BINARY #1
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Giada Beluiso
Colourist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Annalise Bissa

COVER: Binary, now with added Phoenix emblem.

This is another “Age of Revelation” miniseries, and I’m covering it in this feature because it’s standing in for an ongoing title, Phoenix.

Binary is a former identity of Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel), which she used as a member of the Starjammers after gaining cosmic powers. The reference is supposed to be to binary stars (hence the two stars on her normal costume motif, but that’s replaced here by the Phoenix emblem). As Binary, she was part of the extended X-Men supporting cast. Obviously Carol has had plenty of solo books under the titles Ms Marvel and Captain Marvel, but this is the first book to appear under the name Binary.

PAGES 1-4. Hank and co try to kill Binary, and fail.

This is a flash forward to “five days from now”, and we’ll see in a bit what Hank is up to – suffice to say that his insinuations that Binary has done something to deserve assassination are misdirection.

Beverly, Massachusetts. This is the town where Carol grew up, and Carol tells us later that she came here by “instinct”. The energy dome in the sky is Binary’s powers keeping the X-virus at bay. The plants seem to be growing well enough, so apparently it doesn’t affect the skylight.

Phoenix. We’re told that Jean Grey has died, and that Carol is the new Phoenix. Carol has shown up as a guest star (rather than a supporting character) in the regular Phoenix title, but it’s not a stretch to think that Jean might suggest her as an acceptable host. We’re told in the next scene that Carol has been using her powers to defend Beverly from the X-virus for “almost ten years”. Since Age of Revelation is set ten years into the future, the implication is that Jean didn’t make it very far past the present day.

Of course, we’ve been told plenty of times in recent years that Jean is Phoenix. But none of those statements have ever attempted to retcon away the facts that Jean and Phoenix were separate for many years and that Phoenix has had other hosts. It does, however, raise the question of how far the Phoenix is still connected to Jean. We’ll come back to that.

PAGES 5-8. Carol addresses a town meeting.

The basic idea here is that Hank is turning the people of Beverly against Carol by playing to their paranoia. Carol has psychic powers, presumably from Phoenix. After being kept isolated from the X-virus for ten years, the people are getting paranoid about whether the whole thing is a scam to keep them under Carol’s thumb for some reason. Who’s to say they haven’t found a cure by now? Has anyone ever seen this Revelation guy trying to get in? (Evidently not, though we see later on that there are Babels hanging around outside the dome.) How can we know that even the original X-virus wasn’t a false memory? It’s not too difficult to imagine a story where this actually was the plot, so it’s not too much of a stretch.

How exactly this Boston suburb has sustained itself for so many years is left unclear, but Hank refers to Carol controlling what comes into the bubble. This suggests that someone outside the bubble is apparently helping to supply food, but why? Nor is it clear why Revelation hasn’t attacked the place, though we could reasonably conclude that if Phoenix wants to sit around and defend a subsurb until she gives up from exhaustion, letting her get on with it is probably a better strategy than picking a fight.

PAGES 9-12. Hank reports back to his employer.

Hank seems to be more interested in taking pleasure in his successes than whatever agenda his employer might have – and apparently expects that she’ll share his enthusiasm. He quietens down quickly once it’s clear that she’s interested in the bigger picture.

The employer remains anonymous in this issue, but she’s a redheaded woman in a black hood and cloak, and she seems to be able to summon up a sort of psychic serpent thing. The plan is to break Carol’s spirit, but quite why is unclear. When we see her clearly at the end of the issue, she sure looks like Jean Grey, though her costume suggests she’s more likely to be Jean’s clone Madelyne Pryor. AoR Madelyne has clearly lost control of Limbo at some point, since Magik was claiming her territory as a part of Limbo in Amazing X-Men #1.

Madelyne (or whoever) gives us some exposition about the Babels, the people who’ve been punished by Revelation by having thier capacity for language removed. She seems to compare their situation to having been restored to the garden of Eden, since that fits better with her serpent imagery. The idea seems to be that the serpent is somehow able to open a breach in the bubble and let the Babels in, I think – the art isn’t very clear on this sequence at all. At any rate, she’s clearly responsible somehow for letting the Babels in, and her ability to interfere with the Phoenix’s protective bubble would also tend to suggest some sort of connection with its power. Then again…

PAGES 13-15. Carol talks with the mayor.

According to Carol, the Phoenix Force also doesn’t want to be sitting here protecting Beverly. Presumably, the Phoenix doesn’t regard this as an appropriate function for a cosmic entity, and it has a point. This would dovetail to some extent with themes from Phoenix about whether Jean should be using her power as a goddess or from a human perspective. And it raises another possibility, which is that Hank’s employer is a manifestation of the Phoenix itself, trying to put a stop to this so that it can get back to doing appropriate cosmic things. Or maybe the Phoenix is simply willing to help her.

PAGES 16-20. Binary fights the Babels.

Since humans apparently can’t live in “this mutant land”, the Babels are mutants (albeit all human-presenting ones) with generic energy-blasting powers. In her narration, Binary delivers a monologue about the importance of protecting “those who can’t protect themselves” as she beats up the Babels. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that the Babels themselves might meet that description, and indeed Hank’s employer signals that (in her view) Carol is misreading the situation.