Phoenix #11 annotations
PHOENIX #11
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Roi Mercado
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa
PHOENIX
The previous issue ended with Jean receiving a psychic message from someone claiming to be her sister Sara. Since then, Jean hasn’t had any further psychic contact with Sara, but she has had recurring nightmares about Sara being taken away by villains. The one we see features demons.
Jean is certain that the woman she sensed was the real Sara, and somewhat irritated by Scott’s scepticism. She places particular importance on this not simply because it’s her sister, but because the rest of her family are all dead (having been slaughtered by the Shi’ar in Uncanny X-Men #467).
When Jean meets Sara, she’s equally certain that it’s her real sister. But she acknowledges in narration towards the end that she very much wanted to believe this, and didn’t ask awkward questions.
She hasn’t visited the White Hot Room since Rise of the Powers of X. She claims to be worried that visiting might “disturb the peace those mutants have found there”. It’s not really clear why she thinks that. Perhaps she worries that the presence of the actual Phoenix could destabilise the White Hot Room as a physical location where people could actually live. Or perhaps she feels as if the mutants of New Krakoa – as she calls it – wouldn’t welcome her presence, having moved on. Nonetheless, this story states fairly clearly that Jean could, if she wanted, enter the White Hot Room and communicate with New Krakoa – well, aside from the fact that something is currently blocking her.
Jean believes that she can find Sara from within the White Hot Room, because it “offers the Phoenix a connection to the very vertebrae of the stars”. Leaving aside the odd concept of stellar vertebrae, the idea seems to be that Phoenix is better able to scan parts of the universe that are remote from her when she’s in the White Hot Room.
Something unspecified is attacking the White Hot Room, or at least Phoenix’s connection to it, and prevents Jean from entering it. She passes out moments after encountering this, and once she comes round, she’s understandably more preoccupied with the reunion with her long-lost sister. But whatever it is that she comes across, it’s apparently a threat to the White Hot Room and, by extension, New Krakoa.
She has a Harry’s Hideaway mug, from the X-Men’s favourite bar in Salem Center.
SUPPORTING CAST
Cyclops. Even at this distance, he can sense that Jean is having nightmares over their psychic link. He’s openly sceptical that Sara is genuine, which he gets away with by pitching it as a “let’s not get your hopes up too quickly” thing.
Sara Grey. Jean says that Sara was “killed by the Purifiers” because she stood up for mutants. Back in X-Factor #12, Sara did indeed make public statements in support of mutants, and her house was bombed by unidentified extremists. Sara wasn’t there at the time, though, and simply went missing (before allegedly being absorbed into the Phalanx). Since Sara’s body was never found, and Jean refuses to even believe that she was dead, she can’t literally mean that Sara was killed by the Purifiers, but it’s possible that they were assumed at one point to have killed her (and certainly drove her into hiding). The Purifiers weren’t really a thing in the X-books in 1986 when Sara vanished, but Reverend Stryker’s followers date back to God Loves, Man Kills in 1982, so – sure, they could be responsible.
In this issue, Sara wears a black, white and gold costume with a red hood. It bears no resemblance to the olive green gown that she was wearing at the end of the previous issue, where the art suggested a more monastic setting.
Despite Jean vouching for her, Sara is extremely suspicious. When Jean asks what happened to her, she replies “Let me show you”, and then launches into a monologue that doesn’t answer the question at all. (Jean’s closing narration makes clear that this is deliberate.)
Sara claims to have the “latent” mutant ability to unlock other latent mutant abilities. Presumably she means it was once latent, because obviously it’s not latent now. Anyway, this is a reference to an alleged unused Chris Claremont idea. Deep breath…
…Sara Grey debuts in X-Men #136 (1980), but her first significant appearance is in the Phoenix story in Bizarre Adventures #27 (1981). That story is better known for containing Jean’s origin flashback, but the flashback is merely incidental to a story about Jean and Sara being abducted by Attuma, who turns them ino water breathers to make them into bridal material. This goes predictably badly for him. At the end of the story, Phoenix restores Sara’s body to normal.
When Marvel decided to reunite the original X-Men in X-Factor, Chris Claremont opposed the plan to bring Jean back. According to CBR’s Comic Book Legends Revealed column (which doesn’t cite any sources for this), his rearguard action included a proposal that Sara should take Jean’s place. The idea was that Sara’s latent mutant powers had been triggered as a result of her experiences with Jean and Attuma, and that she in turn had the ability to activate other latent mutants – which could then fit with X-Factor’s initial “mutant hunter” gimmick. This story is clearly the source for the idea.
Sara lives in what she describes as an “intergalactic city” full of mutants whose powers she has unlocked. Presumably these are alien mutants; there are precedents for this, such as Warlock (and besides, mutants in general are creations of the Celestials, who operate across the universe).
The city is called Greyhaven, and she says that it was named after her by the inhabitants who came to her for help. According to her, these people had “always known they were different” but had been unable to access their mutant powers without her help. The inhabitants we see appear to be humanoid aliens in white and gold uniforms.
Sara says that she “looked for” everyone in her family and “realised that I’m the last one left”. That suggests that she knew about the Grey family massacre. But in the previous issue she claimed that everyone had told her that Jean was dead. It’s hard to imagine her operating in circles where she has knowledge of the massacre but not of Jean’s survival.
Equally unconvincingly, Sara claims that she knew that Jean would eventually come looking for her at the White Hot Room. She says that some of the psychics at Greyhaven helped her to access the White Hot Room and that “something went wrong”. She claims to have “removed your consciousness and brought you back here with me”, which would suggest that it’s not Jean’s physical body that has been brought to Greyhaven. That in turn casts doubt on whether Greyhaven really exists at all, and the curious symbolic final page only reinforces that doubt.
Cable. He’s several hundred years in the future doing Star Wars type stuff, when he senses a change in the past. The obvious implication is that this is the incident at the White Hot Room, which took place in the preceding scene. Somehow or other, Cable can sense its impact and knows that the timeline is being altered. Quite how he’s sensing it is unclear; presumably it’s meant to be something to do with his experience as a time traveller. He seems to think that this incident is so noticeable that even the thug he’s beating up ought to be able to sense it, though.
There is an interview with Claremont floating out on the web where he addresses that he did, indeed, propose that Sara Grey be the fifth member of X-Factor, but Shooter ultimately decided to go with the Stern/Byrne idea.
Here is the pertinent quote from an interview with Chris Claremont:
“That’s why Rachel came into the world, because we needed a red head, we needed a telepath, we needed a link with Jean, but she wasn’t ever coming back. That was why, when John and Roger Stern and company proposed the resurrection in “X-Factor,” I countered to it. The pitch I made to Jim Shooter was that we utilize her older sister, Sarah. For me, as a writer, that was a far more intriguing reality, because we’d introduce a Grey back into the team, but we would introduce a Grey who was a mutant, who hated the idea of being a mutant, who hated the idea of being an X-Man, yet accepted the responsibility. More importantly, she was uninvolved with any of the four guys.“
> Paul Sara says that she “looked for” everyone in her family and “realised that I’m the last one left”. That suggests that she knew about the Grey family massacre. But in the previous issue she claimed that everyone had told her that Jean was dead. It’s hard to imagine her operating in circles where she has knowledge of the massacre but not of Jean’s survival.
I mean, Jean WAS dead at the time. Rachel was the only survivor
The thing with Sara being killed by the Purifiers is weird. The next issue page at the end of the issue correctly states that Sara was killed by the Phalanx. It’s not clear what happened to Sara between her house being bombed and her being absorbed by the Phalanx. Her children showed up in the custody of Nanny, who claimed Sara was dead,. and after they were rescued had no memory of Sara.
In the Phalanx Covenant, it’s explained that many of the volunteers for the Phalanx came from the Friends of Humanity. And Cameron Hodge, the leader of the Right, also joined the Phalanx. It’s not clear how Sara was absorbed into the Phalanx. Many readers theorized that either the Friends of Humanity or the Right captured Sara and handed her over to the Phalanx. It’s possible that Phillips assumed that the Purifiers handed Sara over to the Phalanx- maybe she got them confused with the Right or the Friends of Humanity.
Many readers disliked Cable referring to Jean as his stepmother instead of mother.
Sara said her husband Paul is dead but it was never clear how he died.
Note that Sara says her kids are dead, even though they were mutants. Some readers assumed that ALL the dead mutants were resurrected with the dead Genoshan mutants in the White Hot Room. But we already saw that Sally Floyd’s child wasn’t resurrected in the Infinity Comics. This confirms that Sara’s kinds were not resurrected.
I don’t know why they would dislike Cable referring to Jean as his “stepmother.” While Madelyne is a clone of Jean, she is still a fully functioning human being with her own thoughts and memories separate from Jean. While Jean did raise him in the future, it was Madelyne who gave birth to Cable.
On the subject of Maddie and Cable, I can only think of that single issue of Cable just before the Twelve or maybe Onslaught where they actually had an on-panel interaction as adults. As many returns as Maddie has had, they’re almost never to see Cable.
Even the recent crossover with Spider-man and Ben Reilly, Maddie got memories of Nate’s childhood from Jean and promptly forgot that he’s still a living adult that she can contact. Weird.
>Many readers disliked Cable referring to Jean as his stepmother instead of mother.
I liked this detail a lot. The relationship between Jean and Cable has always been a little complicated, but has had some really nice character moments like when Cable tells Scott and Jean that he knew they were Slim and Redd, or their bonding on Gambit’s X-Men team after The Twelve (which was a short run, but one of my favorite teams).
Acknowledging Jean as his stepmother recognizes the validity of stepmothers as a type of parent, and that even if Jean didn’t give birth to Cable, it didn’t mean she didn’t love him or raise him. That’s meaningful when the most common adjective most people associate with stepmother is “wicked.”
I guess it would depend on why, exactly, these fans were (supposedly) upset, as there is no context.
Is it because Maddy is “just a clone”, which would make sagatwarrior and John’s comments on the matter accurate.
Is it because Jean was the one who actually raised Nathan and so his calling her “stepmother” sounds like a qualifier? The person that raises you is your “mother” or “father” just as much (and, indeed, moreso) than the person who biologically gave birth to you.
Cable could call Jean his “mother”, even though she didn’t give birth to him. Especially, as (NS points out) it seems that Madelyne has her own issues she is trying to work through and no longer seems to show much interest in her birth-son.
On Cable : this issue’s final panel shows a metal arm drifting in space, suggesting that something bad happened to him off-panel after he went back in time to check what was going on.
(I’m sure he’ll be fine.)
It is not clear to me why Maddie would be expected to have talking with Cable as a priority. Or, indeed, vice versa.
From Cable’s perspective Maddie is the birth mother that went through a rough deal, but simply wasn’t really a significant part of his past.
From Maddie’s, Cable is the child that was taken away from her before things went through hell (literally even). She went through so much since that the bad memories of the time shortly after when she had no means of contacting either her husband or her child and had to live in hiding with the X-Men in the Outbacks may not even register. Right after that she had so many traumatic interactions with so many people that I don’t think we will ever reach a consensus on what exactly happened. Alex, Nastirth, Sinister, S’ym, the massacre in Genosha when her powers surfaced, the memory loss that came immediately after. Then “Inferno”, in which aftermath she suddenly lost her own identity to Jean and then died. And she died and ressurrected, what, twice since? And over all that, she had a memory implant from Jean to stabilize her emotional state during “Dark Web”.
Sure, she had little opportunity to interact with Cable as an adult – or even young Cable from the Rosenberg run and the Krakoa era. And I am sure that sometimes she wishes things had been different. But for good or worse, things happened as they did, and the end result is that she and Cable simply have too little shared past and too much else on their plates. What would they even want to talk about?
It could be an interesting one-time story, though. Considering that they are both telepaths, how _would_ Cable and Maddie feel if they ever attempted to talk about the times gone by and what could have been?
Fair game for all kinds of fanfic, but there is so much heavy emotional baggage tied to so many often unclear facts and meanings that I don’t see how it could be resolved in any satisfying way. The passage of time isn’t helping either, as their stories turn ever more convoluted and complex.
I liked the usage of “stepmother” as well. There will always be some flux and tension about the meanings of parentage words, but it is no bad thing to acknowledge that Jean is not literally the birth mother.
That might in some circunstances be interpreted as an attempt at distancing himself, I suppose, but we should not allow ourselves to be carried away by such petty fears. Not least because there is the alternate and IMO more significant reading that there are positions of significance that are earned instead of ensured by very specific situations of decades past.
Oh, we were talking about this comic book. Right. Sorry.
I find it refreshing (and reassuring) that the cover states, accurately and matter-of-factly, that a new arc starts here. This sure feels like an entirely new arc, with just the right amount of acknowledgement of the resolution of previous arc and display of the current status quo. And it is a subtly changed status quo. This may be the first time that we actually see Scott in this book, although his thoughts were communicated to Jean on-panel (rarely) before. Jean is in deep space, but that just doesn’t factor into the plot; she might as well be in the next room next door.
While the first ten issues were all about the space opera and high fantasy, this is a very intimate issue that, fittingly for a telepathic protagonist, lampshades Jean’s thoughts and emotions during the whole tale. We get nice hints about how she and Scott communicate right now, about how she feels and fears about the White Hot Room after the fall of Krakoa, about how Jean may deal with the ever-present temptations of self-delusion. And a promise of some near-future display of how Cable and Jean relate to each other, which is probably an underexplored matter.
I feel very tempted to think of the first ten issues as some form of “Imperial” (the coming event) prelude series, even as a probationary task of sorts given to Stephanie Phillips and Roi Mercado. They certainly featured Nova, Corsair and the current usual suspects for Marvel space opera plenty enough to bring that suspicion to the table.
However, the book is apparently considerably stronger when it does not have to deal with the space opera and high fantasy. Phillips shows good storytelling and characterization here in #11. Jean is very relatable and so are her insecurities and even her anger. I am sincerely puzzled and interested in finding out what is truly happening in the scenes with Jean and Sara; this may well be happening entirely in a dream of its own (as Jean fears and voices), but the dialogue is in itself interesting.
Here is hoping that this new direction lasts for a while longer. I want more of it.
The other issue is that Marvel doesn’t know what to do with Cable since X-Men Red 10, which was published about the same time Maddie reached a truce with the X-Men. He disappeared from X-Men Red after that issue. Then he appeared in Fall of X where he appeared in two minis where he went on side quests. Then he appeared in a mini that takes place in the future that has no connection to the rest of the Marvel Universe. Then Weapon X-Men was supposed to be Cable’s main book but it turned out to be dead on arrival. And now he’s appearing in the Phoenix series, which is rumored to be cancelled soon. Cable hasn’t had meaningful interactions with most X-Men characters in the last couple of years. Marvel really needs to figure out what to do with Cable.
Why does Cable need to be featured at all?
He is a character of very limited range and role. Using him constantly and just because hinders the whole line.
His very concept comes with perfectly good reasons to not use him all the time.
Let’s use those. 2015’s “X-Force #15” by Si Spurrier had the right idea. Park him until the time comes when there is an actual story reason to use him.
Plenty of better characters, even specifically X-characters, have to wait many years between having regular books. I fail to see why Cable would be any different.
The other weird thing this issue: how much weight was Cyclops lifting?! Is the gym at a superhero base just permanently configured for the strong guy on the team, so everyone else just better bulk up?
Yeah, Cyclops used to be the skinny guy on the team. Now he’s powerlifting? I guess it just depends on the artist. Same thing with Wolverine’s height.
Anyone else wondering if we will revisit a certain villain from the Duggan X-Men run soon?
@ Thom H- There’s two factors. First, a lot of artists draw all male heroes muscular. Secondly, Scott is supposed to be skinny but strong. And even though there are plenty of people in real life who are skinny and strong a lot of artists can’t draw strong people without muscles.
@Luis Dantas- Which one?
He used to be known as “Slim” Summers, but like so many other superheroes, during the early-1990s he turned to the ‘roids. Suddenly, he was “Buff” Summers. Of course, as the dangers of steroids became better known, most superheroes had to lay off the juice. Scott Summers was no longer the same as the one (say) who graced the cover of X-Men (vol. 2) #1, but he also refused to return to the days of circa (Uncanny) X-Men #54. He’s now doing it the healthy way.
@Michall – not one of the usual suspects, but one whose name has been mentioned in this issue.
I wish that ‘an all new arc starts here!’ blurb wasn’t there, because this is very lovely cover art. Last issue’s cover looked wonderful as well.
No-Prize: maybe Maddie avoids Cable because it’s just too awkward considering she did have an intimate sexual relationship in the 1990’s with his AU counterpart Nate Grey , and their break-up apparently traumatized NG enough that he when became a creator god ala Franklin Richards, his own personal pocket dimension AU was an aro-ace Gattaca-style world. LOL
Afaik that wasn’t really 616 Madelyne.
X-Editorial then as now is too cowardly that they kept it ambiguously vague enough (Evil Queen Jean is a proven liar so she’s an unreliable narrator) that it could go either way hehehe personally I prefer to think that it was indeed her , but either way , Nate was already clearly having sex with a someone who was genetically his biological mother in XMan 67 LOL
I’m not reading Phoenix but just from Paul’s synopsis, this issue definitely seems to be a step up for the book. There are a lot of red flags that Sara either isn’t Sara or, if she is, something else is wrong, but it’s very understandable that Jean wants to accept her as her lost sister. Maybe Phoenix is going to justify its survival beyond #10.
> the most common adjective most people associate with stepmother is “wicked.”
Maybe maybe not. As Jason Manzoukas rapped on the Legion show, “I’m the new norm, like stepmother porn.”
Also, I hate when a change in the past suddenly manifests at a specific moment in the future. If the change is rippling forward from the past, why did Cable only feel it in the time frame of the comic, not before?
@LuisDantas I was thinking the stepmother comment could be referring to The Phoenix just as easily. In that sense Jeanix is his step-mother twice over though most recently he’d just been referring to Jean as his mother with no qualifiers.
It certainly sticks out.
Here’s more from CC about his reaction to the resurrection of Jean and proposal to use Sara:
[i] “Oh, God! Barry Windsor-Smith and I were coming into the office to plot X-Men #198 (in 1985),” Claremont recalled in Comics Creators On X-Men. “It was a Friday night and (editor) Ann (Nocenti) took us out to dinner and didn’t tell us about X-Factor until it was, like, 6:30-7:00 at night and the office switchboard was already closed. I wanted to call Shooter, but I couldn’t remember his direct line. Ann knew his number, but she wouldn’t tell me. She told me to just sit down, have another drink and relax. I mean, she played me beautifully. Since it was Friday, I had the whole weekend to go berserk.”
“I spent the weekend coming up with a whole new set of characters that they could use for X-Factor. I came in Monday morning and pitched the idea of using Jean’s sister Sara and making her a living Cerebro. She not only senses mutants, but has the power to work out what they’ll become. Shooter sat there and said, “That’s a great concept. I think it’s wonderful. If you want to go with it, go with it, but we’re bringing back Jean Grey.””
“The fact is, Ann did a smart thing. If I had actually gone in to see Shooter on Friday night, I would have quit. I was so pissed off. I couldn’t believe what they did to Cyclops (Scott Summers). He was supposed to be a hero and they had him walking out on his wife and newborn child and not even thinking twice about it.”
According to Back Issue #29, Chris Claremont and Jackson Guice made some uncredited changes to John Byrne’s Fantastic Four #286 in 1986, in which Jean Grey returned in a prelude to X-Factor. In Byrne’s original version, the Phoenix entity was malevolent and it was Jean’s humanity that triumphed. In the reworked story, Phoenix was essentially a benign entity that got tainted by Jean’s human fallibility. [/i]
https://uncannyxmen.net/secrets-behind-the-x-men/jean-greys-return-in-x-factor
As always, I think Claremont’s memory can sometimes be a little self-serving. But I’m sure the part about Sara Grey is true enough.
Let’s not forget that Maddie tried to kill Nathan as an infant. Sure, she had been possessed by demons, or wherever, but that’s not an easy thing to come back from.
It always seemed odd to me that Cable goes by “Nathan” instead of “Christopher.” Scott always hated the name “Nathan” because that’s the name Mr. Sinister used to bully him in the orphanage. In X-Factor Jean and Scott and the rest called him “Christopher.” “Nathan” was a name from Maddie’s family.
So why would Slim and Redd use “Nathan?” Was it because at the time they thought Stryfe was the original and Cable the clone?
@Oldie- They knew that Cable was the original by that point.
As for why they called Cable “Nathan”, they knew that Cable liked being called Nathan in the present so they had to call him Nathan when they were raising him so as not to alter the timeline.
they knew that Cable liked being called Nathan in the present so they had to call him Nathan when they were raising him so as not to alter the timeline.
That gave me a headache.
Look, you simply cannot parent your kid on a way that’s going to result in a predetermined outcome. For all they knew, calling him Christopher could have made him a better person than the Cable they knew. Paradox isn’t a problem from the subjective perspective.
No-Pride: they were “reclaiming” the names as minorities are wont to do with slurs used against them by majorities , meta-reason , it was the 1990’s and “Nathan” was a kewl edgy name because it was uncommon then as a First name in English-speaking countries like the U.S.A. , while Christopher is too common already (as well as being longer to read and write and speak)