Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/The Phoenix Appreciation

[roni]

Emma and Kitty can be fun for snippy one-liners, but it's too bad the relationship so rarely rises above that. Having Jean around with her in Morrison's run provided an interesting edge for Emma in my view since Jean was one of few people around couldn't feel innately superior to. Also while they had the back and forth as you will they also had moments of perfectly fine civility.

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yes i the relationship between Emma and Kitty in the Astonishing X-Men

[Celestialbodies]

I don't think so. It's one of the main problem with Phoenix : How can you write interesting stories about a character that can just wish away enemies and problems. You either have to raise the stack and put that character in a universe full of other characters as powerful (ie. write stories of Phoenix in the cosmic universe) or you have to set artificial limitations on those powers (ie. She has the power but can only use a part of it because some gizmo is limiting her. Or the Phoenix's ethic code forbid her to use those powers. Or she could use those powers but it would destroy the universe....)

Or you can write stories in which those powers are totaly irrelevant. For example purely human relations stories. But we are reading comics. We want enemy, we want disasters, we want fights and, above all, we want heroic deeds, we want challenges so it shouldn't be easy

That's why it's harder and more boring to deal with characters that are too powerful. Once a character can destroy a planet, who care if he can destroy 2 planets or 10 planets? the result is the same : the planet is destroyed.

But the subject was never Phoenix he pointed specifically to Cyclops, Emma, and Magik as too powerful! But even with Phoenix who poster always use as the rule you have the Hulk, Thor, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer and a whole host of other characters just look at Hickman's Avengers!And the truth is as far as Phoenix is concerned at least when Jean was hosting she was never that powerful in comparing her acts of power to other cosmic beings or even characters on teams, it wasn't until she went WPOTC that her power levels skyrocketed. It's all about the approach and the scope of stories you want to tell and your ability as a writer to bring out the humanity in even the most powerful characters. It's cope out to me to tell street level stories which is fine but the X-men characters at least not the majority fit in that mold, the X-men has always had adventures that brought them to all corners of the Marvel Universe! I get that it can be challenging but at the same time if your more comfortable writing street level characters why take on the X-men?

[ariwl1]

Well there was that time that Kitty ended up in the giant space bullet and Emma was the one telepathically in connection with her.

As far as their subplot goes, the entirety of the Whedon run was building for that one moment. It's been a while since I read it but I think that was the one moment of mutual respect between them the entire time.

[Narasinha]

But the subject was never Phoenix he pointed specifically to Cyclops, Emma, and Magik as too powerful!

Yeah, those 3 aren't that powerful. I choosed Phoenix as an extreme case and because it's Jean thread...

But even with Phoenix who poster always use as the rule you have the Hulk, Thor, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer and a whole host of other characters just look at Hickman's Avengers!And the truth is as far as Phoenix is concerned at least when Jean was hosting she was never that powerful in comparing her acts of power to other cosmic beings or even characters on teams, it wasn't until she went WPOTC that her power levels skyrocketed.

Phoenix and Dark Phoenix power levels are the same. It's just that Jean didn't find out what her power was.
Nearly the first thing that Phoenix did was to beat Firelord and open a stargate. After that, the author used Jean lack of knowledge about her powers and avoided puting her too much in direct fight with enemies. You can only use such tricks for soo long before you have to come-up with another solution.

Yes there is other very powerful characters. But there is still a big differences. In your example, Hulk, Thor are still pretty much limited. The Silver Surfer is in the "cosmic universe", ... Phoenix could be fine in the "cosmic universe". Something similar to Binary. It's in a group, with the other X-Men, fighting regular enemies, that it's more problematic.

[Narasinha]

That's why Bendis must love Phoenix (X-Men - Spotlight on the Starjammers #2) :



Bald Phoenix... com'on, give us a break.
Cyclops is turned on by Emma in Dark Phoenix costume. And his father by... Xavier in Dark Phoenix costume ?!

[PwrdOn]

I don't think Marvel ever had much of a problem giving Phoenix-level powers to male characters, they just didn't really want a woman coming in and upstaging all the boys on a regular basis, especially since the male X-Men are a rather brooding, insecure lot who don't really deal with that sort of thing very well. Of course, after Jean made her mark on comic lore they couldn't very well go back on that, but that hasn't really stopped them from trying with the likes of Cable, Nate Grey, Quentin Quire, or even the P5 in AvX.

[ariwl1]

Bald Phoenix... com'on, give us a break.
Cyclops is turned on by Emma in Dark Phoenix costume. And his father by... Xavier in Dark Phoenix costume ?!

For sure one thing I'll agree with Charles on: the Phoenix uniform is one of the most well designed iconic superhero costumes ever put to paper, but it looks absolutely ridiculous on a man.

[Narasinha]

For sure one thing I'll agree with Charles on: the Phoenix uniform is one of the most well designed iconic superhero costumes ever put to paper, but it looks absolutely ridiculous on a man.

They stoped at giving him the high heel boots...

[PwrdOn]

For sure one thing I'll agree with Charles on: the Phoenix uniform is one of the most well designed iconic superhero costumes ever put to paper, but it looks absolutely ridiculous on a man.

That's only because everyone automatically associates it with Jean though, just from a purely sartorial standpoint it's not much different from the old Captain Marvel costume.



Of course, that costume doesn't have the over-the-knee boots, but it's not as if those aren't present in male costumes as well.

[ariwl1]

This is probably just my taste but I've always thought Captain Marvel looked a tad too much of...something. Not quite sure what but looking at him just kind of makes me chuckle.

[Narasinha]

That's only because everyone automatically associates it with Jean though, just from a purely sartorial standpoint it's not much different from the old Captain Marvel costume.

Because that doesn't look ridiculous ? And they wasted such a good opportunity with that big arrow pointing nearly where it matter...

[grinningdemon]

I don't think Marvel ever had much of a problem giving Phoenix-level powers to male characters, they just didn't really want a woman coming in and upstaging all the boys on a regular basis, especially since the male X-Men are a rather brooding, insecure lot who don't really deal with that sort of thing very well. Of course, after Jean made her mark on comic lore they couldn't very well go back on that, but that hasn't really stopped them from trying with the likes of Cable, Nate Grey, Quentin Quire, or even the P5 in AvX.

I don't think this is a sexist issue...characters with really high level powers rarely stick around (at least not at those levels) for very long...at least not in team books...because then you have to constantly write excuses why they don't just automatically save the day all the time and it makes the rest of the characters look superfluous...this goes for male and female characters...they either die, get shipped off, or depowered...or you end up with something totally ridiculous like Bendis with Sentry in his Avengers run where it seemed like half of every story was about how crazy and utterly useless he was...Nate Grey has mostly been off on his own and never stayed in a team book for long...Cable has rarely had his full power and never kept it for long...Quire's powers tend to go up and down depending on the story...and the P5 was only ever going to be temporary (but there were a couple females in that group too, as I recall).

Bendis hit the nail on the head in his X-Position interview where he basically said uber-powerful characters aren't very interesting...it's why DC has downgraded Superman's powers so many times...and why Jean has never been able to stick around very long at full power.

[PwrdOn]

That all depends on how the conflicts are framed, if your story is just about blowing up a bunch of sentinels, then just about every X-Man can handle that without too much of a problem. Besides, Jean has never really been about beating up bad guys, her character is more about love and tolerance, setting high standards, and doing things the right way instead of taking shortcuts. It wouldn't really make much of a difference whether she was omnipotent or had no powers at all.

[ariwl1]

Don't recall the X-Films showing quite that much cleavage, but I imagine those rubber suits needed the ventilation.

https://www.facebook.com/xbabies?fref=photo

[grinningdemon]

That all depends on how the conflicts are framed, if your story is just about blowing up a bunch of sentinels, then just about every X-Man can handle that without too much of a problem. Besides, Jean has never really been about beating up bad guys, her character is more about love and tolerance, setting high standards, and doing things the right way instead of taking shortcuts. It wouldn't really make much of a difference whether she was omnipotent or had no powers at all.

Reading X-Men stories about a Pascifist Phoenix with little to no action would get real boring, real fast (especially since it would require no action involving any other characters either or it makes it look like Jean just doesn't care if she doesn't get involved)...and I'm not sure what books you were reading because Jean was always in the thick of it when the X-Men were threatened...she's got that firey readhead temper.

With characters that powerful, there is just no way to keep coming up with believable threats...unless they become the threat themselves (which has already been done)...it just isn't sustainable.