Originally Posted by
otipep_90
This is very understated. For Mastermind Jean’s dark desires fit his and the Hellfire’s antebellum notions and aesthetics, but to Jean her desire was unrestrained power and sensuality, which was hinted at repeatedly. Claremont wrote many layers within the story. Mastermind imposed control over Jean by systematically dismantling her true self and building new distorted persona with radically different beliefs. This is brainwash.
If the story skipped over the Hellfire Club brainwashing and went straight into the Dark Phoenix. Then there wouldn’t have been a racists antebellum corset wearing ‘Black Queen/Lady Grey’ persona. It would be a completely different story. It would be a misogynistic story about how a young woman couldn’t handle great power and responsibility.
Unintentionally many Marvel writers have misinterpreted the DPS or have intentionally avoided the themes of rape, abuse, and trauma. The villains of the story were Mastermind and the Hellfire Club not the PF. This is why we have ended up with the PF being a caricature villain cackling away and possessing people at random or by accident. More ludicrous is the new interpretation of the PF as a toxic ex-partner or parent, instead of a cosmic abstract of life and death meant to fulfill a role.
The originally story did not have the consequential genocide of the D’bari. That was a decision made by the artist which inadvertently created a chain reaction.
So Marvel chose to punish Jean (the victim) instead of making her into a survivor like Claremont originally intended in the the alternate ending in ‘Phoenix: The Untold Story’.
This is why I agree that Morrison’s take on the PF has been the only adequate portrayal beyond Claremont’s. I.E. the Phoenix is inherited by genes/bloodline, it burns away what does not work (Phoenix Work), and esoteric themes of reaching a higher level of control consciousness and reuniting with a Devine being.
This is why when Jean Grey eventually gets the Phoenix Force again she needs a true destiny fulfilled story. It also needs to be big one like repairing the M’Kraan Crystal, HCT, X-Men the End or what the followup to Second Coming should have been before Marvel decided Hope Summers would become a separate character and the Avengers would get involved. A new Phoenix Saga that can become a milestone story with Jean staying alive, sane, and reclaiming her iconography. She has more than earned the Phoenix name and rapport.