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

[jwatson]

From new mutants 21, just to get the current canon.
resurrectiondupes.jpg

[Devaishwarya]

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

I agree with this 100%.
I can understand why Jean may have some lingering remorse or guilt, as it was her essence used to "create" and "drive" these beings, the memories of which she carries with her but...she isn't in any way responsible for the atrocities they committed under their own volition.

[Triniking1234]

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.

Jean used telepathy in the Roy Thomas stories. Claremont's origin story said she was a telepath too.

[WallStreeter]

Depends.

Modern canon is relentlessly insistent on stripping Jean of her connection and history with the Phoenix. Under modern canon, Jean's abusive boyfriend, the Phoenix Force, made her do some bad stuff a couple of years after it had sex with Thor's dad. Jean had nothing to do with it.

If you go by the better, female-centric, Jean-centric, non-canon interpretation/revision of the story, the Dark Phoenix was essentially Jean, and she had a destructive moment of human weakness while ascending to godhood and is ultimately responsible for what happened.

But 2021 canonically? Not her fault at all and no connection to it whatsoever.

As for Maddie, Jean doesn't hold any responsibility or owe any responsibility. She was entirely a victim herself. Ultimately, Maddie diverged from just being a clone the moment something happened to her that didn't happen to Jean, which was immediate.

X-Men 4 preview is the first time where it’s explicitly been acknowledged Jean was actually Phoenix. Nightmare is making her relive her worst nightmare and she remembers being Dark Phoenix.

I’m shocked they even did that!

There’s hope after all for Jean reclaiming her identity as Phoenix.

[Mercury]

X-Men 4 preview is the first time where it’s explicitly been acknowledged Jean was actually Phoenix. Nightmare is making her relive her worst nightmare and she remembers being Dark Phoenix.

Jean's dream sequence in X-Men #4 does not "explicitly" acknowledge that she "was actually Phoenix." All it acknowledges is that she has memories of what Phoenix/Dark Phoenix did. Having a nightmare about those memories would be understandable, considering the scale of those experiences.

Mind you, the nightmare isn't even accurate to what actually happened in the Dark Phoenix Saga, which never showed Dark Phoenix anywhere near D'bari, lest we forget that Dark Phoenix consumed a star that turned supernova, which is what destroyed D'bari. She did not burn D'bari with her cosmic fire nor intend to destroy the planet, as is implied in the dream sequence. In fact, the D'bari would never have even seen her.

I’m shocked they even did that!

There’s hope after all for Jean reclaiming her identity as Phoenix.

Though I am not pining for her to reclaim the Phoenix, I am happy Duggan chose to acknowledge her history with the Phoenix Force in some way. The more I've thought about it, however, the more I wish he would've had her dream about Annie Richardson or the murder of her family, which she did not witness, but which should haunt her nonetheless.

[Triniking1234]

X-Men 4 preview is the first time where it’s explicitly been acknowledged Jean was actually Phoenix. Nightmare is making her relive her worst nightmare and she remembers being Dark Phoenix.

I’m shocked they even did that!

There’s hope after all for Jean reclaiming her identity as Phoenix.

Jean gained the Phoenix's memories in Fantastic Four 286.

[Askani's Flame]

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).

This falls in line how I feel about this as well, so thank you for a great post MechaJeanix.

I have always read and felt that Jean merged with the Phoenix and it's not as cut and dry as "it was a clone". When the Phoenix offered her the chance of merger and to live, Jean accepted this and the bargain was made. Jean's body was remade and most of her psyche went with it in the cocoon, while part of it remined with the Phoenix in this new body in order to provide it a host. Otherwise it would just be the Force in a meat sack and we know that's not how it fully operates. That portion of Jean gave it the true humanity and a way to live on. But as it was just a portion, it wasn't strong enough of an anchor to prevent it from being susceptible to the machinations of Emma and Jason. Eventually Jean's psyche is able to reassert herself to end the sham that the PF made with this body. JB (Jamaica Bay) Jean rejects the memories and tainted portion when it tries to restore her. She rejects the things done in her name and body.

So the Phoenix wanders and finds the Sinister clone and chooses to enter it and that causing the Jean psyche to reside in Maddie. The PF breathes life to Maddie and is ultimately (as well as Sinister) responsible for her actions. That psyche and memories are buried under the new programming ad false memories Sinister adds. Then it eventually finds Rachel and is out of the equation for Inferno except for the fragment living in Maddie which comes out during the climax.

So I posture that Jean has no responsibility in regards to Maddie as Maddie is a separate person and has her own separate backup in Cerebro. Jean did not have anything to do with the commission or creation of Maddie. Whereas DP Jean and Jean are less cut and dry. She made a deal with the Phoenix Force, and part of that deal is the fallout of what transpired.

[Tank]

X-Men 4 preview is the first time where it’s explicitly been acknowledged Jean was actually Phoenix. Nightmare is making her relive her worst nightmare and she remembers being Dark Phoenix.

I’m shocked they even did that!

There’s hope after all for Jean reclaiming her identity as Phoenix.

To be fair didnt all the characters refer to Jean as Dark Phoenix during AvX?

During Morrison’s run after Jean sends the U-Men running naked from the school and finishes with a phoenix raptor. Wolverine asks if she’s ok and he says “last time YOU lit up like this, the whole universe peed its pants.”

During her confrontation with Emma Jean herself says “Don’t worry I wont send big bolts of psychic electricity THIS time.” This indicates Jean has done this before and the only time they fought up to that point where Jean throws a psychic energy specifically at Emma was during the original Phoenix saga).

So Jean and other characters themselves have referred to her experiences during the phoenix sagas as her own. It jives with current Krakoa because if the entirety of her mind, memories and consciousness was duplicated and merged and put in a new body, it still makes it Jean. She just happened to have a spare body. If not considered the same, current Jean would be a clone and not the “real” Jean. Same with any recently resurrected character.

[Tank]

To add another layer to the discussion. Does anyone notice that when Jean dies the first time she creates a Phoenix egg as a failsafe in Jamaica Bay. When Jean kills herself for the 2nd time on the moon, her mind/consciousness is sent back to the body at bottom of the bay and the parts she rejected went to the Maddie body.

Similarly, it’s revealed during Morrison’s run when she dies at the hands of Xorneto, her mind and consciousness ness end up in surprise surprise the egg on the moon. Which she is fully awakend 150 years later with her memories of new xmen time.

I think is is just more fuel that even though she can have multiple bodies, Jean is still Jean through all these versions. The body is made and remade, but it’s Jean’s mind and consciousness that is the same amongst all.

[davetvs]

I think is is just more fuel that even though she can have multiple bodies, Jean is still Jean through all these versions. The body is made and remade, but it’s Jean’s mind and consciousness that is the same amongst all.

This is how I've always felt about it. Marvel Girl, Phoenix, Dark Phoenix, Jamaica Bay - New X-Men, Endsong, Phoenix Resurrection - Krakoa, and Here Comes Tomorrow are all "Jean" based on their sharing the same consciousness, the same as any other mutant who dies and is reborn through the resurrection protocols. New body, same old consciousness.

Maddie is something else.

[Sylarmax]

Wow, Jean is not guilty at all, but Wanda if it is because of the NMM, wow, double standards.


And for the record, I think neither of them is responsible, because in both cases they have possession and temporary insanity as an excuse, but the irony is funny.... I think the argument from guilty to innocent changes depending on the character.

[Omega_DCD]

Jean/Phoenix wasn't just a fragment of Jean's psyche, IMO. It was pretty much all of Jean, because Classic X-Men #8 has the newly created Jean/Phoenix surprised that there's still the original body, then probes and discovers that a "spark" of her remains in the original body, fighting on its own terms...Jean/Phoenix decides to place the original in a cocoon to heal.

(*Side note* This is the difference between our 616 Jean/Phoenix, and the Jean/Phoenix from Rachel's timeline...Rachel's Jean fully merged with the Phoenix. 616 resulted with the "duplicate".)

Jean has done this on her own as well in fact. When Fitzroy's Sentinels attacked the Hellfire Club, Jean saves herself by transferring her consciousness into the body of Emma Frost, but when Xavier probes Jean's original body, he finds that a spark of her consciousness is still in her body.




That spark would have grown to full if Jean wasn't prematurely "hatched" by Reed Richards' device. As such she emerged "incomplete", but still whole enough to function.

Jean's consciousness has proven to be able to exist in varying "quantities", in various bodies, simultaneously.

[Mercury]

I'm in the middle of so much work right now, and I'm still working on my response to MechaJeanix, but I did want to post this page. This page underscores that the Phoenix Force can and does communicate through its hosts separate and apart from their consciousness. The dialogue should be self-explanatory. Also note, Jean is never mentioned.

I'll write more either later today or tomorrow, starting with my response to MechaJeanix, followed by my responses to others. You're all bringing up some great valid points that need to be addressed!

[Devaishwarya]

And this is why that pox-infected fowl needs to be gone completely from Jean's (and Rachel) life now, and forever more.

[Havok83]

Phoenix was Jean and with Hickman's era recontextualizing clones, that is even more apparent

Then: Jean 'dies' (retconned as her original body recovering), she is cloned and a portion of her soul is used to inhabit the clone with all her memories and personality. Its Jean bonded with the PF, but its still Jean until she dies and is seperated from the PF who goes on to take Jean's soul and animate a new cloned body (Maddie) with incomplete memories, which were corrupted and manipulated by Sinister

Now: Jean dies, she is cloned and a mechanical backup that was created of her mind is used to inhabit the clone with all her memories and personality. This is also Jean

Whats the real difference? To me there isnt one. As far as guilt, Jean has always owned her role