Jean comes home.
Originally Published August 1980
We begin out in space, where Empress Lilandra has called a meeting of her small council to discuss the existential threat posed by this "Dark Phoenix." Her advisors recount the events surrounding her eating of a sun and wiping out a Shi'ar warship. Lil posits that, to satisfy her hunger, Phoenix may end up consuming "all that exists" which is all well and good but doesn't leave her much universe to exert her ultimate power over. I guess as far as a long-term goal goes it's fine, the kind of thing you put on your agenda assuming you'll never actually reach the end of it.... like reading the entire history of X-Men comics.
Lil concludes that Phoenix used to be a real sweet girl, a stand-up lady, when she helped sort out that business with the M'Kraan Crystal some time ago. But now she's no better than Lilandra's insane brother D'ken, and must be stopped at all costs.
Back at the mansion, the X-Men have regrouped. While Beast tinkers with a contraption that may assist in defeating Phoenix, and Scott engages in his favourite pastime (sulking) Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler engage in a vigorous Danger Room workout, which does nothing to take the edge off the tension of knowing they're going to be fighting one of their closest friends soon - and that she's probably going to kill them/eat the sun.
Jean does indeed return, swooping down from the heavens into the small upstate New York township of Annandale-on-Hudson, to her childhood home, where her parents live.
I love this scene. Jean acts so strangely in it - not like the almighty destroyer of worlds that the X-Men met earlier, with the fire and life incarnate. Nor is she acting like the cruel, brainwashed Black Queen. She's struggling to try her humanity back on. She tries to crack jokes and be the sweet innocent girl her parents remember, but she's overwhelmed and can't handle what's inside her, what she's done, what her powers are doing. It's an unusual narrative step to take after showing your character destroying an entire planet, but that's what makes it so effective. It shows the grave instability of Jean's psyche, and that the "real" Jean is struggling to re-emerge.
As things grow tense between Jean and her family, a sudden fog surrounds the area, which Dark Phoenix immediately understands as Storm's doing - the X-Men are in the area but, for reasons unknown, she cannot telepathically sense them.
Before she knows what's what, Nightcrawler is on her with Beast's psychic scrambler, which is meant to straightjacket her seemingly unlimited psychic potential. I mean, homegirl can open a hole in space, but sure, maybe you can whip up a power-nullifying set of earmuffs on lunchbreak, Beast.
It was worth a try.
The X-Men do get Jean on the rope, long enough for Wolverine to pin her down, claws extended...
As Phoenix surveys of her near-victory, Cyclops appears, ready to... talk. With masterful skill, he delivers a devastating soliloquy on the nature of Love that has Jean reconsidering her position, and fighting to reclaim her humanity once more.
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| Hey, what's that in the background? Some kind of jet plane? |
I mock, but it's actually a brief and effectively-wrought exchange as Cyclops accurately sums up the ways love has compelled Jean in the past, how it is part of her. Cheesy, but effective. Maybe not to your taste, but welcome in this context.
Momentarily brought back down to Earth, Jean tearfully admits that the Phoenix power has awakened in her a need for an inhuman rapture that consumes her - and that darkness, that need, is as much a part of her as the love.
As Cyclops extends an offer to help - probably not sure exactly what that would entail - Jean is mind-blasted from outtanowhere. Professor X has arrived to take over amateur hour.
Ultimately, Jean and the Prof resolve to have one last battle on the psychic plane for all the marbles, as Jean declares herself to be Xavier's creation (as he had awakened the telepathic powers in her in the first place) and Xavier declares her to be Power Without Restraint, Age Without Maturity, Passion Without Love, Rebel Without a Cause, Men Without Hats... I'm sorry, what were we doing?
Unlike previous psychic duels, we are not privy to any kind of keen visualization. We see it from the outside without any indication of who might be winning and why. This struggle for the fate of a woman's soul, and the whole universe, is conveyed with the maximum urgency and intensity of two people staring very, very hard at each other.
Xavier wins.
I can see what the creators are going for here, but it doesn't work for me, dawg. What in Xavier enables him to win? Does might make right? Did Jean, deep down inside, assist somehow? We are told that Xavier binds Dark Phoenix's powers in Jean's mind with those oft-discussed psychic circuit breakers, just like how Phoenix repaired the lattice of the neutron galaxy within the M'Kraan Crystal, and that almost sounds like a thing, but what does that look like, what does it entail? When Jean did that thing, we got an awesome visual representation and some delightfully overwrought narration. Considering this is meant to end this big, important, grandiose story, it feels like a bunt instead of a swing for the fences.
Satisfied that Jean is back to normal, Cyclops telepathically proposes, and we gear up for a nice, tidy happy ending...
Oh, right, the aliens.
I guess there's one more loose end to tie up. This one's really turning out to be a doozy!
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