The Dark Phoenix raises!
Last time on X-Men: The Animated
Series, The Phoenix joined upper echelon of society. Held in an illusion by
Jason Wyngarde, she was brought into the Inner Circle and celebrated as a queen.
Much to the annoyance of Emma Frost, a previous Inner Circle Queen. The X-Men
were held with inhibitor collars and forced to watch Phoenix in Jean’s body ingratiate
herself with these weird cosplayers. All except Wolverine, who is damp, angry,
and looking to scrap. Scott attempts to reach out to Jean mind-to-mind, but
Emma Frost senses this and pulls Wyngarde into the mindscape so they can duel
each other. Scott almost beats Wyngarde but Phoenix steps in and says that she’s
been liberated by the Inner Circle, and she likes it. Wyngarde stabs him and
pronounces Scott dead, but he hangs on thanks to his connection to Jean. There’s
a hostile takeover as Wyngarde uses his position as puppet master of the
Phoenix to usurp Sebastian Shaw’s position, but that’s interrupted by Wolverine
bursting in. While the Inner Circle bicker, Phoenix scans Wolverine’s mind and
a memory of their… spark, breaks Wyngarde’s control for a second allowing the Phoenix
to say, ‘screw all of you’ and fly away. The X-Men fight and humble the Inner
Circle, all its members beating a hasty retreat except Wyngarde, who thinks he
can fix this. He tries to enthrall Phoenix again, but she’s had it up to here
with his BS, breaks his illusion to reveal his real self and then fries his
brain with her real self. Scott arrives in time for the Phoenix to announce she’s
rebranding as the Dark Phoenix! Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
We return to the story to see Dark
Phoenix announce herself, revealing her giant fiery form to Scott, the X-Men,
and all the random bystanders outside the Inner Circle club. She announces that
she’s never giving up this body or returning to the cold void of space. The others
join Scott on the roof as he tries to reach Jean. He begs her not to leave and
Jean breaks through for a second before Dark Phoenix launches them clear across
the city to Central Park. The fliers save the non-fliers, and they regroup. Wolverine
asks why Dark Phoenix is attacking them, since she used to be on their side,
and Beast says that the professor was probably right. The emotions the Phoenix
felt through Jean corrupted her and drove her mad. The Dark Phoenix finds them
and announces she’s here to destroy them. Scott orders the team to defend
themselves but to be careful. Storm summons up a hurricane to stop her, but she’s
barely inconvenience here. They all try to stop her, but Dark Phoenix seems to
barely notice as she redirects lightning, transmutes trees to gold and smacks
her friends around. Rogue tries to drain her, but Dark Phoenix fire seems to
hurt Rogue more than Dark Phoenix. Dark Phoenix asks why he’s trying so hard save
her, and Scott announces for the hundredth time that he loves her. Dark Phoenix
can’t seem to process that answer so blasts him. Jean breaks through for a
moment and tells Scott she loves him and asks him to remember that regardless
of what happens next. Dark Phoenix takes over again and morphs into her giant
bird form, sending off psychic shockwaves that draw the notice of bystanders,
Dr. Strange, Thor, and Uatu on the moon. She flies off into space.
We see the Dark Phoenix fly through
the cosmos, passing the physical manifestation of Eternity itself as she leaves
the solar system. She’s detected by some Shi’ar scouts mapping the D’bari star
system. She pops in right as the captain complains about how they’re being
tasked with the boring job of mapping a dead star system. They detect the Dark
Phoenix enter the D’bari’s star and feed upon it. They flee before the star can
go supernova. Fun fact, while the episode goes to great lengths to tell us that
the planets in the D’bari system are lifeless… in the comics they very much
were not. Gotta soften Dark Phoenix’s fall to madness for the kids. The captain
of the survey ship orders they stop and try to destroy the Dark Phoenix before
it can do more damage. But she easily slices through their ship’s wing, leaving
them stranded. The Shi’ar loses track of the Dark Phoenix, and he contacts Empress
Lilandra. She orders her cruiser and guard be made ready, as their greatest
fear has come to pass.
Back at the Mansion, Charles debriefs
his team on his fears concerning Jean and the Dark Phoenix. Namely that that cosmic
entity has clearly eaten Jean’s mind. Scott refuses to stop trying so long as
Jean’s alive. Charles does agree that he won’t give up on her either, but they
do need to face the reality that unless Dark Phoenix drops Jean’s body willingly,
then they really don’t have another option to save her. Scott gets a painful
headache and senses the Dark Phoenix returning. Charles promises that they’ll
try to save Jean, but they need to protect the Earth. Wolverine asks how they
can even fight something that can melt them in a second. Scott thinks that’s
the key, that while the Phoenix has the power to do that, the fact it hasn’t clearly
means Jean has some control left. Beast and Charles postulate that they could
beat the Dark Phoenix by targeting Jean, using a Mnemonic scrambler to temporarily
disorientate her and hopefully cause the Dark Phoenix to bail out of her. Charles
kicks himself for not realizing that the therapy that they were giving Jean
earlier was just making her a more perfect host for the Dark Phoenix to
inhabit.
Beast gets to work on the scrambler,
designing a tiara to place on Jeans’ head. I’d prefer a ray, ya know to keep a
distance, but what are ya gonna do? Beast asks anyone if they want to test it
out. On the roof of the mansion, Scott gets another mental burst from Jean and
realizes that the Dark Phoenix has gone back to Jean’s childhood home, a place
full of childhood emotions. Dark Phoenix touches down and walks into the house
calling for her family, who aren’t home. She sees her old pet cat, but he doesn’t
react like he knows her, running off. She finds her bedroom and just sits with
a doll of hers. It’s pretty clear that Dark Phoenix is in some kind of fugue
state and acting more childlike right now. A car pulls into the lot and she
assumes it’s her and rushes down to see him. As she runs out, we see that this
is a trap set up by the X-Men. Charles seems to be using his powers to make
Jean see what he wants her to while he protects her family and Scott is driving
the car. This has got to be a weird family reunion for the Grays. He pulls out
and drives away, distracting Jean long enough for Gambit to slip the scrambler onto
her head. He apologizes as he does it, saying it’s the only way. Dark Phoenix
takes over and hurls Gambit away. Rogue grabs him and demands to know why the
gismo isn’t working. Beast tells her to be patient. Storm tries to talk to her,
but Dark Phoenix away, Rogue catches her too. Beast says she’s stronger than he’d
imagined and she’s frying the scrambler. Wolverine decides he must make the
hard choice, tackling Dark Phoenix and preparing to execute her. Jean comes out
and begs him to do it, now while she has control. Wolverine seems to earnestly
try to cut her throat, but he just can’t do it. Dark Phoenix blasts him away
and prepares to kill them all, but Scott interrupts her. He uses their love,
all of their love for each other to bring Jean back. Charles mentally blasts her,
to stun her. He says that he only bought them a few seconds of peace, they need
to destroy the Dark Phoenix, now! Dark Phoenix recovers, blasts everyone away and
destroys Charles chair.
Not one to surrender, Charles pulls
Dark Phoenix into the mental plane and the two do battle. He swears that in the
battlefield of the mind he will not be defeated. The Dark Phoenix is
unimpressed by Charles’ attempt, saying that arrogant humans could never be
strong enough to stop her. Charles grows fatigued I their mental battle and
calls out to Jean for her help. They combine their mental powers and Bind the Phoenix
in the confines of Jean’s mind.
On the outside, Jean’s Dark Phoenix
outfit revers to her heroic green instead of the villainous red. Charles tells
them that the Phoenix is contained, for now, and says that he was only able to
beat the Phoenix with Jean’s help. Jean and Scott have like 15 seconds of
peace, before the Shi’ar arrive. Charles asks why Lilandra didn’t contact him,
and she reveals its because the Shi’ar high council have voted to destroy the Phoenix
and Jean Gray once and for all.
Again, imagine being the Grays.
Your baby girl comes home for the first time in years, possessed by a corrupted
god, and then aliens show up and say they’re going to execute her. Super weird.
Damn, that was a lot to take in a
20 minute episode of television. It makes me laugh that even when Jean is at
her most powerful as the Dark Phoenix, she can’t go an entire episode without someone
knocking her out. She swoons in a stiff breeze sometimes, I swear. The phenomenal
power of the Phoenix was brilliantly shown throughout this episode, from her casually
redirecting energy, to transmuting matter, to eating a damn star, we really get
a good sense of how powerful this being is. And how monumentally bad it is that
she’s gotten a taste for blood. The whole, destroying a star system to show
that she can, thing was a particularly vivid moment of power. Again, it makes
me laugh that the show goes out of its way to say multiple times that Dark
Phoenix destroyed the star of an uninhabited system when that was just not the
case in the source material. I guess writer Chris Clarmont has said that it was
an accident post Dark Phoenix saga, but still, my girl killed a solar system. That’s
not something any mortal being should have the power to do. Using her childhood
home as a trap was a clever idea. Using the fact that Jean and Dark Phoenix are
separate entities, and that Jean is the weaker of the two against Dark Phoenix was
brilliant. Using the house and Charles’ mind beam to lull Jean into a
vulnerable state and slap the band on her head when distracted were all well
thought out. Sure, the plan failed because Hank underestimated her, but the
trap was smart. The thing I like most about this episode is that Scott never once
stopped believing that he could bring Jean out of the Dark Phoenix. In a lot of
stories like this, even the steadfast hero tends to have a moment when they
break and admit to feeling like their friend/love has been consumed by the dark
being possessing them. But not Scott Summers. His power might just be punch-vision,
but I believe that this man would move stars if he thought it would bring Jean
back to him. Which, ya know, he might have to do now that Jean is on trial by
the Shi’ar. Those bird-people play hardball when it comes to defending their
empire, as you’ll see shortly. Have a good night.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/123276816/
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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