I got things mixed up, the sexist "Thor/Silver Surfer/Firelord can't be beat by a female" stuff was actually from Jim Shooter and Len Wein
“Our intent was to create an X-Men analog, if you will, to Thor – someone who was essentially the first female cosmic hero,” Claremont revealed in Phoenix: The Untold Story. “We thought at the time that we could integrate her into the book as well as Thor had been integrated into the Avengers. The problem with that is that it grew out of the synthesis between Dave and me. The fact that we had, in a sense, created her gave me a degree of involvement that (artist John Byrne) didn’t have, coming in seven issues later.”
Editorial resistance to Phoenix
“When we first introduced Phoenix, we wanted her to fight Thor or the Silver Surfer, but (new Editor-In-Chief) Jim Shooter wouldn’t allow it,” Cockrum told Comic Creators On X-Men. “He said no female is going to beat Thor or the Silver Surfer. We kind of sneaked around him by sending her up against Firelord, who had once fought Thor to a standstill. We established her power levels that way.”
“Dave and I kind of liked the idea that we had a female character who was cosmic. No one else did,” Claremont revealed in The Comics Journal. “Len Wein objected strenuously to our using Firelord if Phoenix beat him. We couldn’t have a lady character who’s cosmic, because – well, his argument was that it made the rest of the X-Men superfluous. We got around it by having the fight be a draw.”
But Byrne had his own messed up viewpoint of Jean/Phoenix
"Phoenix officially rejoined the X-Men in issue #110 in 1978, but John Byrne, who had taken over as X-Men artist from Dave Cockrum with X-Men #108, didn’t share Cockrum and Claremont’s enthusiasm for the Phoenix character. “I agitated to get her out of the book as quickly as possible – which is what we did,” he admitted in Phoenix: The Untold Story. “I didn’t like Phoenix since the word go. Because she instantly made the rest of the X-Men fifth wheels, you know? And she wasn’t even an X-Man.”
”Much as I would prefer to have it different – and this is why Phoenix isn’t on the cover or in the title logo – is that in the opinion of (X-Men editor) Roger Stern and John Byrne, she isn’t an X-Man,” Claremont revealed in The Comics Journal."
The whole article can be read here
http://secretsbehindthexmen.blogspot...o-die.html?m=1