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Underground > Comic Books >

New X-Men #154

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14:21 / 24.03.04

Chesed, i like what you've said about the Phoenix consciousness, but i have a sort of different take on a few aspects of it.

first of all, i think the Phoenix Egg was intended to retcon the idea that Jean Grey's body was under Jamaica bay while the events of the original Phoenix Saga happened. i think that was actually Jean's mind and body running around during that time period, and when she died on the Moon, the Phoenix Egg popped up at the site of her previous "death," Jamaica Bay, just like when she died in NYC, the Egg popped up at the site of her previous death on the Moon, with her body inside.

also, i think NXM 154 implies that Jean Grey herself was essentially a fictionsuit, for lack of a better term, for the Phoenix entity. in other words, the universe prior to the Phoenix's intervention did not have a Jean Grey. the Phoenix inserted itself into the universe by writing in a mutant named Jean Grey at an appropriate juncture to fix what needed to be fixed, and then used that creation to funnel its power into the universe from the metauniverse. the problem was that the universe responded to the Phoenix contact by developing an emotional attachment to it which it could not handle, the brunt of which was borne by/manifested in one of the components of said universe, Scott Summers. this attachment, coupled with the fact that the Phoenix briefly got lost in its fictionsuit (in classic Invisibles fashion), led to unhealthy complications which caused the HCT future. once the Phoenix remembered that Jean was only the house she built to live in, it was able to pull itself back and nudge the universe into getting over its attachment to the Phoenix.

does any of that make sense?

15:00 / 24.03.04

Certainly I was under the impression that we are supposed to view the Phoenix egg as being a retcon (or an explanation for) the energy shielded form of Jean found in Jamaica Bay. It makes a lot of sense in many ways - the idea that the original phoenix / dark phoenix saga was kind of greatly diminished by the subsequent claim that it 'wasn't really Jean'. The alternative proposal - that the Phoenix's manifestation happens upon death (cf. Quentin Quire) and then each time they die an egg will manifest itself and become Jean (who in turn will become the Phoenix again) is really interesting and useful. I think it's also interesting in that Grant seemed to suggest that the colour of the Phoenix has something to do with the number of times it has died.

Most interesting for me has been that the implication of Grant's run is that there is at present a Phoenix egg on the moon that - in principle - could be found and opened up by anyone at this moment. The future that has been nipped off and fixed by future Jean/Phoenix is the one in which she flies off with the rest of the Phoenixes...

15:10 / 24.03.04

Lots of sense!

I've been wondering myself why the Phoenix egg popped up on the moon (though I understood there ought to be a relation to her previous death).

This way, Morrison gives back the original Phoenix Saga its true importance, infering Jean was 'herself' all along.

And I think it's been mentioned in a 90s comic that Jean's cocoon at the bottom of the Hudson Bay wasn't a cocoon after all, but a rotten matress that got wrapped around Jean (around the Phoenix egg, more likely). Does anyone remember this?

Anyway, this means that in the reality Phoenix fixed ('our' present) there's still a Phoenix egg on the moon. Right?

Oh, and I've finally read the bloody thing. Great moments, TERRIBLE art or, more precisely, NON-EXISTING STORYTELLING.

15:43 / 24.03.04

Picking up on Tom and obedience's posts - I think Jean's comment about the incubation period being important (NXM153) could also be used to explain why she did not have Phoenix abilities after being retrieved by the Fantastic Four from the bottom of Jamaica bay - she was hatched too soon. At least in Here Comes Tomorrow, she'd been developing/regenerating for 150 years. Jean's description of the Phoenix in Planet X did portray it as something like a cosmic immune system. I'm not sure Jean is just a fictionsuit, however. Why not just follow what Xavier tell Jean? - That according to the Shi'ar the Phoenix force manifests itself in extremely high range telekinetics (and presumably telepaths given Quire's appearance in NXM154). Note also Jean's comment about the Phoenix replacing her if she lets it get too close - and the Phoenix comments in NXM154 about her failing to carry out the disinfection in Planet X because she got too emotionally involved - presumably as in the Dark Phoenix saga where her emotions were manipulated, distracting her from her higher purpose. (Hence Esme's efforts to pit Jean and Emma against one another.)

15:43 / 24.03.04

Yeah I took it along those same lines, what with finding a Phoenix egg on the moon... Consider also that at some point a Phoenix egg (or two if you count Madaline Pryor) could be found in Manhattan.

On a er.. lighter note. I wonder if Jean's (latest) body was burried under the headstone from her previous death?

16:15 / 24.03.04

I really like what other people are saying here about the Phoenxi and Jean, but don't you think it diminishes the importance and myths of other interstellar and Shi'Ar Phoenixes if Jean Grey is the only fictionsuit for "Phoenix-God"? And making Jean ONLY and ALWAYS Phoenix rewrites continuity for Rachel, Necrom, Byrne, and various others. At this point, I believe Grant did a LOT of reading on continuity and research on the nature of the Phoenix. I think of Dark Phoenix entity as the Mister Quimper of the Marvel Universe.

And the coccoon in Jamiaca Bay DID look like a huge coral mattress.

17:26 / 24.03.04

I don't think Jean is a fictionsuit, per se. Certainly not the only one. The sheer number of Phoeniexes (Phoenices?) in the Crown is ample reason to rule that out.

I think that this infamous line from NXM #128 is relevant:

"Telekinetic sensitivity this extreme is known as the Manifestation of the Phoenix by neuro-mystical surgeons of the Shi'ar Space Empire."

My working theory is that the concept of the crown chakra is critical to understanding the nature of the Phoenix.

Specifically, while the chakras exist within a person, at the microcosmic level, they also exist at a macrocosmic level. When a telepath/telekine (the two usually go together) reaches a certain level of awareness, they rise from the Brow Chakra (equivalent to the sephiroth Daath, and commonly referred to as the "third eye") to the Crown.

Rather than tapping into a collective subconscious, they instead reach a collective "superconscious" similar to Grant's supercontext. And _that_ is the true Phoenix Force. The collective consciousness of all "hypertelepaths".

Jean always had the potential to go beyond ordinary telepathy (although she suppressed it early on). When she crashed that space shuttle, she reached the Crown via sheer desparation, but she was not quite ready yet, and hence her manifestation was flawed, and ultimately a failure.

This time, however, the process was much more gradual, so she was able to reach the Crown more smoothly. She still wasn't quite ready...she had too many emotional attachments to Scott and the X-Men, so Mags was able to get the drop on her, but 150 years later, she WAS ready. She only needed a little prodding to open the door to the Crown.

And now, by "making" Scott go with Emma, she's severed the last tie with the present, and can be a true White Phoenix of the Crown.

Or, I'm completely wrong. =)

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:30 / 24.03.04

Macro-Sentinel Judging from all the repeat questions and full-blown errors I'm convinced most of the people on this thread have only skimmed through Morrisons run.

Or perhaps it's that people HAVE read the whole of Morrison's run but HAVEN'T read all the pages of this thread. Which is understandable, it took me best part of an hour on Sunday morn and there were only about six pages then.

As for the Xorn thing. Erik was psychologically damaged from the constant use of Kick (isn't there a reference in part two or three that he's using it too much, and remember that Emma described it's qualities as mentally damaging) and he's been trying to live as a completely different person for approximately two years at the time of his unmasking. He's got the psychological strain of his mutant utopia cracking as the mutant in the street has no idea what's going on and his new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants making smart aleck remarks behind his back. "Congratulations Eric, you've become schizophrenic." I was disappointed that that element didn't come back in the last part of Planet X.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:32 / 24.03.04

Oh, and as a point of interest perhaps, Claremont never would have killed off Phoenix in the first place if it hadn't been for the artist at the time (Byrne?) drawing that panel of her wiping out the planet of the brocoli people.

17:41 / 24.03.04

For the record, it was Jim Shooter (Marvel's EIC at the time) who actually 'killed' Jean Grey. In the original version conceived by Claremont and Byrne, and later published as "The Untold Story of The Phoenix", Jean was spared. But then, Shooter felt that she couldn't go unpunished and forced the editorial decision to kill her off.

Matthew Fluxington

17:49 / 24.03.04

Erik was psychologically damaged long before Kick entered the picture. The Kick was just a way of getting him under the direct influence of Sublime and exacerbating an already very bad situation.

19:25 / 24.03.04

I agree. While his actions were steered by Sublime (Grant was very careful to portray telepathy as subtle and subconcious prodding and controlling, when used), Erik was still aware of his actions. I see his killing of Jean to be Sublime's influence, but his honorable suicide to be 100% Erik.

04:54 / 25.03.04

That scene in the white room with all the Phoenix potentials, is a direct "translation" from a Mamoru Oshii film called "Armitage the third". If you can "borrow" the Lucifer Principle, you can probably do the same with pulp anime, ey?

13:19 / 25.03.04

For the record, I don't think Cassie = Ernst or Martha. I think the characters were commenting on the resemblance throughout, teasing at the possibility, but I don't think there was definitive evidence that they are the same. Although I've seen some good arguments for the idea that they are the same, but my gut says they're not, despite lots of speculation and ideas.

13:27 / 25.03.04

Yes. They. Are.

CassandraStuff is Ernst. She says so. In the previous issue.

13:38 / 25.03.04

I think it's so weird how much X-Readers need everything spelled for them. Not that we're stupid, but that we're used to having everything so concrete we don't dare guess or ask or have anything left kind of up-in-the-air. I'm hovering and dropping in on comicboards.com and I'm amazed at how much people HATE the things i've accepted as surprises. Is it a control freak issue?

That's part of my love for NXM. So much ISN'T known that I have to involve myself in the process.

"How Cassandra became Ernst" isn't even that much of a mental stretch as trying to figure out the temporal mechanics and chronology of obscurity in Invisibles. ...And I managed to do that, with a full glossary and a concrete (for me at least) definition of "fictionsuit".

13:39 / 25.03.04

Where, exactly? (not combative but curious) Cassie saying "sure, you can call me Martha, for old times' sake" or whatever doesn't constitute "I am Martha" to me. It means that the brain has Alzheimer's (which the script mentions) and likes to refer to its past as the present as a sort of emotionally reassuring timewarp. It's like when your great-grandma calls you her son's name or something like that. That's how I read it, at least.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:40 / 25.03.04

"Can I still call you Duncan, Falcon?"

"Of course you can still call me Duncan, Fly."

What does this imply? That Falcon used to be called Duncan. Basic storytelling comprehension 101. Sheesh.

13:45 / 25.03.04

Does she say "still"? The whole "I'll smile and indulge the person who has Alzheimers and likes to refer to me as someone else from their past" thing makes it a little more complicated than 'storytelling comprehension 101," from my perspective.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:06 / 25.03.04

Alien body light years from home. Shi'ar files in head. Do the math. I'm grabbing the last parachute and bailing out of this thread.

14:19 / 25.03.04

Siiigh... This is just getting ridiculous...

Hunter, I've just sent you a PM that I hope will make things clear in your mind.

14:26 / 25.03.04

I think it's so weird how much X-Readers need everything spelled for them. Not that we're stupid, but that we're used to having everything so concrete we don't dare guess or ask or have anything left kind of up-in-the-air. I'm hovering and dropping in on comicboards.com and I'm amazed at how much people HATE the things i've accepted as surprises. Is it a control freak issue?

i think it's a question of different expectations. before GM, nearly everything X-Men related in the lifetimes of most X-fans was either written by Chris Claremont or written by someone trying to be Chris Claremont, and CC leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. "hello, my name is X. i am here to do Y, and as such, i plan to use my mutant power Z, which channels the beauty of the Scandinavian fjords into a psychokinetic attack of immense power. once i hit you with my Z power, you will be reduced to ash, unless you are made of one of the following metals, in which case, LO! i am undone..." etc.

to be fair to CC, he's just a particularly overt example of a general trend towards spoon-feeding in pop culture, which, in turn, i think stems from a sort of bias towards plain-spokenness in American culture. there's an undercurrent of hostility towards anything oblique and a tendency to believe that someone who doesn't "just come out and say what he means" is being pretentious and difficult for the sole purpose of being pretentious and difficult.

14:29 / 25.03.04

You can still call me Duncan, anyone that wants to.

It's 'Ernst' she says, anyway, Hunter. Not 'Martha'.

14:30 / 25.03.04

You can call me Al! Thanks, everyone.

15:12 / 25.03.04

But I thought speaking oblliquely WAS pretentious and difficult?

17:51 / 25.03.04

Just because mis-crediting bugs me (much more than it should), Mamoru Oshii did not direct 'Armitage III' or, to my knowledge, have anything to do with it. Both Oshii and the film are fairly entertaining though, so there is some tangential link.

And how can anyone argue that Cassie isn't Ernst? I did not even question the idea when Ernst first appeared in 'Riot...' it seemed so smooth a transition. I mean, the only difference between 'weirdly old looking superhuman Cassie' and 'weirdly old looking superhuman Ernst' is height and hair. Body of Stuff and programmed-learning take care of height/emotional age... and really, if how many little girls can you think of that would prefer to be bald?

There was a film by Oshii dealing with (a) phoenix, though I can't think of the name of it. No dialogue, if I remember correctly.

18:06 / 25.03.04

I'm with Hunterwolf. I aint quite sold on Cassie = Ernst.

She has been reeducated, for sure that is obvious. But I still believe her comment was meant to indulge Martha's alzheimers.

19:56 / 25.03.04

Better be prepared to deal with lots of semi-condescendingly-phrased posts, TroyJ15, as I just did ('oh, please,' 'for the last time', etc.)...

It's cool to show why you think your theories are correct, condescension and giving attitude is not so cool. Anyway, I'm done on the subject - although the arguments themselves for Cassie being Ernst have started to sort of convert me. I want to re-read the stuff again and see. So much of this thread has been massive speculation about filling in various degrees of blanks or connections Grant left out there - how much is 'stories that challenge the readers to fill in the blanks and deduce the answers, readers gotta work for it, think, people!' and how much is 'occasional lazy writing with plot holes or coincidences that people struggle to explain and justify on message boards'? I honestly don't know the answer to that, except that I've seen a little of both here.

Matthew Fluxington

20:31 / 25.03.04

I don't think anyone would be so condescending if it wasn't spelled out on the page as it was in #153. It wasn't really vague, it wasn't too oblique.

Cassandra: "You with your deluxe Alzheimer's, me in a synthetic body alien body that's light years from the nearest bloody spare part."

If you've read NXM #126, this line is anvil-on-the-head obvious.

Also please consider that since it had no major relevance to the main plot of the storyline, the addition of that bit of dialogue was there for a reason. Just because there are some lapses in the logic of the run, it doesn't mean that by the time we get to the home stretch, Grant is just writing any old gibberish.

Matthew Fluxington

20:38 / 25.03.04

Why would Cassie "indulging Martha's Alzheimer's" make even the slightest bit of sense? What would be the point of that even being on panel?

Cassandra becoming Ernst and growing up to become the leader of the X-Men who defeat Sublime has some significant conceptual and thematic weight and meaning - she is the ultimate example of the X-Men's dream. That's the entire point of the series. It's spelled out on the page, why would you prefer to think that it's some silly bit of throwaway dialogue?

20:56 / 25.03.04

Like I said, I hear ya on this, Flux. I'm all clear on this now, and the clicher for me was I hadn't really remembered the alien body/bloody spare part line. I got confused about the whole thing.

And I do understand people's exasperation given that this has come up before in this thread, but just understand that sometimes not everyone has time to immediately re-read the thread (or comics related to it) carefully for the 3rd time to referesh our memories. Then again, I did ask about it, so that opens me up to some critique, and I realize that. Anyway, I said I was over this and I appreciate the clarfication, so I'm really done on this topic now.

It's all good!

00:06 / 26.03.04

I dont feel it was throwaway dialouge...it was to show the dynamic of their relationship. I agree that Cassie got turned into Stuff. I agree that 150 years later she had formed her body from that synthetic alien to become Cassandra again. I don't see how she was Ernst in-between.
I'm not trying to be an ass if anything I've been real polite about this. I'm going to go back and check out that issue you refferred to, Flux. But this is not an argument so please stop acting like it is.

03:28 / 26.03.04

OK, if it's not blatantly clear that Ernst is Cassandra, then who is Ernst? Magneto definitely realized that she wasn't what she seemed, which in the "Cassie isn't Ernst" world would leave a huge hole.

Remember after they capture Cassandra inside of Stuff, she's shown in a classroom looking brain-dead. "A is for atom.." and the like. In other words, she was child-like at that point. It was implied that she'd be at the school to learn. Now, do you really think that one of the most important characters of Grant's run would disappear until the final act? She was there all along, learning as Ernst. It's just like every "we'll brainwash Magneto" plot, only it worked this time. If anything, her confrontation with Mageto is her awakening as a new person.

Also, why would Cassandra state that Ernst was one of her favorite artists if that wasn't her pseudonym? I would think she'd say something about the real Ernst. The Ersnt/Martha Cassandra/Martha relationship are the same, because it's the same person. If you don't see the Stuff->Ernst->Cassandra evolution, then is there an alternate we're missing? I could imagine her in some blob-like state in a holding tank or oozing around the hallways, but I think I missed that scene..

04:01 / 26.03.04

I like how Hank kept his old glasses on hand for 150 years just in case.

04:09 / 26.03.04

So do I. Was tragic and ridiculous.

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