A.X.E.: X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
A.X.E.: X-MEN #1
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Francesco Mobili
Colourist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER / PAGE 1. Jean Grey in front of the Progenitor. It’s part of a single image with last week’s A.X.E.: Avengers one-shot. As noted last week, these three one-shots are essentially part of the A.X.E.: Judgment Day miniseries, albeit with different artists.
PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciullo.
PAGES 3-4. Recap and credits.
PAGES 5-7. The heroes (and Sinister) discuss their next step.
This picks up from the end of A.X.E.: Avengers, where Iron Man was judged by the Progenitor and realised that the very fact that the Progenitor was still judging him proved that it hadn’t really made a final decision to end the world.
“I’ve stolen one Celestial’s power before and it ended very badly for me.” Mr Sinister is referring to the time he co-opted the power of the Dreaming Celestial, in the early issues of Gillen’s Uncanny X-Men vol 2.
Iron Man. Wolverine describes him as “an addict on a hope high, and I’m glad one of us is.” A few points from that. Firstly, Iron Man is the only traditional Avenger in the group and therefore the most conventional and traditional superhero here – but by Avengers standards he’s normally the morally dubious one. Of course, he’s also a futurist and in that sense all about optimism for the future. Second, Wolverine is presumably alluding deliberately to Iron Man’s long history of alcoholism (which has recently reared its head again over in his solo title with a stint in rehab). Third, note that Wolverine suggests that Iron Man is the sole optimist in the group even though Ajak just agreed with him. Since Ajak’s religiosity is partly pre-programmed, Wolverine may not take it very seriously – or, not being that religious himself (unless Jason Aaron’s writing), Wolverine may attach rather more weight to Iron Man’s secular optimism.
“Namor and I had a bath here.” In the recent Eternals #12.
PAGES 8-11. Jean gets everyone past the energy monitoring facility.
Which leads to…
PAGE 12. Dream: Jean arrives at the school.
This is a reference to Jean’s arrival at the school in X-Men vol 1 #1 (1963), hence the dated clothes. It’s the point where she joins the X-Men. Later stories retcon in a previous history with Professor X, but for present purposes that’s a complication best ignored.
“I hope anyone survives the experience.” Referring to the tag lines from the cover of X-Men #139 (1980) (“Welcome to the X-Men, Kitty Pryde – hope you survive the experience”) and Uncanny X-Men #171 (1983) (the same but with Rogue). Here, of course, the Professor is the form taken by the Progenitor, but he’s expressing hope that humanity passes the test.
PAGE 13. Dream: Dark Phoenix kills the Silver Age X-Men.
The D’Bari are the race that Dark Phoenix wiped out by destroying their sun in X-Men #135 (1980). As touched on later in the issue, the precise relationship between Jean and Dark Phoenix is a convoluted area of continuity. The original idea was simply that Dark Phoenix was a cosmically powered Jean who had been driven mad. When Jean was brought back, Phoenix and Dark Phoenix were retconned into being a cosmic entity impersonating Jean, but also taking a part of her soul as its personality (thus retaining the idea that Phoenix was in some sense Jean). Where that leaves Jean in terms of personal responsibility for Dark Phoenix’s genocide has always been an awkward point.
PAGE 14. Jean pushes the others away.
PAGES 15-17. Dream: Jean fails to influence the Quiet Council.
Jean quit the Quiet Council at the end of “X of Swords” to re-start the X-Men, and the question has been raised from time to time of whether she could have done more good by sticking around and influencing Krakoan politics. Is she just doing the uncomplicated hero thing, or is she ducking a less glamorous form of responsibility?
Jean is imagining the Council taking the decision to try and destroy the Celestial at the risk of massive devastation to the human cities within range, as shown in A.X.E: Judgment Day #3 and Immortal X-Men #6. Jean envisages Emma taking the lead, but in fact it was Sinister and Destiny who concealed the full risks from the rest of the Council (including Emma), and Immortal #6 has Destiny tell us that Emma was always likely to vote against the plan even with the lower level of risk that was disclosed. Jean just really doesn’t like or trust Emma, partly because she’s an ex-villain and partly because she was the rival for Scott in Grant Morrison’s run.
PAGES 18-21. Jean confronts the Progenitor.
“I cloned Jean Grey. And I couldn’t clone Jean Grey. I made something else several times.” Sinister is referring to Madelyne Pryor (and presumably earlier failed efforts along the same lines). As covered in X-Factor #38 (1989), Madelyne is a clone of Jean, but Sinister couldn’t get her to wake up. She was finally animated by the part of Jean’s soul that had been taken by Phoenix (after Jean herself rejected it), none of which was anything to do with Sinister.
“I met your husband. He implied that I should be scared of you.” In X-Men #14. (“The only person alive who can judge me is my wife, Jean Grey. If you want to meet her, I can arrange that.”)
“Dark Phoenix wasn’t me…” See above under page 13.
“Last month alone, I went to a casino where countless worlds’ fates were being wagered…” Gameworld, in X-Men #11-12. That story specifically tries to suggest that by saving multiple anonymous worlds, Jean has atoned for the genocide of the D’Bari. (“You said you wanted to be an X-Man until you saved as many lives as the Phoenix claimed. Well, you just saved trillions.”)
“You are the Phoenix, now and forever.” Referring to Phoenix’s debut in X-Men #101 (1976): “I am fire! And life incarnate! Now and forever, I am Phoenix!” The flames are taking the form of the late D’Bari, all with Progenitor eyes. Ultimately, the Progenitor agrees with Jim Shooter (and with Jean herself, deep down) that she is in some sense responsible for the D’Bari genocide, and can never atone for it.
PAGES 22-24. The battle resumes.
PAGES 25-26. Trailers. Despite what it says here, A.X.E.: Death to the Mutants #3 isn’t out yet. The other tie-ins out this week are A.X.E.: Starfox #1 (which is an Eternals special, and intended to be read after DttM #3, though it’s not essential) and X-Men: Red #7.
This issue wasn’t bad, but it was Gillen’s weakest Judgement Day chapter to date. The main problem was Jean’s is she/isn’t she Phoenix status has been explored before without a conclusion. This issue didn’t say Phoenix was truly Jean, either. The Progenitor just decided it was.
My opinion is that Jean can’t be judged for the D’Bari’s deaths. Besides being a separate entity, she never had actual cosmic power pre-Phoenix. When she’s had Phoenix powers, she never ate a star. Phoenix experienced the cosmic hunger and reacted, but Jean didn’t. A better test would be to see if Jean could resist the cosmic hunger in the Progenitors simulation.
10000 stories about the Phoenix and there’s still no clear picture of who or what it is. Maybe it’s time to put the concept out to pasture.
(I’m sure this story is very good and well-written, but still)
“No more Phoenix” should have been the absolute end of the concept. That’s just common sense.
Didn’t Sinister clone loads of Jean (and Cyclopes) in Gillen’s uncanny run? I seem to remember him having a base with lots of them plus Sinisters in various period outfits.
Those were Maddie Pryor clones.
There is no doubt in my mind that the idea of Phoenix as a sentient entity with cosmic significance has been overused and overlasted its welcome by a very wide margin.
I particularly dislike the more recent retcons that make it Thor’s mother and a member of a very ancient “Avengers” team (which is itself a ludicrous notion). At this point I half-expect further retcons any minute now establishing that Jean is in fact the daughter of Wolverine by way of the Phoenix cosmic entity. Or maybe it is more likely that it will turn out that Phoenix is Jean and Wolverine’s daughter?
It is all just too overextended and too convoluted. How many “events” have used the Phoenix as a macguffin of some sort? Avengers vs X-Men, the Avengers storyline of fights to decide who would be Phoenix’s host, that story in the 1990s Ultraverse, and I am sure that there were a few in original recipe Excalibur as well, out of the top of my head. I am certain that I am missing several, some of which I may never have heard of.
And it all amounts to just noise and color with no clear consequences and certainly no coherence. Phoenix can be anything from a cool source of awesome powers with no drawbacks to a threat to whole planets that must be destroyed at once. Diminishing returns definitely have set in.
“No more Phoenix” should have been the absolute end of the concept.”
Doubtful we’ll see the absolute end of Phoenix (or any other major Marvel concept) until someone powerful comes along and says “No more trademark renewals.”
” I am sure that there were a few in original recipe Excalibur as well.”
Yes, in Alan Davis’s solo run. Issue 52 gives a history of the Phoenix. The Phoenix vs. Galactus issue (61, I think) presents the idea that the entity draws power from life yet to be born. This idea kind of works if you think of the White Hot Room as an afterlife/soul repository. It could also explain the cosmic hunger. I think it’s been ignored because it makes the entity a force for death with no clear purpose. Even Galactus gets to have an unspecified purpose at the end of time. Phoenix: no such luck.
Here’s an easy way they could have ‘ended’ Phoenix and kept the trademark going: Wanda and Hope destroyed the cosmic entity aspect of it for all time, and right as it ceased to be it used its final moments to infuse Jean with its power/life, and Jean now has (some) Phoenix power, including resurrection if writers felt like it, permanently.
@Luis Dantas
The Phoenix as Thor’s mom has finally been explained. She is not his mom. She’s just taking credit for his birth because she convinced Gaia to have a kid with Odin.
Phoenix foresaw a need for someone as powerful as Thor in the future. She was convinced that Gaia and Odin having a kid together would create that powerful being so she pushed the two of them together.
@Fett and @Luis Dantas
She also considered herself his mother because she resurrected baby Thor, who (just after being born) was killed in a battle between Odin and a monster. Phoenix took him from Gaia’s arms and resurrected him immediately.
It’s weird to have all that build for no real reason, but Jason Aaron did that a lot during his x-men run. I guess that’s his thing.
What I think is too bad about the Phoenix is that it’s robbed Jean of any other meaningful storylines. Every time someone tries to show a different side of Jean (like Tom Taylor in the original X-men: Red), the next writer immediately reverts back to: Remember when Jean was Phoenix? Is she becoming Phoenix again? It would be nice if Jean was given some room to outgrow that idea.
If they’re to be believed, Byrne and Claremont were setting up Jean/Dark Phoenix to be a recurring villain for the X-Men. Claremont certainly kept Phoenix at top of mind for much of his run. And the Phoenix is definitely recurring, just not in a good way.
@Dave – Yep, they could do that. Or, if they wanted to, they could just disregard the Phoenix entity for good and attach the Phoenix name and trademark to a completely unrelated character. Not only have they done that sort of thing before, they’ve even done it with Phoenix before. Jean wasn’t the first Marvel character to be dubbed Phoenix. Helmut Zemo was.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_America_Vol_1_168
I think Morrison had the right idea by reconcilling Byrne’s (moronic) retcon with the original intention by having Jean in the midst of evolving into a higher being beyond human ideas and ethics.
Morrison also did away with the idea that the Phoenix was seemingly exclusively connected to Jean or associated with the Grey family (as many other writers seemed to want to conclude). Well, they did that, at least partially, by killing Jean. Morrison showed that Quentin Quire, after his secondary mutation begins, was evolving into the next host for the Phoenix force as said higher being.
I have disliked Jean Grey for a long time (my first experience with her as an active character was in X-Factor), and while I also dislike this crossover, I am pleased that it advances the idea that Marvel Earth needs more Doctor Dooms and less Jean Greys. A Celestial said it, so it must be true!
This could be my bias as a fan of Jean Grey speaking, but this was my second favorite of Gillen’s mutant one-shots so far, second only to the excellent Destiny issue.
I had high expectations for this one, and Gillen exceeded them. This was 100% Morrison Jean (a.k.a. the definitive version of Jean Grey). There have been many attempts at emulating Morrison’s Jean since then (Bendis came close, Taylor tried his best), but Gillen definitely hit the mark. Gillen is also the first person since Morrison to understand that Jean is a fundamentally violent person. And I don’t mean that as a bad thing. There is a tempest within her, she is a child of light and darkness. Denying the violent parts of her is bad for her.
I loved the stuff about her love life too, about her husband Cyclops and her boyfriend Wolverine. Gillen cuts right through the contradiction – Cyclops understands and loves Jean Grey but Wolverine understands and loves Phoenix. And since Jean is both, she is with both of them at the same time (and both of them are with other lovers too, Krakoa is a polyamorous society).
My ranking of Gillen X-Men one-shots (judged solely on how effective they are as character studies):
1. Destiny (IXM 3)
2. Jean Grey (AXE X1)
3. Mr Sinister (IXM 1)
4. Exodus (IXM 5)
5. Sebastian Shaw (IXM 6)
6. Emma Frost (IXM 4)
7. Hope (IXM 2)
The Shaw and Emma character stuff was good, but the crossover stuff in those issues overshadowed them. I felt the Hope issue was weak since it didn’t focus on her much, but I’m sure Gillen will get to it eventually.
I have high hopes for the upcoming Mystique, Nightcrawler and Storm IXM issues. Kate and Colossus are naturally boring characters which should lead to boring issues, but we’ll see what Gillen does. Professor X could go either way. Is Cypher even getting an issue?
Paul As touched on later in the issue, the precise relationship between Jean and Dark Phoenix is a convoluted area of continuity.
I feel like Grant Morrison managed to square away the contradictions between the original Claremont story and the later Byrne retcon in his New X-Men run (one of the best) with all his references to chakras and the Kabbalah.
Morrison wrote 18 Days, which was (fairly) well-researched so I know he has some working idea of Indian myths. In the Mahabharata, Krishna (an avatar of Vishnu) is simultaneously a mortal charioteer and a godly deity (Vishvarupa) at the same time during the war. The idea was that he was a singular being vibrating at different frequencies and his various forms manifested at different Chakra points.
Jean Grey (the young student who started training with Xavier) represents Jean at the Root Chakra whereas Jean Grey (the White Phoenix of the Crown) represents Jean at the Crown Chakra, hence the name. At the end of the Morrison run, Jean left for the White Hot Room to be the White Phoenix full time. Later, she reincarnated back on Earth as a mortal during Phoenix Resurrection. The current adult Omega-level psychic Jean in the books is somewhere in between those two points, at the Third Eye Chakra perhaps.
Going back to the Phoenix Saga with this point of view, Jean was simultaneously both in the cocoon at the bottom of Jamaica Bay and being a superhero as Phoenix (and later supervillain as Dark Phoenix) at the same time. They were just different versions of the same person. The cocoon was simply a Phoenix Egg (another concept I believe Morrison introduced?) through which Jean Grey was resurrected from a back-up version once the Phoenix Jean died on the Moon. In-universe, perhaps it was an early precursor to the idea of Krakoan resurrection (where mutants are resurrected in cocoons from back-ups stored in Cerebro instead of the White Hot Room)? After all, Krakoan resurrection was only implemented in Life 10.
Jean is right to believe that she killed the D’Bari – the now-dead Dark Phoenix version of her did, which the current version of her may or may not have memories of. The current understanding in the Krakoan era is that the mutants are the same people they were before and after resurrection even if there is a loss in continuity. The Cyclops resurrected from back-up in HoX 5 may never have experienced the Orchis Forge mission but that doesn’t mean Cyclops didn’t complete the mission. The Jean resurrected in Jamaica Bay may never have experienced Dark Phoenix but that doesn’t mean she didn’t kill the D’Bari.
Another interesting comic with regards to the Phoenix was Al Ewing’s Defenders Beyond 3 which just came out last week. In it, the latest iteration of Defenders stop by the White Hot Room on their way to the Above-Place. The White Hot Room was explicitly stated to be empty because the current Phoenix host Echo was down on Earth being an Avenger. However, Taaia got possessed by the spirit of the White Phoenix and started spouting off a bunch of Jean Grey’s lines from previous books verbatim (some of them were even things Jean had said when she wasn’t actively Phoenix).
Now, there were other things happened in this issue: the Tiger God (from White Tiger stories) got associated with Tigra, more lore about the Eternity Mask was revealed, and so on.
But in the context of the X-Books, I thought the Phoenix stuff was interesting because Ewing was establishing two things: (1) Jean is the White Phoenix, but one who currently isn’t in the White Hot Room right now because she reincarnated; and (2) there’s a difference between the White Phoenix (Taaia in this issue) and the Phoenix Host (Echo back on Earth).
This explains the various non-psychic Phoenixes we’ve had lately – they were people chosen by the Phoenix Force as a host. This also keeps a door open for Jean to go back to being the White Phoenix in the future if a writer wants to go that route.
Ewing said that he had to show this issue (which he wrote under the Avengers office) to the X-Writers early to inform them of how he was repositioning the lore, which means the Phoenix will be returning to the X-books soon.
I suspect that once Echo and the Phoenix Force part ways (in the conclusion of Aaron’s ‘Avengers Assemble’ crossover event in early 2023), Hope will become the new Phoenix host for a while. There’s been some hints of this in IXM – the empty Phoenix chair on the cover of issue 1 representing Hope, Hope manifesting as a Phoenix sword during IXM 5. This will set Exodus’s worship of Hope into overdrive and turn what I call the ‘Messiah bloc’ of the Quiet Council (Hope + Exodus) into powerhouses.
Maybe the cocoons, but the resurrection process was influenced by Moira’s experiences in Life Six where she found out about the Phalanx uploading post-humanity’s consciousness into its hive mind and then downloading that consciousness to the Dominion where post-humanity would become immortal in a simulated reality as part of a Dominion.
Moira never tried resurrection in a past life due to Xavier being killed in Lives Eight and Nine. Moira attempted cloning as a way to make mutants immortal in Life Nine, but had to rely on Sinister.
The resurrection process is Moira’s version of the post-humanity/Phalanx/Dominion hive-consciousness immortality paradigm using Cerebro in place of the Phalanx and Krakoa as a mutant Dominion.
One Phoenix story I read for the first time recently was in 80s Avengers. They were looking for Adam Warlock’s cocoon in Jamaica Bay. They found it and had all sorts of trouble dealing with it, until at last they figured out it was actually Jean Grey’s cocoon under an old mattress.
Seriously, an old mattress. That’s how she was brought back for X-Factor. Adam Warlock wasn’t even there, it was a total red herring.
“it was a total red herring.”
Wasn’t much of a red herring. I bought that issue when it came out. I wasn’t expecting them to find Adam Warlock. I was absolutely expecting them to find Jean. Avengers 263, right? It’s labeled on the cover as a lead-in to the upcoming X-Factor series (which Marvel had been hyping to the hilt), and I’m fairly certain everyone knew that series would feature Jean despite Marvel’s attempts to keep the “mystery fifth member” of X-Factor a secret.
And I put this comment in the wrong thread. Oops! Here it is again:
@GN: I enjoyed that analysis of the Phoenix Force more than I have any actual Phoenix story since Morrison. Thank you for sharing!
I am okay with a red herring that goes for one issue. If it goes for four or five issues and the real plot is resolved in half of the last issue, then I will probably swear to never read anything by that writer again.
People are crediting John Byrne for the Phoenix retcon, but it was actually Kurt Busiek.
Kurt Busiek’s original idea, as a college student and fan, was related to Roger Stern and then John Byrne. When X-Factor was greenlit as a series, Byrne recalled the idea and submitted it to Jim Shooter, who approved it. Byrne then executed it, but was substantially rewritten and redrawn by Chris Claremont and Jackson Guice. Roger Stern contributed the Avengers portion of the crossover.
So there are a lot of people we can blame.
“Kurt Busiek’s original idea, as a college student and fan, was related to Roger Stern and then John Byrne.”
Not quite. Kurt presented the idea to John Byrne who then told Stern about it. Kurt was also working for Marvel at this time. He’d already written fill-in issues of Power Man & Iron Fist by this point. Around the time of X-Factor’s launch, Kurt was working in editorial in some capacity. He did work on their fanzine, Marvel Age. In fact, he did the copy for the X-Factor article in an issue of Marvel Age when they were promoting the series.
I guess we can argue about the details, but my main point is that while it was Kurt Busiek’s idea, it required the interest and sign-off of multiple other people to execute it. And it seems like Byrne’s interest is what took it over the top since he’s the one who suggested it to Shooter.
So attributing the retcon to Byrne, at least in part, seems fair. Whether that attribution is a good or bad thing depends on what you think about the retcon, I suppose.
I got my info from this Comic Book Legends Revealed that purports to get info from Busiek himself:
https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-29/
I wonder how long it will be before Jean Grey resurrect the D’Bari?