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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 29 May 2020 at 10:20am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Hoskins would have been a great choice.
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Brad Hague
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Posted: 29 May 2020 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Did anyone anywhere ever explain how Dark Phoenix just suddenly appeared in the X-Men/New Teen Titans crossover?

This has been a burr under my saddle for 37+ some odd years.

It seems like Chris just decided "I'm going to unilaterally decide to use her and not explain how or why" and somehow Shooter was OK with this?

It's things like that that make me wonder about Shooter.
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Brian Miller
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Posted: 29 May 2020 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Wow. I just read that last night.

Darkseid sent his forces to gather residual energy from places on earth
where her power manifested. He also somehow was able to use energy
from memories and feelings her family and the X-Men had of her. He
finally combined all that and resurrected her.

Some absolutely gorgeous art by Walt and Terry. I'd love an Artists
Edition of it.
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Shaun Barry
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Posted: 29 May 2020 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply


Considering it was a Marvel & DC one-off crossover, was it even necessary to adhere to general continuity?  Had Darkseid even encountered the Teen Titans before that issue?

Why not have Dark Phoenix show up?



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Dave Phelps
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Posted: 30 May 2020 at 6:29am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

 Brad Hague wrote:
Did anyone anywhere ever explain how Dark Phoenix just suddenly appeared in the X-Men/New Teen Titans crossover?


Did you ever read it? "How Dark Phoenix appeared" was the first half of the book.
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Dave Kopperman
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Posted: 30 May 2020 at 10:06am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

XM/TT came out the first year I was a collector, meaning that I completely missed all of the original Dark Phoenix storyline.  And I still found the conclusion of the crossover moving, with the bits between Scott and Jean.  Sure, I was eleven and an old (young?) softy, but that's a testament to Claremont's skill, that he could make me care deeply about characters I zero familiarity with.

I haven't read it in decades, and I'm sure I'd now find it talky and hokey and all of that stuff I sometimes see in the Claremont comics I loved as a kid, but that's kind of the point: I loved them as a kid.  Something about those endless bouts of self-reflection tinged with self-pity (his hallmark) is perfectly attuned to the tween/teen mindset.  I ate it up like crazy. 
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 30 May 2020 at 10:38am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

That's a good point, Dave. Claremont has become somewhat of an easy target because of his many Claremontisms and the excess verbiage, but for a number of years it worked a treat for the target audience. 
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Marc Baptiste
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Posted: 30 May 2020 at 11:59am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

I had been a little reluctant to express my thoughts on whether it was the Phoenix Force that had corrupted Jean or Jean that had corrupted the Phoenix Force - mainly because it seems my reading of the original saga puts me on the opposite side of the fence from JB.  Not an enviable spot.
But, here goes:

I interpreted the Phoenix Force to be not unlike Galactus - a cosmic force of nature, so to speak.  In one way or another, we had been told repeatedly that the Phoenix Force was the physical manifestation of the life force of the universe (life incarnate - life, death, rebirth, etc.) -- it's difficult to think of something like this having a "good" or "evil" nature.

While with Jean Grey, we KNOW her to be a fully flesh and blood human being (mutant, yes, but a human being nonetheless).  And no matter how much you might like or love Jean Grey the character, she is a human being with all the flaws, foibles, weaknesses, prejudices, CAPACITY FOR EVIL solidly and inextricably built in.

It therefore, only makes sense that when the the Phoenix Force bonds with (or exactly replicates) Jean that it takes on more than it bargained for - the dark side of the human soul and that ends up corrupting it.

Just my reading of the story.

Marc


Edited by Marc Baptiste on 30 May 2020 at 12:10pm
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 30 May 2020 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

The Dark Phoenix Saga, as first published, led me to
believe that Mastermind was fairly and squarely
responsible for the creation of Dark Phoenix by
manipulating Jean's mind and loosing the parts of her
that she would not give in to - because she was a moral
person. (we all have the odd thought that we would not
act on, but if our moral barriers were removed by
Mastermind and we were manipulated into acting on them,
we would).

Once loosed, I saw it that they became almost a separate
'person' to Jean, and Jean was fighting and fighting to
gain control, but the separate person was using Phoenix
powers to overcome her.

Jean got control at the end of 136, but she could feel
DP in the background, fighting to get out, which of
course, she did at the end of 137.

That of course needed to be modified once Jean returned
but I still felt it was Jean's 'memory' fighting DP to
control the powers in the entity that was created.

Was the Phoenix force that took Jean's memories evil? I
didn't manage to figure that out to be honest.
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 30 May 2020 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Right from the beginning in issue #101, Phoenix spoke with a different, haughty personality.  I took that to mean that somebody was else was there, not Jean.  After flying out of the bay, Jean regained her senses for a moment, not knowing what happened.  It was this reassertion of herself that enabled Jean to later kill herself on the moon to save Scott and her friends.  If Jean "corrupted" the Phoenix, then Jean's sacrifice makes no sense and has no weight.

Galactus may be beyond good and evil, but that doesn't mean that every cosmic force has to be the same.  Galactus' reasons for eating planets has a purpose.  I've never seen that the Phoenix has a good reason for her acts of destruction.  Instead of Jean corrupting the Phoenix, why couldn't the Phoenix have been corrrupted eons ago by her own power and the thinking that most of existence is less important than her?


Edited by Eric Jansen on 30 May 2020 at 7:00pm
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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 30 May 2020 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Let's remember that this interpretation of Jean's history had one goal: to let Jean come back. It wasn't anyone's game plan when the original story was unfolding but it solved a problem rather neatly.

Who knows what the Phoenix Force is like? We only know it through the lens of its brief impersonation of Jean, affected by Mastermind, and then giving in to its innate need to destroy.

My two cents.

Edited by Andrew Bitner on 30 May 2020 at 7:29pm
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 30 May 2020 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Who knows what the Phoenix Force is like?
--------------------------------------------
OK, but when you have two opposing interpretations, they can't both be right.
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