bosses and question their orders, but then Brevoort wound have been shown the door at the company years ago. Brevoort has lasted at Marvel as long as he has because he knows how to please his bosses and give them what they tell him. Brevoort’s other option id to hear, “ You won’t do your job? We’ll find someone who will.”
Of course, the fact that he doesn’t seem care about doing his job on the X-line seems counter-intuitive to this, until you realize that he’s doing what Marvel wants. Flooding the market with X-titles to keep Marvel Comics share of the comic book marketplace at over 51%, throwing out an overhyped genetic cross-over event to drum up sales when the glut of titles eat themselves, then relaunch the line again coming out of the event so that he can goose sales for a few months again, until he decides what to do next. That’s what his bosses look at, the bottom line, not the quality of the product, how enthused Brevoort is with his job, just that he’s fulfilling his obligation to the corporation of showing them a profit on books he is editing.
As far as Magik-Magik is most likely getting a promotion as she will become the new Sorcerer Supreme.
I don’t think Illyanna is a good fit for the role, but #10 of her recent solo book and Doctor Strange #450 certainly seem to be hinting that she will be the new Sorcerer Supreme.
Luis-You are probably correct, but I think it was the unexpected success of her solo series which made the decision. Uncanny and X-Men are the only two FtA titles that sold better than Magik. If Brevoort is to be taken at his word and he was “sampling” with “From the Ashes”, then the fans spoke by saying they like Magik, and if Magik becomes the new Sorcerer Supreme than Brevoort succeeded by finding a new star character that Marvel can push for the short-term.
I agree that it’s weird that Brevoort isn’t sharing creative control with a prominent writer.
I also agree that he’s basically playing out orders he’s gotten from higher up re: the X-books.
Therefore, the “lots of different styles” across the X-line must have been a choice from over his head.
Otherwise, he would have given Gail Simone or Jed MacKay the keys to the franchise and let them design the line more fully. They are the two most well-known writers on the X-books currently, after all.
I’m not saying Brevoort is a great editor — he’s let too many basic storytelling gaffs slip past for that — but I do think he’s doing exactly what he was hired to do. And he can’t be blamed for that, really.
@Chris V — I wouldn’t expect Tom Brevoort to “resist” a relaunch of a title. I know that’s one of many edicts that come from above (and I am aware that a comic book editor, at best, is a yes-man middle manager, usually earning peanuts, so I understand some bitterness). And I also know that these days, regular letter columns are rare and “unpaid labors of love.”
But the FF example I cited could have been resolved by three editorial acts:
1). Simply not publish any letters about relaunches, since as a 30+ year editorial veteran, Tommy B should know they come with the seasons.
2). If choosing to publish said letters, only give neutral or at least well humored responses.
3). If choosing to answer two of those letters across two months with snide, snarky, insulting language that acts as if the letter writers are insane for even suggesting a relaunch is coming, to at least offer a good humored, “well, what do ya know/I messed up” response in good faith. Tommy B recently did this for a relaunched FF issue to answer to a credit error, so he’s capable of it.
These are not unreasonable acts like trying to resist a mandated relaunch or crossover demand. These are simple acts of editing a letter column and not being a douche canoe, and he failed. I’ve seen message board forum moderators who earn NOTHING and “work” longer hours handle things better.
Instead, Tommy B insulted two letter writers who turned out to be right, and he was not only wrong but arrogantly, insultingly wrong. And he didn’t ever make it right in the column, when it was easy and doing so would have made him look better, or at least been professional. And that’s with FF, an easier line to manage.
The failure to communicate to X-writers how long they have before a deck clearing crossover is another simple task of being a senior editor which Brevoort seems to be failing at. And I’d be sympathetic if he was a rookie or only had a mere decade or two experience. He’s been a senior group editor for one franchise or another for nearly 30+ years. He’s been in this position more or less since Bill Clinton was president, and he still is making errors a copy boy out of college couldn’t miss. THAT is the issue I think a lot of people have. It isn’t the woe of being a company man. It’s the woe of being an INCOMPETENT, ARROGANTLY IGNORANT and OFTEN RUDE company man. Yes, fans can often been jerks. Welcome to public relations. Wear a smock.
That’s a fair point that Brevoort could have chosen not to publish those letters. I expected that those were the only letters they received for that month though, and Brevoort had to publish those letters or start making up his own. I’m sure he gets bombarded with those questions constantly online anyway. I’m not sure why he has this online presence if he doesn’t like dealing with complaining fans. So, yeah, fair point that he could have ignored those letters.
Yeah, Brevoort isn’t the greatest at his job. I’ve said many negative things about him also. Sometimes people attack Brevoort for things that are above his head. Which is giving him too much credit at the same time as giving him a hard time for simply doing his work. There are certainly faults to Brevoort as an editor.
Brevoort is basically a bureaucrat. That’s kind of the nature of bureaucrats, to be kind of incompetent at their jobs but to get the job they are told to do completed. That’s what the bosses look for, so someone like Brevoort is able to remain in his position at a corporation. If the bosses had the time to spend micromanaging every detail of business, they’d figure out that Brevoort is kind of an incompetent bureaucrat, but they don’t consider that their job.
Doesn’t Marvel have assistant editors anymore? Because it used to be the assistant editors that handled letter-responding duty, not the main editors.
“I really want to know what Marvel editors see in Stephanie Phillips “
I loved her Spider-Gwen work, enjojed her Rogue& Gambit. People who read it (not me) seemed to love her work on Harley Quinn. She has done a ton of work. Editors are right to love her in general.
She is not Jeff Loeb. She has a literal PhD in Composition. This work on Phoenix is aggressively bad. Aggressive! As in insert grawlics and uncensored swear words. This is a big middle finger to someone. Brevoort? Above Brevoort?
“Stephanie Philips is probably blackmailing someone (or works cheap). “
I call reverse. I am hoping for a public expose decades from now.
Claire Malone – ‘Happy New Year 2050. Ms.Philips, you have survived a collapse of government, environmental devastation, and two World Wars, but I want to talk to you about your early comics career. What can you tell me about Phoenix.’
Stephanie Phillips -‘ @$#^%’
@Moo — Marvel does indeed have assistant editors. Sometimes they do, indeed, handle the letter columns for comics that have them. It isn’t universal and I have no idea how it is decided which comics have them and which do not, even among ongoing titles. Legacy is a factor (i.e. titles that always had them). Some letter columns are answered by the writer, though those are rare outside the indie circuit.
Tom Brevoort, however, usually answers the letter columns for the big books he oversees. He did the letter column for Avengers until he left, and he currently does the one for Fantastic Four. I don’t know if he does any for any X-Book. Whether this is a personal choice or demand from corporate is unknown.
Yeah, he’s doing the letter’s page for Uncanny. Not sure if he does any others. He upset some people with some of his responses about Krakoa in the early Uncanny letter’s page.
“Tom Brevoort, however, usually answers the letter columns for the big books he oversees. He did the letter column for Avengers until he left”
No, he didn’t. It was an assistant editor. I had a letter printed during the Busiek run. It wasn’t Brevoort who responded to it.
Mark Sumerac just sprang to mind. I believe it was him.
It’s unclear to me, did Sara stop being a menace to the universe, or is she the new Sienna Blaze (i.e. every moment Sara exists/Sienna uses her powers, it could end the universe/destroy the world! But it won’t)?
As someone who’s first exposure to Jean Grey was from early X-Factor, I have always held a distaste for the character. In the soapiest of soap opera books, she was the only woman, so she had to be both Krystal and Alexis. When I went back and read Chris Claremont writing her, I understood the appeal that the character could have, but my feelings had already been formed by Louise Simonson.
Chris V> That’s a fair point that Brevoort could have chosen not to publish those letters. I expected that those were the only letters they received for that month though, and Brevoort had to publish those letters or start making up his own.
He didn’t have to have a letters page. Many Marvel books have them intermittently or not at all.
@Sam – I think the reason that it is unclear to you is that you are charitably trying to make sense out of a deliberate hard paradox that is written tight enough to elude a no-prize.
I’ll say one thing for the book: I’m confident the run-up to AoR didn’t drag the quality down.
On an unrelated note, I canceled my Disney Plus subscription today (and my Paramount Plus subscription before that for similar reasons). Lovely dictatorship you have brewing there, my American cousins. All hail the FCC, I guess. Anyway, that means even if I were still buying comics, I’d be dropping Marvel today since they’re Disney owned.
Good luck down there. I’ll just be up here in Canada politely awaiting annexation.
You had to wait for the Alien: Earth finale this coming week. It’s the most interesting show that’s been on TV for about 25 years.
@Chris V – Yeah, I wrestled with that, believe me, because I’ve been enjoying it myself. But I decided that I wanted my cancelation to contribute to the immediate backlash. I’ll see it someday, somehow.
@woodswalked- Roge & Gambit was horrible. We had Gambit endangering the life of an innocent woman just to get the Black Panther off his trail. And the ending had the Southern character succeed by enslaving the nonwhite character, which is not something I thought I’d see in a 21st century comic.
“I understand how corporations work. The one goal behind the creation of a corporation is to maximize profits.”
OK, complete tangent here, but this is a hot button of mine. While your statement is a good rule of thumb, exceptions abound. Corporations are made of people, and people are not fully rational profit-maximizers. Lots of corporations demonstrably take actions which damage their profits, but cater to the bigotry of the execs. Or their ability to exercise petty managerial dominance over their employees. Or just because of ego or whim.
I take exception with the idea that Jean isn’t or can’t be an engaging character. She’s got at least a handful of traits that would be interesting to explore.
And you can’t say that she won’t sell comics. The Marvel brass were willing to publish 15 issues about her this time around, sales figures be damned.
But when you put her in a solo book where a) she’s largely not the POV character and b) she’s almost entirely removed from all her ongoing relationships, then you’re going to get a stinker.
More to the point, people seem to have fond memories of Jean’s last solo under Dennis Hopeless, even if that was the teen version (Tean?)
“And you can’t say that she won’t sell comics.”
And you can’t say the Twilight saga didn’t sell a lot of movie tickets. That make ’em good films?
Jean, or indeed any X-Man, should be perfectly viable in a “solo”. But the challenge is what makes the character interesting is the web of relationships, and that’s mostly with other X-characters. These minis tend to work best when you have a handful of known characters you can deep dive into, in addition to the title holder. Of course it then feels less like an individual focus, but I think that’s the price worth paying.
The second thing is, we already know so so much about Jean. Where can you really go that’s new and meaningful? (I’d say the same about Wolverine and Cyclops or Emma too). Jean’s sibling Sara was an interesting route but didn’t work in the context.
And that’s the third thing. Cosmic comics are a wrong choice for stories grounded in character! If the character becomes a god, or an infinite concept, they’re no longer recognisable. There’s no conflict (see the hand wave end of this series!). This is why the Phoenix and Storm series really haven’t worked. They are removed from drama rooted in character.
I might be speaking out of turn or seeing a pattern where none exists, but I’ve noticed that a *lot* of Paul’s annotations over the past year or so have involved heavy use of ambiguous language – “seems”, “apparently”, etc. I’m wondering whether that’s indicative of a larger, line-wide problem with narrative clarity and/or sloppy writing on Marvel’s part, or if it’s just coincidence.
In many cases it’s simply an attempt to distinguish between what’s actually stated on the page and what I take to be implied.
@Moo: With the news today, I assume the dictatorship is no longer brewing? Remember, your country seized the bank accounts of striking truck drivers without a court order because “sometimes democracy takes too long”.
@neutrino- I couldn’t be less interested in political commentary from a guy who actually thinks TDS is a real syndrome.