Is Jean Grey responsible for the actions taken by the two clones made of her?

[Gray Lensman]

Well, of course Madelyne didn't behave like Jean. Sinister mind-controlled and created an identity for her. For all we know, had Sinister not tampered with her psyche, Madelyne may have risen believing she was Jean.

Also, the psyche fragment had already been through a lot of changes by the nature of the Dark Phoenix storyline - Maddie may have inherited the same shard as Phoenix, but the additional experiences meant that it wasn't the same anymore.

[jwatson]

Again, the Phoenix Force housed a "fragment" of her "psyche" or "essence." Mind you, these are not my word choices but what the various comic books say, including on the pages from Inferno I posted in the op. Furthermore, the Phoenix Force, as has also been repeatedly established, preserved Jean's real body and the majority of her psyche in a cocoon it placed at the bottom of Jamaica Bay.

So if phoenix only had a fragment how did she have all of Jean's memories and physic rapport with scott etc. Does current Jean only have a fragment of real jean psyche since it hasn't been brought up if she remembers her time saving a universe or directing scott to emma or is that the phoenix jean that did all that and jean consciousness is split across time? Is there more than one Jean.

[Mercury]

Also, the psyche fragment had already been through a lot of changes by the nature of the Dark Phoenix storyline - Maddie may have inherited the same shard as Phoenix, but the additional experiences meant that it wasn't the same anymore.

This is actually a very good and revealing point! I'll have to ponder how this could have affected Madelyne's development.

[MechaJeanix]

I already explained the difference. Jean's current cloned body houses her entire psyche; however, both clones of her only housed a fragment of her psyche.

I don't think you have this correct. The current cerebro process copies the mind of a mutant - the Phoenix when it merged with Jean copied her mind. It also took a part of her soul/consciousness. Which in my view, and that of others made it even more Jean than the current process. Hickman defines the "soul/consciousness" as the same as the mind (your mind- feelings, emotions, etc.) - which I think in reality is true that is what our soul is - it is the contents we store about ourselves and our relationship to the world in our brains. But others keep telling me in the Marvel Universe the "soul" is an actual thing unlike in our world.

My point- is that saying the Phoenix was just a clone denies the reality (in story) that Jean merged with the Phoenix and a part of her was there inside and was active - the humanity the Phoenix shown was Jean, it was Jean's humanity that caused the Dark Phoenix to end itself. Jean's body was in the cocoon but her consciousness was both in the Phoenix and in the cocoon. That is my result from reading Classic X-men 8 as well as the issue where Jean proposes to Scott.

I think too much is stripped from Jean by reducing or taking away one of her biggest stories and it happens a lot with her. People don't even know how or where to place Here Comes Tomorrow. It frustrates me that Jean's biggest Phoenix stories are sort of nebulous when she's the most often and most famous Phoenix. Ah, well. Comics!

I don't like the retcon about Jean/Phoenix but I feel Inferno fixed and corrected it in large part because Jean got the memories and part of her soul back but again most writers are lazy or didn't like Claremont trying to fix it so half the time they don't recognize what was returned to Jean in Inferno, but sometimes they do and it causes a mess of endless debates about Jean and the Phoenix.. whether she was or wasn't, if the actually merged or if it was just a masquerading copy , etc.

In story I do think Jean takes responsibility for Phoenix because she allowed their souls to merge (this was said in Claremont's revolution run).

[Starchilde]

nowadays everyone and their mothers in Krakoa are having a smiliar process of rebirth that the one Jean had but today there's more technology so they don't have to go through an Inferno storyline to acquire the memories (?) gods I hate the retcon even more now lmao

[Mercury]

So if phoenix only had a fragment how did she have all of Jean's memories and physic rapport with scott etc. Does current Jean only have a fragment of real jean psyche since it hasn't been brought up if she remembers her time saving a universe or directing scott to emma or is that the phoenix jean that did all that and jean consciousness is split across time? Is there more than one Jean.

We actually don't know how much of Jean's memories this fragment contained, which is underscored by the fact that the clone often admitted, to paraphrase, "I don't feel like myself." However, I assume it contained her formative memories. Furthermore, it was actually the Phoenix clone who established the psi-link with Scott.

Based on comic book canon, current Jean still has the memories of both clones, i.e., Phoenix and Madelyne.

[Mutant 77]

I asked this on Twitter and have received some interesting responses, so, I thought this could make for a thought-provoking discussion here. I wanted to get the thoughts of the entire community.

Is Jean Grey responsible for the actions taken by the clones (i.e., Phoenix/Dark Phoenix, from the ��ℎ���������� �������� and �������� ��ℎ���������� ��������, and Madelyne Pryor) that were fashioned after her and animated using the exact same fragment of her essence?

Consider:

NO:

She's not responsible. She wasn't Pheonix. She wasn't Madelyne Prior. And giving Jean memories and feelings belonging to Phoenix and Madelyne was a stupid plotpoint which invalidated the concept and further muddled the waters.

Also, I hated the idea of the Phoenix Force linking itself to Jean when she was a little child. To me, in my personal canon, the Phoenix Force did not know about Jean or planet Earth before the Shuttle Incident.

[jwatson]

We actually don't know how much of Jean's memories this fragment contained, which is underscored by the fact that the clone often admitted, to paraphrase, "I don't feel like myself." However, I assume it contained her formative memories. Furthermore, it was actually the Phoenix clone who established the psi-link with Scott.

Based on comic book canon, current Jean still has the memories of both clones, i.e., Phoenix and Madelyne.

So if phoenix jean established the link then does that mean Phoenix is actually scott one true love. Also in the scenes posted the other day Jean was talking about her body she was wrapping into the cocoon and she herself said "this is me too" and i can't abandon it implying jean was the one who preserved her own body in a cocoon and she herself wasn't sure what would happen once it healed so is Jean before she got the phoenix memories not jean.

[Starchilde]

I don't think you have this correct. The current cerebro process copies the mind of a mutant - the Phoenix when it merged with Jean copied her mind. It also took a part of her soul/consciousness. Which in my view, and that of others made it even more Jean than the current process. Hickman defines the "soul/consciousness" as the same as the mind (your mind- feelings, emotions, etc.) - which I think in reality is true that is what our soul is - it is the contents we store about ourselves and our relationship to the world in our brains. But others keep telling me in the Marvel Universe the "soul" is an actual thing unlike in our world.

My point- is that saying the Phoenix was just a clone denies the reality (in story) that Jean merged with the Phoenix and a part of her was there inside and was active - the humanity the Phoenix shown was Jean, it was Jean's humanity that caused the Dark Phoenix to end itself. Jean's body was in the cocoon but her consciousness was both in the Phoenix and in the cocoon. That is my result from reading Classic X-men 8 as well as the issue where Jean proposes to Scott.

I think too much is stripped from Jean by reducing or taking away one of her biggest stories and it happens a lot with her. People don't even know how or where to place Here Comes Tomorrow. It frustrates me that Jean's biggest Phoenix stories are sort of nebulous when she's the most often and most famous Phoenix. Ah, well. Comics!

I don't like the retcon about Jean/Phoenix but I feel Inferno fixed and corrected it in large part because Jean got the memories and part of her soul back but again most writers are lazy or didn't like Claremont trying to fix it so half the time they don't recognize what was returned to Jean in Inferno, but sometimes they do and it causes a mess of endless debates about Jean and the Phoenix.. whether she was or wasn't, if the actually merged or if it was just a masquerading copy , etc.

In story I do think Jean takes responsibility for Phoenix because she allowed their souls to merge (this was said in Claremont's revolution run).

I think this is on point, MechaJeanix. I also think that some recent writers like Taylor have a similar view, for example, Jean established in Red that the events of that saga were hers, even when T'Challa told her the typical in-universe response "it wasn't you". And agree about the frustration! Aparently its ok for everyone to be Phoenix in-universe and then be normal again, but for Jean, THE Phoenix, it has to be in some sort of nebulous way that causes ambiguous responses in the fandom. But yes, comics!

[Triniking1234]

I asked this on Twitter and have received some interesting responses, so, I thought this could make for a thought-provoking discussion here. I wanted to get the thoughts of the entire community.

Is Jean Grey responsible for the actions taken by the clones (i.e., Phoenix/Dark Phoenix, from the 𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑥 𝑆𝑎𝑔𝑎 and 𝐷𝑎𝑟𝑘 𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑥 𝑆𝑎𝑔𝑎, and Madelyne Pryor) that were fashioned after her and animated using the exact same fragment of her essence?

Consider:

No. Madelyne had autonomy and so did Phoenix even if she believed she was actually Jean.

[jwatson]

Now my mind is really running, would that also mean Jean omega tp is linked to phoenix as original jean started without telepathy, then had telepathy, but then when she came back she had her telekinetic powers but once she got her tp powers back the phoenix started to show up again as evident in morrison run as well as claremont run when psylocke had her tk.

[Mutant 77]

Canon is what has been established in the comic books. As far as I know, there has been no retcon of what was revealed during the original Inferno storyline, the climactic moments of which I have included in the op of this thread. The Phoenix Force did create "an exact duplicate" of Jean's body, but, as stated in the pages in the op, it only took a fragment of Jean's psyche. When the Phoenix clone killed herself - in large part, it was compelled to do so by the fragment of Jean's psyche - the Phoenix Force imbued Madelyne Pryor's lifeless body - another duplicate of Jean's body - with that same exact fragment, which Jean rejected while in the cocoon at the bottom of Jamaica Bay.

I always hated the retcon about Madelyne Prior and the Phoenix Force to the nth degree. Lazy writing. It makes no sense whatsoever. "Fragment of psyche" doesn't truly mean anything. The Phoenix Force duplicated Jean's body and mind (consciousness and memories). The clone did not need any "fragment" from the real Jean Grey's psyche to function properly.

Is psyche the soul? Is it the consciousness? It makes no sense. I also think that Dark Phoenix committed suicide just because she had Jean's duplicated consciousness, not her soul or her "fragment of psyche". As simple as that, Dark Phoenix was an exact clone of Jean Grey, and she felt guilty/remorseful about her evil and horrible deeds in the same way as Jean Grey, the real Jean Grey, would feel IF put in that very same situation.

[Mercury]

I promise I will reply to all of your posts. I'm working on a reply to MechaJeanix's post, which has some great valid points. In either case, I couldn't help but quickly reply to jwatson's post. (They keep me on my toes!)

Now my mind is really running, would that also mean Jean omega tp is linked to phoenix as original jean started without telepathy, then had telepathy, but then when she came back she had her telekinetic powers but once she got her tp powers back the phoenix started to show up again as evident in morrison run as well as claremont run when psylocke had her tk.

This should really get your mind running then...



1968, baby. Soak it in.

Oh, and this, of course...

[jwatson]

I promise I will reply to all of your posts. I'm working on a reply to MechaJeanix's post, which has some great valid points. In either case, I couldn't help but quickly reply to jwatson's post. (They keep me on my toes!)



This should really get your mind running then...



1968, baby. Soak it in.

Oh, and this, of course...

telekinetic powers are mental powers. Storm powers are mental powers. Iceman powers are mental powers so it could mean any kind of mental power which in this case is tk

Also the original posts Jean claims the phoenix stole her memories but we saw the phoenix give jean a choice and she chose to save the x-men so retcon or not it's a bad one and a bad look for her to claim now because it didn't work out the phoenix "stole" her memories.

The other two scans don't really do much for me, i mean Destiny can't see moira and may not be able to see her since apparently there are three jeans running around all of which would be clones since phoenix is the only one with a complete mental history of Jean. It just seems like a pointless endeavor to try to, i don't even know to be honest, i don't know why it even matters.

edit: so with that i am off, as i have to get to stuff and don't want to go down the claremont run/morrison scans etc. lol

edit 2: though it is interesting Jean has always referred to herself as an omega level telekinetic but i can't remember her referring to herself as an omega level telepath before this current run. could be completely wrong i just don't remember it.

[Mercury]

telekinetic powers are mental powers. Storm powers are mental powers. Iceman powers are mental powers so it could mean any kind of mental power which in this case is tk

Actually, Jean was already using her telepathy by that point, which, in fact, she used on the robots to track them.

Also the original posts Jean claims the phoenix stole her memories but we saw the phoenix give jean a choice and she chose to save the x-men so retcon or not it's a bad one and a bad look for her to claim now because it didn't work out the phoenix "stole" her memories.

Jean was angry and confused at the time, especially considering what had been done with the fragment of her psyche, but has since accepted that she asked for the Phoenix Force's help.

The other two scans don't really do much for me, i mean Destiny can't see moira and may not be able to see her since apparently there are three jeans running around all of which would be clones since phoenix is the only one with a complete mental history of Jean. It just seems like a pointless endeavor to try to, i don't even know to be honest, i don't know why it even matters.

The only one with "a complete mental history of Jean" is Jean. As for why it is important: It is important to the integrity of her character.

edit: so with that i am off, as i have to get to stuff and don't want to go down the claremont run/morrison scans etc. lol

When you get a chance, please do bring up the Claremont and Morrison scans. The latter, in particular, shows what Jean behaves like when it is really her who is fully bonded with the Phoenix Force.