Mekanix #5 “Bad Moon Rising” (April 2003)



The Story: The wild Sentinel killed by Kitty and Xi’an last issue proves only “mostly dead” and starts rebuilding itself and attacks while awaiting reinforcements. Shola and Tom arrive to help destroy the Sentinel for good this time.

At psychotherapy the next day, Kitty vents her spleen about discrimination. First she casts it safely in terms of her Jewish heritage. But eventually she becomes agitated and reveals it’s her treatment as a mutant that really has her upset. Regular people don’t get targeted by Sentinels when they’re trying to put their kids to bed.



That night there’s a student meeting to discuss whether the anti-mutant group Purity is a Hate Group which should be banned from campus. Alice Tremaine has an impassioned public argument with Kitty about human vs mutant rights. Alice’s boyfriend Tom casts his lot with Kitty instead of Alice.



The next Sentinel on the prowl seems mis-programmed, classifying and terminating every “potential mutant” which seems to include everything living that crosses its path, from a kid on the street to the rats in the alley. A horde of Sentinels converse on the University of Chicago Student Union where Shola and Xi’an are on the steps discussing politics…

My Two Cents: I cannot ever recall seeing a super-hero tired after sprinting upstairs before, but it makes total sense.



Kitty and Xi’an end up in an “almost kissing” scene in the middle of their battle with the Sentinel. This was part of Claremont’s campaign of dropping hints that Kitty is bisexual, but the timing is more than a little weird.



Claremont uses the Purity debate over Shola Inkosi as a stand-in for real-world debates about exchange students from countries with a reputation for terrorism.

Phoenix: Endsong #1 (March 2005)





The Story: Out in space, some unidentified but human-looking aliens cause the Phoenix Force to manifest apart from any mortal host. They intend somehow to eradicate Phoenix once and for all. Before they get the chance, Phoenix makes a beeline for the X-Mansion on Earth, looking for a host that it can’t quite remember. It passes by Logan, the Stepford Cuckoos, Beast, and the remains of Quentin Quire, before alighting in the form of a bug on the sleeping Scott Summers. This triggers a cascade of all of his memories of Jean Grey, and he awakens with an optic blast so strong that it shatters his ruby quartz goggles. Finally Phoenix finds the grave of Jean Grey, reanimating and possessing a most unwilling host found therein. Jean begs Logan to kill her again, but Phoenix flies off before he can.



My Two Cents: This five-part series came out during the “Danger” arc of Joss Whedon’s X-Men run and appears to take place during that arc and the preceding “Gifted” arc which returned Peter and Kitty to the team, though neither of them appeared in this first issue, which threw me off initially. Kitty is seen in the second issue, and Peter is mentioned. We see him briefly in issue #3 only to find him left behind. I suspect the story and art were mostly done before his return was publicized.

Writer Greg Pak is building off of the mystical and Eastern terminology that Morrison grafted into his X-Men run. The reference to the “White Hot Room” (some form of existence beyond the mortal plane) and “the crown” (a chakra reference to the ability to see into higher dimensions such as the ones inhabited by comic book readers), as well as characters like the Cuckoos and Quentin (apparently not as dead as we thought, at least where Phoenix is concerned) all come from Morrison. Pak also adopts Morrison’s convention that Phoenix speaks with white letters on a black background, while Jean is the usual black on white.



The violent way in which Phoenix resurrects and possesses Jean’s corpse (see above image) seems more in line with how John Byrne portrayed the Phoenix (black and white below) as a violent force of nature tamed by Jean‘s goodness, as opposed to the Claremont version (the color version of the same scene below, which was ultimately used instead of Byrne’s version) which saved Jean from the cosmic rays out of innate compassion.




And in return, Jean is fighting Phoenix, subverting its intentions, doing things like turning the Phoenix costume to Dark Phoenix hues to goad Logan into attacking.



I don’t particularly care for the idea that some alien gadget can force Phoenix to re-manifest prematurely, but I’m withholding judgment to see whether the story makes sense of it. Similarly, when we meet the Cuckoos here, one of them (we don’t know which) is obsessing over some man (we don’t know who). Hopefully this will play into the story somehow as it unfolds.



Artist Greg Land has been both lauded and lambasted for his heavy use of swiping, often of faces apparently caught in, um, a moment of passion. Both the best and the worst results of his technique are in full display here. Some individual panels look strikingly real. But Emma and the Cuckoos look not only like the same model (which the plot may justify) but also the same age. Logan looks off model: way too young, like Paul Rudd with sideburns pasted on, and his aquiline nose is absent more than present. Over all I’m in the camp that says the less work Land gets, the better for comics.

Phoenix: Endsong #3 (April 2005)



The Story: Phoenix uses a duel with Logan to lure the X-Men to her position. Just as they arrive at the scene of the duel, the alien ship (now identified as Shi’ar) arrives also and disintegrates a large area including Phoenix and Logan. Then ensues some jurisdictional bickering with Scott over whether to pursue and disintegrate Quentin also.



Far in the snowy North, Phoenix and Logan are not disintegrated after all. Jean is in control for a moment (as indicated by a green costume) and begs Logan to stab her dead. He must comply repeatedly since she keeps resurrecting. Jean’s body becomes entombed far beneath a frozen lake, but Phoenix is still manifesting above ground. The other X-Men arrive (minus the Shi’ar) and realize that Phoenix has come to Earth to power up by absorbing infinite energy from Scott’s optic blasts. Unfortunately, this realization comes just as Phoenix begins doing that very thing.



My Two Cents: The notion of Phoenix playing succubus to Scott is both interesting and consistent with X-Men lore such as “Phoenix gets hungry and eats a star.” Makes me wonder whether the limitless energy behind Scott’s eyes could be harnessed to sate Galactus for a while. It also makes for a nice parallel with the “Emma wants to see Scott’s eyes” scene in the previous issue. Whedon will have his own “Jean vs Emma wanting to see Scott’s eyes” moment in the “Torn” arc upcoming in Astonishing X-Men.

I'm might be in the minority here -- does anyone dislikes the Phoenix being all red and yellow? ... I just don't care for that look at all.

Understood ... and thanks.

Phoenix: Warsong #1 (November 2006)





The Story: Emma Frost has a nightmare in which, possessed by the Phoenix again, she consumes the world. She awakens with a notion that the Phoenix Force will return and mess with the three Stepford Cuckoos. Then the Phoenix Force arrives and does that very thing, as well as re-animating the corpses of deceased Cuckoos Esme (who died betraying Magneto) and Sophie (who died resisting Quentin Quire and was briefly reanimated in the Phoenix: Endsong series).



My Two Cents: Greg Pak is continuing his Phoenix: Endsong story, as we see that the death of Jean Grey doesn’t mean beans about the end of Phoenix. (We already saw this in Valentino's Guardians of the Galaxy in which Phoenix is still alive and kicking in the far future.) Pak slips in a few pop culture references: Esme’s tombstone says, “With pride and squalor.” This inappropriate epitaph refers to the character Esme Squalor in the “Series of Unfortunate Events” children’s books.



You may recall that Grant Morrison named the five Stepford Cuckoos (Sophie, Phoebe, Irma, Celeste, Esme) so that their initials referred to the Spice Girls. But Irma’s name was never mentioned during Grant Morrison’s run, and Pak decided to name her “Mindee” in this series. Later publications corrected her name back to Irma with some unnecessary exposition. We’ll go with “Mindee” in this discussion.