Originally Published September 1980
To begin with, this guy:
That's right, nothing says A Big Deal is About To Go Down like bringing Uatu the Watcher onstage to set the scene with some kind of grandiose monologue.
When we last left off, the X-Men were being beamed aboard Lilandra's Shi'ar Flagship. They find themselves surrounded by a wild coterie of Shi'ar people and their various, multi-species associates..
Her Majesty herself, Empress Lilandra, appears to explain that while the X-Men and the Shi'ar are friends, they are decidedly not on board with the Phoenix's recent transformation into a world-devouring cosmic monster. They declare her the Black Angel, the Chaos Bringer, the Ravager of Worlds, the Perfect Midnight Snack, the Money Back Guarantee -- I'm sorry, what were we doing?
This is actually the first the X-Men are learning of the specifics of Jean's crimes. It takes a moment to digest.
Despite the X-Men's protests that Jean is definitely, for sure, 100% completely undoubtedly, most assuredly fully cured of the Dark Phoenix persona, Lilandra still intends to put Jean to death for her crimes. Exactly how she intends on executing a sun-eating cosmic being, who is fire and life incarnate, is not specified, but I'd love to hear it. Instead, Professor X, using his previously-established familiarity with Shi'ar customs, requests a duel of honor for Jean's fate.
As in so many cultures, the duel of Arin'nn Haelar cannot be refused for any purpose, even when it concerns a cosmic being that threatens all that is.
Before finalizing terms of the duel, the Shi'ar consult with their allies in the Kree and Skrull Empires (both recently made famous in the Captain Marvel film, the latter as funny Aussie refugees.) Surprisingly - perhaps alarmingly - neither the Skrull Empress nor the giant dismbodied head floating in goop that leads the Kree objects to, essentially, the fate of the universe being decided in a fistfight. Weirder still, they both opt to send representatives to monitor the outcome, but who are not to have a direct influence on it.
I love this comic - the X-Men in general, and this specific issue in particular - but what the fuck is up with that?
The X-Men are given the night to rest and recuperate so that they are in fighting shape for the honour duel. We are therefore treated to the kind of pre-battle navel-gazing that the writers of Game of Thrones wish they were capable of pulling off. Highlights include Angel and Nightcrawler training in the Shi'ar's version of the Danger Room, Wolverine meditating on the dual nature of man and his own mortality, and Beast 100% intending to have sexual intercourse with this alien:
I re-read this story numerous times as a kid, and this sequence really made an impression on me. By showing the while team in brief snippets, you build tension and add gravity, and also strengthen the individual characters.
As Cyclops indulges in his pre-dawn sulk, he considers what he would do, as leader, in Lilandra's shoes. He likes to think he'd be merciful and not seek vengeance, which is all well and good when it's your girlfriend out there destroying planets.
Jean arrives, dressed in her old late-60's Marvel Girl garb out of nostalgia and/or pride, which is another nice touch. The two share A Moment and pledge their love and loyalty and devotion.
Soon, it's Go Time. The setting for the battle is the Blue Area of the Moon, which as everybody knows, in a portion of the lunar surface that contains an Earth-type atmosphere - breathable, inhabitable, loaded with cool old ruins and deep tunnels and caverns to chase around, real scenic. An appropriately iconic locale.
The X-Men split into two crews. Angel, Nightcrawler, Cyclops and Phoenix run into Oracle the psychic, her boyfriend Starbolt, Smasher (the guy with a T on his chest for some reason) and new recruit Manta
Storm, Colossus, Beast and Wolverine meanwhile have to contend with Gladiator - the purple mohawked Superman-type guy - Earthquake, and Warstar, which is a big robot who carries another, smaller robot on his back like a baby. They're named B'nee and C'cll, after Beanie and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, a cartoon from the creators' youths - a callback to robots named after Mutt and Jeff in the previous Shi'ar Imperial story.
It's made pretty clear that while the X-Men are formidable, they're out of their depths. It doesn't help that Wolverine falls into the Watcher's living room - an irritated Uatu then retaliates by sending Logan on a bogus journey through time and space, which is disorienting to say the least.
It actually doesn't throw him that badly, since he's still able to fend off the Skrull agent, who tries to get involved by impersonating Storm. That earns him a reprimand from his Kree counterpart... which, again, he was just trying to help the universe not get destroyed - whose side are you on here, Kree guy?
In a really tense, tightly laid-out battle, the heroes gradually fall...
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| Ask John Byrne about this panel... at your own peril. |
Soon only Cyclops and Marvel Girl remain. Watching from above, Lilandra resists the urge to tell her lover, Charles "I told you so" as he grieves for his falling X-Men
As Jean and Cyclops make their last stand, something screwy happens, and I don't mean editorial interference. Well, I don't just mean editorial interference.
What we're told is that Jean saw Cyclops felled by the Imperials, which awakened her Phoenix powers, although the art doesn't really highlight this. Still, the next time we see Jean, she's in her green (ie non-Dark) Phoenix garb, handing out telekinetic asskickings like Tootsie Rolls at Halloween. Before long, the pleasant green is replaced with the fearsome blood red of Dark Phoenix.
Professor X telepathically awakens the X-Men, who proceed to engage Phoenix with a direct attack. It doesn't do much good. For some reason, our heroes are either unwilling, or unable, to commit to killing one of their oldest friends, who also possesses the power of a mad goddess.
Jean realizes, tearfully, that there is no way out of this - that as long as she lives, Jean and Phoenix are locked in a symbiotic existence, and a never-ending cycle of death, rebirth and madness - that she will become Dark Phoenix again, and again.
Jean ducks into a structure. Cyclops follows, but Jean holds him back telekinetically, while she explains her plight.
As she speaks we see a laser cannon of some sort rising from the debris left by the ancient civilization of Moon-people who once inhabited this place...
And that's it.
Despite the traumatic thing he has just witnessed, Cyclops is able to elucidate, at length, for those of us who didn't get it, how Jean must have mindscanned the Kree and Skrull observers to find out where to find a weapon that she could use to kill herself. Now that's using your bean.
As Cyclops mourns (and exposits) we are left off with the Watcher again, as he explains to his little friend, a robot named The Recorder, that what we have just seen is the utmost of humanity - the frailty of the human mind's inability to cope with absolute power, combined with the nobility of the human soul's capacity for self-sacrifice. It's all quite poetic - couldn't have been any better if it had been planned that way.
And thus, at long last, the Phoenix dies.
Further Thoughts:
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| Being reduced to ashes - surely the best way to eliminate any Phoenix. |
I only have two issues with the story. One is thst it could have stood to focus more on Jean's own inner thoughts and feelings - she isn't singled out any more than Wolverine or Storm. We think we know Jean because we've spent all this time with her, but rarely have we been more focussed on her than on someone else's thoughts about her. Last issue was actually great for that, this issue not as much.
Two, the ending, which is great narratively but could have been tighter in execution if, you know, they had had it from the get-go. As many of you know, one of the most famous and impactful endings in the history of comics - of all popular entertainment if you ask me - was a total last-minute rewrite.
Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter butted heads with the book's creators over the proposed ending they had already devised with their editors. Jean would be stripped of her power, and left to live out her days. Shooter famously likened that ending to "Taking the German army away from Hitler and letting him go back to running Germany." Personally, I disagree with that comparison, but I also think simply depowering Jean is a mediocre, disappointing conclusion. Similarly, Shooter's suggestion to have the Shi'ar imprison Jean on an asteroid or something was unusable, since Claremont rightly pointed out that the X-Men would never stop trying to rescue her.
The three men - all strong personalities - had unintentionally backed themselves into a corner, the only exit from which was to craft one of the defining moments of superhero comics as a genre. Not bad.
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