Is Rachel, Scott and Jean's daughter?

[phoenixzero23]

X-Man #25. It was Sanctity warning Jean that Nate had resurrected Madelyne Pryor.

Thank you.

[Askani's Flame]

Thank you.

No problemo amigo

[Havok83]

Thank you.

If you havent read it, you should check it out. Its the issue where Jean and Maddie finally come face to face upon her return. Jean and Nate meet for the first time too. Its fairly pivotal

[FUBAR007]

Oh. There was another Trask with mutant powers? What the heck?

Yes. She's a time traveler, among other things. You can find a detailed summary of her history here: https://uncannyxmen.net/characters/madame-sanctity.

[ARkadelphia]

(note to Hickman, you wanna simplify this mess?)

After reading HOX2, you think there’s hope of Hickman simplifying things? How droll.

[RachelGrey]

After reading HOX2, you think there’s hope of Hickman simplifying things? How droll.

I hope he doesn't, Rachel has had a long presence in the comics now and Jean and Scott have long accepted her as part of their family.

It's not that complex in the end. Rachel was born on an alternate Earth that descended into an Apocalypse with the Sentinels taking over most of the planet. She was taken around the age of 10 when the Xavier Institute was attacked by the American Armed Forced and Sentinels. She was selected for the Hound program by Rory Campbell because of her telepathy. She was tortured, brainwashed, drugged, and conditioned for almost 2 years until she was trained to behave like a hunting dog for Rory. A killer hunting dog that was trained to locate, hunt, and kill mutants. Rory used Rachel to kill several people who escaped from the Xavier Institute Massacre, Kurt Wagner was hunted down and killed, Alex Summers was hunted down and killed. There was even a hint layed out in Days of Future Present that Rachel was used to hunt and capture Franklin Richards the boy she had a crush on as a little girl.

Every time Rachel killed a target she absorbed their memories through her telepathy and eventually the accumulated memories, sorrow, and anguish caused her conditioning to break. She turned on Rory when they returned to base and she pushed him into a computer console and the resulting explosion caused Rory to loose his legs, one of his arms, and part of his face. The Sentinels reconstructed their most talented hound master into a cyborg and he became Ahab.

They attempted to recondition Rachel and they tried for several months, they failed every time. Eventually against Ahab's wishes Rachel was put into the concentration camp for final experimentation and execution. Here Rachel reconnected with some of her friends like Kate Pryde, Piotr Rasputin, Ororo Munroe, Erik Lehnsherr, Forge, and her boyfriend Franklin Richards. Kate and Logan created a plan to stop the Sentinels, Logan gave Kate parts to smuggle into the concentration camp when she was sent out on supply runs by the Sentinels. Kate gave the parts to Forge and he successfully created a device to deactivate their suppression collars. Once the collars are off they attempted to escape. Erik, Forge, and Franklin were all killed trying to hold the Sentinels back while the rest escaped. Once they were successfully away, Piotr, Ororo, and Logan entered the Sentinel High Command in the Baxter Building to destroy it. Rachel used her cronoskimming powers to send Kate's mind back in time.

Now we run into a problem, can we change the past in the 811 universe, or does the laws of time prevent it. Rachel perhaps cannot change the past in such a way that would cause herself to cease to exist. Perhaps tampering in the 811 past would result in Rachel not existing and thereby not being able to change the past. So somehow Rachel's power misdirected Kate to the 616 universe, possibly to prevent a paradox effect, and Kate changed the past in the 616. Kate prevented Senator Robert Kelly from being assassinated in the 616 which slowed down the march toward the Sentinel War in the 616 universe.

Meanwhile, Logan, Storm, and Piotr find out that the Sentinel High Command in the Baxter Building was a fake and they are all killed. (NOTE: Piotr may have died earlier)

Kate returns to the present 811 and nothing has changed. She is exhausted from the cronoskimming and Kate falls unconscious. Rachel knows that everyone except her and Kate are dead and she tries cronoskimming back to observe only and find out why the time line didn't change. Rachel discovers that her cronoskimming won't allow her to change the past in her own universe and that she changed the past in the 616 instead. Rachel is overcome with anguish realizing that the whole endeavor was a waste of time in their world and there is no hope for Rachel and Kate. The Phoenix recently faked her death on the moon and had been lying dormant for a while recovering senses Rachel and mistakes her for Jean at first but then discovers that Rachel Summers is the daughter of Jean Grey and Scott Summers for another universe. Phoenix finds herself feeling empathetic to Rachel's plight and decides to try and help Rachel in some way and follow her back.

Phoenix releases the pulse to wake Jean up in the stasis capsule, but this also splits off and wakes up Madelyne Pryor.

Phoenix follows Rachel back to the 811 universe and Rachel succumbs to the stress of carrying her consciousness between worlds along with the connection to the Phoenix and Rachel falls unconscious. Phoenix reads Kate and Rachel's minds and then reveals herself fully to Kate and presents Kate with an option. Phoenix will take Rachel as her new host and in exchange save Rachel's life by taking her back to the 616 universe. Phoenix will also help Kate destroy the real Sentinel High Command and use the explosion to cover the portal between universes. Phoenix bonds with Rachel and goes partially dormant inside her, now using Rachel as her host. Rachel and Kate make their way to the Sentinel High Command and break in. They find the new Nimrod lab where Nimrod is being built. Kate sets the explosives and then says the code word to Rachel "Dark Phoenix" which causes the Phoenix to take over Rachel's mind and open a portal at the same moment that Kate blows up the building. Rachel/Phoenix now goes through the portal into the 616 a few months after the Senator Robert Kelly incident. Nimrod is woken by the explosion and pursues Rachel through the portal and enters the 616 as well.

Meanwhile Kate is lost in a phase state when the lab explodes and doesn't die. The Sentinels recover Kate and try to use Kate to find the portal frequency. In the process of their experimentation the Sentinels accidentally cause a Sentinel and Kate to phase together and they two merged beings are lost in the stream between worlds. Eventually this "widget" arrives on Earth 616 a year or two after Rachel's arrival during the formation of Excalibur.

When Rachel arrives on 616, Phoenix scrambles her memories so Rachel does not remember being from an alternate universe. This was one of the agreements with Kate to prevent Rachel from trying to return to the 811 and force Rachel to try and build a new life in the 616. Rachel wanders around New York confused and is almost taken as a victim of Selene who detects that Rachel is bonded with a cosmic entity. Eventually the X-Men rescue Rachel from Selene and Rachel joins the X-Men. Nimrod becomes a recurring X-Men villain from that point on.

I don't feel this needs to be changed, this is a compelling story, and also rather tragic. It's one of the reasons I like Rachel so much, she is a tragic fiction character who rises above the tragedy to become a strong force for good in her adopted universe of 616. As time has gone by Scott and Jean have learned fully about Rachel's history and Scott has mostly accepted that even though Rachel was not born in 616, she is his daughter and he has started returning the love and affection that Rachel has for him. For a long time Jean really struggled with Rachel's presence. Over and over Jean has felt that she is being forced onto different paths by fate and she felt that Rachel's presence was forcing her to the fate of marrying Scott and giving birth to Rachel. It wasn't till later in Excalibur when Jean and Charles try to help wake Rachel from her coma after Necrom that Jean learns that Rachel is actually from an alternate Earth and not their own. Jean starts realizing that Rachel isn't forcing any fate on her and she grows to accept Rachel as her daughter. Jean invites Rachel to her wedding to Scott and even makes her a bridesmaid. Cable accepts Rachel as his sister because of their long shared history with each other.

The only problem we run into with Rachel and Jean is the fact that writers only seemed to want one of them active at a time. If Jean was fully active in the X-Men then Rachel was written out. If Rachel was fully active in the X-Men then Jean was written out. Whatever interactions they had over the years were in mini-series that were placed in the Askani future, or through messages or memories that they leave for each other through the holocron crystal.

However, recently they had Rachel and Jean meet again when Rachel and Jean were both active during X-Men Red and X-Men Gold. The problem was that the two writers had a different vision of the relationship. The writer of X-Men Red explored the relationship between Jean and Rachel in the X-Men Red Annual, and then again when Jean rescued her daughter from Cassandra Nova. On the other hand the X-Men Gold writer ignored X-Men Red completely and acted like Jean didn't care about Rachel. That scene in Gold though makes me wonder if it was actually teen Jean that helped Rachel after she was attacked by Mesmero and not adult Jean. They had a small scene together in the wedding issue that same year.

Then the writer of Extermination wrote them as never interacting. Brisson just emphasized that Rachel and Cable were very close and completely ignored the relationship between Rachel and Jean and left it open to interpretation only.

It looks like Rachel and Jean are going to continue to be active at the same time in Dawn of X, just not on the same book all the time. Hopefully Hickman explores the mother and daughter relationship between Jean and Rachel, along with Rachel's relationship to Scott and Cable as well. The fact that the first X-Men arc is the Summers/Grey family seems like they are going to address the family connection in some way and fully establish that Jean and Scott accept Rachel as their daughter.