Originally Posted by
Wiccan
I don't get why people talk so much about the "Phoenix force retcon" like that. The only retcon was the whole "Jean was in the coccoon, the Phoenix was just impersonating her". The idea that "Phoenix" was only Jean with a new superhero persona may have existed but it wasn't how things were ultimately written. As of DPS, the Phoenix was already a separate entity. Jean talks about it as separate from her, she says they have a symbiotic relationship. And IIRC from what I've read Byrne was the one who leaned into that idea the most, while Claremont was the one who thought of it as being inheretely related to Jean.