Phantazia Appreciation 2021

[Nyssane]

"You lampoon my leadership... but I knew to keep one of my most devastating members in reserve, just in case!"
- Toad

Who is Phantazia?
Phantazia is one of the X-Men's most unique and mysterious villains.

When Toad began assembling the third Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, he sought out long-time members Pyro and Blob and the mutate Sauron. But he needed some estrogen in the group. Enter: Phantazia. Clearly the most intelligent and powerful member of the group, Phantazia's reasons for working with the Brotherhood are, like herself, shrouded in mystery. Perhaps she was searching for companionship. Perhaps she found Toad's inept greed amusing. Who knows?

Her powers make her quite unique in the world of the X-Men. Phantazia has the following mutant abilities:

• Levitation
• Projection of "bio-blasts" that she fires from her body
• Electromagnetic disruption - this was her bread and butter; she could short out others' mutant powers or bodily functions (causing temporary paralysis), and render technology and machinery useless
• Cloaking herself and others from sensors (including human sight)
• Attuned to fluxes in the electromagnetic spectrum (aka able to sense disturbances in the earth's EM field)

Phantazia Phacts
Some little known facts about Phantazia include:

1. Phantazia was created by Rob Liefeld (ugh) and Fabian Nicieza.
2. Phantazia has a PhD, presumably in astrophysics. This makes her one of the X-Men's most educated super-villains.
3. Magneto thought so highly of Phantazia that he invited her to join him on his asteroid base, Avalon. She rejected his offer because really, she's too good for him.
4. Despite this, Phantazia was part of Magneto's elite guard in the House of M storyline, and was the first person to sense an attack on the royal house. When the timeline was restored, she was one of the only people who remembered the events of House of M, though everyone thought she was crazy as they did not remember.
5. Phantazia's natural hair color is blonde, though she's actually had THREE hair colors in her few appearances (blonde, white, and red). She presumably wears a wig when in supervillain guise, or she "powers up" which turns her hair white and allows her body to vanish inside her cloak.
6. In Phantazia's first appearance, she helped kill Cannonball by shorting out his powers which allowed Sauron to gut him (spoilers: he came back).
7. Phantazia is sometimes erroneously referred to as "Phantasia."
8. Phantazia was one of the first (if not the first) Marvel female villains made into plastic; in 1995, she was included with Storm in a promotion by fast food chain Hardee's, which included a figurine, trading cards, pogs, and a 4-part exclusive comic book picking up where the Empyrean/Legacy Virus story left off.

Will 2021 FINALLY be the year of Phantazia's return?

2020 Appreciation Thread

[danielsan52]

She needs to make a comeback. Even if just in one story. Would be awesome if she ended up on Scott and Jean’s new X-Men team.

[CellarDweller]

she is definitely a way under-used character. We need to see more of her.

[Phoenixx9]

Where is Phantazia these days? She needs to appear in the X-Men books because she is such a "good" bad character. They need foes who are unique and powerful, in this case, one mutant with lots of powers.

[GMikey]

OMG some members today were discussing ideas of how to incorporate Phantazia into the animated fan series. One plot twist that's in discussion, is to give her a secret relationship with Candra/The X-Ternal. Since the Mutant Brotherhood would be employed more as "antiheroes" than clear cut villains for the X-Men, it's being suggested to allow Phantazia build a relationship between multiple parties, for reasons that would eventually reveal her to being a secret rival for Magneto, as she sees him as "weak" and incapable of realizing a vision.

[kevlon]

Potential Hellion member?

And if she does show up again, I hope she is still wearing that strange floaty cloak

[Nyssane]

Where is Phantazia these days? She needs to appear in the X-Men books because she is such a "good" bad character. They need foes who are unique and powerful, in this case, one mutant with lots of powers.

She's still in limbo. She was last seen depowered and in SHIELD custody as she was one of the only people who remembered the events of House of M. An alternate version of her did appear in No More Humans, sporting a pretty kewl look.

OMG some members today were discussing ideas of how to incorporate Phantazia into the animated fan series. One plot twist that's in discussion, is to give her a secret relationship with Candra/The X-Ternal. Since the Mutant Brotherhood would be employed more as "antiheroes" than clear cut villains for the X-Men, it's being suggested to allow Phantazia build a relationship between multiple parties, for reasons that would eventually reveal her to being a secret rival for Magneto, as she sees him as "weak" and incapable of realizing a vision.

Let's hope that if we get a new X-Men cartoon, she makes an appearance!

Fun fact: back in the day, I pleaded with Chris Yost (who participated in the chat at the time) to use Phantazia in X-Men: Evolution. Obviously it didn't work.

Potential Hellion member?

And if she does show up again, I hope she is still wearing that strange floaty cloak

Oh, the cloak has to stay.

[Pumpkin King]

It seems like Marauders would be a great place for her to come back, since she was Pyro's former team-mate, and it would maybe lead to some actual character development for him. But I don't care where she pops up as long as she appears somewhere. If she is still de-powered and in SHIELD custody, maybe a team could rescue her. She's a mutant, after all, and shouldn't be denied her chance to go to Krakoa. I could imagine her on Hellions as well, having very little patience for any of Sinister's nonsense.

[Nyssane]

I'm hoping Mystique has a bunch of sleeper agents on Krakoa to fight for Destiny's return, and maybe Phantazia can be one of them with her best buddies, gay couple Pyro and Avalanche.

[Lady Midnight]

It's long overdue.

[Sutekh]

I normally am not a fan of one character having a bunch of quasi-unrelated powers, but if people like Exodus and Apocalypse can get away with it for years, then why the hell not a few of the ladies like Phantazia and Monet?

It would be interesting to develop her backstory. I think she appeared as one of Stryfe's MLF recruits, which sort of just appeared, and I assume that he somehow used future knowledge to recruit them, perhaps snatching them away from circumstances in which they would have died. (Much as Stryker later did recruiting his Purifiers from people he saved from death using future knowledge from Nimrod.) But maybe one of them actually came back in time with him, and it would make sense that that one would be Phantazia, who always seemed a cut above the rest. It would be neat to find out she was always the unofficial second-in-command, and the only one he recruited *before* traveling into the past.

[Nyssane]

I normally am not a fan of one character having a bunch of quasi-unrelated powers, but if people like Exodus and Apocalypse can get away with it for years, then why the hell not a few of the ladies like Phantazia and Monet?

It would be interesting to develop her backstory. I think she appeared as one of Stryfe's MLF recruits, which sort of just appeared, and I assume that he somehow used future knowledge to recruit them, perhaps snatching them away from circumstances in which they would have died. (Much as Stryker later did recruiting his Purifiers from people he saved from death using future knowledge from Nimrod.) But maybe one of them actually came back in time with him, and it would make sense that that one would be Phantazia, who always seemed a cut above the rest. It would be neat to find out she was always the unofficial second-in-command, and the only one he recruited *before* traveling into the past.

You had me until you mentioned Stryfe... she wasn't ever part of the MLF. She was part of Toad's Brotherhood and was also invited to join the Acolytes but she flat-out rejected Exodus.

My headcanon is that she's a semi-famous Astrophysicist by day and mutant criminal by night. Hence why she has blonde hair in her normal form and white hair with virtually no body in her "powered-up" cloaked form.

Both she and Siena Blaze are 90's female villains with very powerful electromagnetic-based powers. I'm a little surprised neither of them have achieved Omega status (especially Siena, who could destroy the planet with her power).

[shooshoomanjoe]

Liefeld knew how to create great characters.

[Nyssane]

While we wait another 84 years for Phantazia's next appearance, here's a cute fanart of what her Hellfire Gala outfit could've looked like:

[Nyssane]

Gorge.