{"id":10227,"date":"2024-07-17T23:05:41","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T22:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10227"},"modified":"2024-07-17T23:05:41","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T22:05:41","slug":"phoenix-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10227","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>PHOENIX #1<\/strong>
\nWriter: Stephanie Phillips<\/strong>
\nArtist: Alessandro Miracolo<\/strong>
\nColour artist: David Curiel<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Cory Petit<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

I haven’t decided yet how many of the second-tier X-books I’m going to do in the “From the Ashes” era, but I’ll probably cover at least the first issues of everything and see where we go from there. So: this is the first Phoenix<\/em> series, although there was a short-lived Jean Grey<\/em> ongoing about the time-travelling Silver Age version of the character.<\/p>\n

PHOENIX<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phoenix is Jean Grey, and following Rise of the Powers of X<\/em>, she’s now at full-blown cosmic power – but presumably without the risk of going mad like in the Dark Phoenix Saga. At least, nobody seems very worried about that. As foreshadowed in the X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic<\/em>, Jean is off in outer space, doing cosmic things.<\/p>\n

Her power levels are pitched as insanely high here. She can stabilise a star by absorbing energy from it. She can stabilise a black hole by… dancing with it? It seems to be a way of trying to visually represent her being in harmony with the universe, and it’s certainly more interesting to look at than a page of her thinking really hard. She can casually hold telepathic conversations with Cyclops back on Earth. It’s suggested that – much like classic Superman – the risk with Jean is not that she gets outpowered by anyone, but that she’s tricked into doing the wrong thing or overlooking the real threat. Specifically, there’s a suggestion that she’s a god who still thinks like a mortal and risks getting her priorities wrong as a result. She’s still too inclined to save the lives right in front her rather than look at the bigger picture. Or so the narrator suggests.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jean doesn’t give a very concrete reason for wanting to be in space. When Cyclops asks her when she’s coming back, she simply says that ‘I’m not sure how long I’m staying out here. I just know I need to be here.” She seems to be on yet another redemption drive, which is something we’ve seen before. This time, she’s using her cosmic powers for grand-scale feats of planetary life-saving. And to be fair, when you’re capable of doing this sort of thing, what’s the moral justification for hanging around on Earth and punching Sentinels?<\/p>\n

Many of the people Jean saves are absolutely terrified of her, because she’s Phoenix and her reputation precedes her. This is consistent with the original Dark Phoenix Saga, where the Shi’ar were already familiar with her before she did anything. Cyclops tries to argue that they’re really scared of the Phoenix, not Jean – which is the distinction that was intended to exonerate Jean of genocide when she was brought back from the dead in the 1980s – but Jean immediately rejects this argument on the grounds that she is<\/em> the Phoenix. So clearly we’re not relying on that back door any more. Still, Jean is finding the reaction heavy going.<\/p>\n

Although Jean doesn’t technically need a ship, Cyclops has provided her with one, which we only see in one panel; it seems to be designed to resemble the Blackbird. She regards it as a necessary reminder of home. It also gives her somewhere to talk to her supporting cast, I suspect.<\/p>\n

The narrator (and again, more of them in a bit) is surprisingly keen to remind us of Jean’s back story from Bizarre Adventures<\/em> #27. This is the story with the flashback to Jean’s telepathic powers emerging when her childhood friend Annie Richardson is hit by a car and dies in her arms. The trauma puts Jean in a semi-catatonic state, which she ultimately emerges from with the help of Professor X. The narrator seems to treat this traumatic experience almost as if it were the actual cause of her psychic powers, and casts it as a sort of symbolic death and rebirth which made Jean capable of becoming Phoenix.<\/p>\n

GUEST STAR<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nova<\/strong> was last seen in a coma on Arakko towards the end of X-Men Red<\/em>, but evidently he got better and he’s back to working as an outer space superhero. Specifically, he’s helping out on a prison called Kyln 2 (presumably he responded to a distress call or just happened to be passing). Kyln 2 is new, but it’s evidently a replacement for the original Kyln\u00a0 prison, which first appeared in Thanos<\/em> #7 (2004) and was destroyed by the Annihilation Wave in Annihilation<\/em> #1 (2006). It’s located in a black hole, which is on the verge of collapsing and killing all the inmates. Presumably nobody much cared about that risk, but Nova is determined to stop them all getting killed and calls in Phoenix to help.<\/p>\n

SUPPORTING CAST<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cyclops<\/strong> is hanging around at the Factory being domestic. He and Jean seem to be back to being a happy couple together, although there’s a definite sense that Scott isn’t entirely<\/em> happy about Jean heading out to space with no real indication of when she might come back.<\/p>\n

Adani<\/strong> is a new character who serves as our narrator – although that isn’t made clear until page 2. The natural assumption in a solo book is that the title character will narrate, and presumably page 1 is being deliberately ambiguous. Since Adani kicks us off by stridently asserting their atheism and their view that religious worship is a form of subservience, it’s an unexpected first page. Adani is among the people whose star is stabilised by Phoenix in the opening scene, but their narration tells us that this was “years” ago – apparently, Adani is recounting the story from a standpoint years in the future.<\/p>\n

According to Adani, their father was a priest who had once been a member of the Universal Church of Truth<\/strong>. The UCT were Adam Warlock villains, introduced by Jim Starlin in Strange Tales<\/em> #178 (1974). They were the Magus’s religious empire, which either converted worlds or destroyed them if they refused – as Adani describes her. Adani’s father is said to have left the UCT as a child, and to have disagreed with this sort of behaviour. But the priest in the opening scene is presumably Adani’s father, and is still clearly a religious fundamentalist. Adani describes his views in terms which would apply to most monotheistic religions, and views his beliefs as fearful and reactionary. In a possible over-correction, Adani sees the terrifying stories about the Phoenix destroying worlds as a further example of such cringing religious conservatism (despite the fact that they’re true). At any rate, Adani spends a lot of this issue priming us for a story about religion.<\/p>\n

I don’t think Adani’s gender is directly confirmed in dialogue, and no on-panel character is unequivocally identified as Adani. However, the priest from the opening scene seems to be the same one that Perrikus murders on page 32, which suggests that Adani is meant to be the character yelling “Father!” That character seems to be drawn as a girl. On that basis, Adani may also be intended to be the character in the bonus page, who is older, carrying a bloody sword and asking whether Jean Grey deserves to find peace. She comes across as less sympathetic to Jean on that page than she does in the story, though still rather philosophical in tone.<\/p>\n

VILLAINS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow, we’re miles <\/em>from regular X-book territory here.<\/p>\n

Morg<\/strong> is a former herald of Galactus, who was a regular character in Silver Surfer<\/em> in the early 90s. He was supposed to have died in the Annihilation Wave, but inexplicably showed up alive and well in Dan Slott’s Fantastic Four<\/em> in 2022 along with all the other former Herald characters. Presumably he’s in jail for the whole “helping Galactus to eat worlds” thing. He’s here mainly to serve as a villain who’s more or less in Nova’s league, though he does have the upper hand until Phoenix shows up to beat him in three panels just by thinking about it.<\/p>\n

Perrikus<\/strong> was a major villain in the 1998 Thor<\/em> series by Dan Jurgens and John Romita Jr; he makes numerous appearances in that book in 1998-2002 and hasn’t been seen since. The Dark Gods were a sort of dark version of the Asgardians, with Kirby-ish designs. They briefly managed to overthrow Asgard, and in his early appearances Perrikus was pitched as an apocalyptic threat. He doesn’t seem to have appeared since Thor<\/em> #53, when Thor cut off his arm. He wears a cloak over that side of his body in this issue, but the arm does indeed seem to be missing.<\/p>\n

Perrikus escapes the Kyln while Phoenix is busy saving the prisoners, and we’re given to understand that this will turn out to be the wrong call in the long run. Perrikus winds up on Adani’s world and promptly kills a priest who, as noted, seems to be Adani’s father. Perrikus claims, perhaps sarcastically, to be releasing the priest from his fear – which suggests a view of religion not so far removed from Adani.<\/p>\n

CAMEO APPEARANCES:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Page 33 seems to be a symbolic flash forward to some future event. It shows Phoenix fighting alongside Corsair <\/strong>and the Black Order<\/strong>, who are normally villains. Specifically that’s Black Dwarf<\/strong> (the guy with the axe top left), Proxima Midnight<\/strong> (with the balck mask and yellow spear thing), Ebony Maw<\/strong> (top right), Corvus Glaive<\/strong> (with the scythe thing) and Supergiant<\/strong> (the hooded one in the background).<\/p>\n

The guy fighting Phoenix in the second panel of the bonus page is Gorr the God-Butcher<\/strong>, a villain from Jason Aaron’s Thor<\/em> run.<\/p>\n

SPECIFICS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Page 7 panel 3: “the crash-landing that resulted in the rebirth of a woman forever bonded with the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix Force.”<\/strong> X-Men<\/em> #100-101, where Jean first becomes Phoenix.<\/p>\n

Page 7 panel 4\/page 8 panel 1: “stories of a murderer who would destroy worlds, consuming suns for sustenance, killing entire species and planets in the process.”<\/strong> The reference is to X-Men<\/em> #135, where Dark Phoenix destroys the D’Bari homeworld.<\/p>\n

Page 10 panel 2: “the death of a friend when she was an only child…”<\/strong> Jean’s origin story from Bizarre Adventures<\/em> #27, as mentioned above.<\/p>\n

Page 12 panel 2: “You didn’t recover from a coma just to die with these prisoners, Nova.”<\/strong> Nova was put into a coma by Pestilence in X-Men Red<\/em> #16.<\/p>\n

Page 26 panel 2: “It’s Perrikus, Jean! The Dark God who once defeated Thor!”<\/strong> This is the main storyline from the first year of the 1998 Thor<\/em> series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. PHOENIX #1 Writer: Stephanie Phillips Artist: Alessandro Miracolo Colour artist: David Curiel Letterer: Cory Petit Editor: Tom Brevoort I haven’t decided yet how many of the second-tier X-books I’m going to do in the “From the Ashes” era, but I’ll probably […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10229,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10227\/revisions\/10229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}