Emma was a nasty character before she died and then joined the X-Men. Even after she joined the X-Men, she was still considered a criminal (For example, just after Morrison run, Scott tell Fury "What makes you think we would knowingly harbor a dangerous criminal?" and Fury answers "How's Miss Frost?")
I haven't read decimation but I guess that would depend on how much Wanda was not acting of her own. How much she was under the influence of someone else (being impressionable and being persuaded by someone else isn't enough to remove all the guilt)? That would depend if she had the intent to do what she did. In the discussion with Beast that some people posted in other threads, she seems to know what she was doing and saying that she would do it all over again. But, in ANXM, she is shown to keep thinking about this and feel pretty guilty about what she did.
But again, it's not a story I have read yet (going to soon) so I can't really say.
The Phoenix Force isn't the subject here because, like gods and cosmic being, it's outside the concept of mortals. It's an abstract that represent one of the way the multi-verse work. It may be self-aware but we don't know exactly how and what it perceive. It probably preceive things on a cosmic scale.
The PF is like a gardener that must sometime remove bad grass so something healthier may grow. Or like a doctor that must amputate a patient to make him go better. It's bad for the amputed cels but it's for the good of the patient. In the case of cosmic being, the patient is the whole universe.
Also, Death showed that there is afterlife. For the PF, people's death is not the end. It's just moving to another stage of their evolution.
Galactus is a little different: He isn't a part of the universe. He is not a cosmic force: He is the last survivor of the previous universe. Galactus was destroying inhabited planets mostly because he didn't cared and because it was easier for him than to go search for another planet that isn't inhabited. The was then persuaded to be a little more picky and avoid inhabited planets.
He is "a force of nature" only in the sense that there isn't much you can do against him and what he does isn't personal. (Contrary to the PF burn things for a reason)
Last edited by Narasinha; 06-02-2015 at 12:19 AM.
Unlikely. I don't recall the UN or the US explicitly acknowledging Utopia as a sovereign state and given it was in the San Francisco bay, it most certainly fell within the territorial waters of the US which extends approximately 200 miles around the coast provided it does not overlap with another country's territorial waters. You can't just drop a rock in a country's territorial waters and proclaim it to be sovereign land.
Last edited by remydat; 06-02-2015 at 03:30 AM.
It's hard for me to listen to someone not in my position. A caterpillar can't relate to what an eagle envisions.
Sounds similar to what China tries these days ..... I wanted to take the same point which DP took but dismissed exactly because of this.
I think the main aggression was that they wanted to kidnap Hope , Cyclop's granddaughter in addition to trying to stop the return of the mutants but I must also say even Utopia wasn't a independent country legally they saw it as such and as their home.(yeah yeah I know like a sect) , so the Avengers brought in a lot of aggression based only on their fears.
I know after they were possessed it swapped and they were the evil thanks to the influence of the PF. With laws to grasp this completely is difficult because it would be including international laws, case studies, current events and so on enough for writing a PhD. Under common sense you would simply say this was war, 2 different political views clashing each other based like always on fear. There is a lot of books(and famous) out their how those 2 are the flip-sides of one coin.
Sorry I'm responding to this a bit late, but I think it's worth responding to.
You're missing a key factor here. Cyclops was not in a sober state of mind. The Phoenix Force had affected him. And even if you're not willing to concede that, Xavier was attacking him. As I stated in a previous post, there's a difference between provocation and attacking. Provocation would just be Xavier insulting and yelling at Cyclops. He was doing that. But he was also attacking. That takes this beyond provocation and turns it into a fight that he instigated.
Actually, that's not entirely accurate. Look up the self-defense clauses that exist in every state of the USA and in most other countries in some form or another. If someone is attacking you, you have a right to defend yourself. Xavier was attacking Cyclops. He was attacking and provoking him. The case could be made that Cyclops had a right to defend himself. If you're going to be the prosecution, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Cyclops was 100 percent responsible for the aggression he displayed. And by that standard, I think there's too much doubt.
Objection, point of relevance. This isn't about what Cyclops intended to do with the Phoenix. This is about the charge levied against him in the murder of Charles Xavier. And your comparison to Nazi experiments is really extreme. He wasn't turning normal humans into mutants. Hope Summers did that with the Scarlet Witch. Cyclops was using the Phoenix to do all sorts of good in the world for humans and mutants alike. It didn't go bad until the Avengers decided to attack and abduct Hope. So your assessment of the circumstances is not accurate.
Again, point of relevance. This isn't about what Cyclops did before he got the Phoenix Force. This is about what he did while under its influence in the death of Charles Xavier. This would be a separate trial with a separate crime. Please focus on one case at a time.
I already responded to this. I can call witnesses to the stand who can document all the good things Cyclops did with the Phoenix Force and how none of those things involved turning humans into mutants. I can also call witnesses to confirm that it was Hope Summers and Wanda Maximoff who did what you claim. If you're going to charge Cyclops with that crime, you have to charge them as well. And that would be a separate case. You're speculating on his agenda and you're not focusing on the crime in question. There's nothing in that agenda that shows that he planned or intended to kill Charles Xavier.
Those same witnesses can also document what happens when the Phoenix is attacked, as tends to overwhelm the host. Those same witnesses can also attest that when someone under the influence of the Phoenix exerts themselves, it tends to cause them to enter a state of mind where it's not possible for them to have a reasonable understanding of a situation. So if you were to present this in a real courtroom, I don't think it would meet the standard of reasonable doubt that a prosecution needs to get a conviction. Remember, it's the prosecutions job to prove guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent until this is done.
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This is an interesting case to consider, but I think it would be a separate case entirely. It would not have any bearing on the case of whether he murdered Charles Xavier. The Avengers' status as a government authority is a bit murky. And Charles Xavier was not part of the Avengers. So I don't think this would apply.
True to some extent, but he never asked for the power. It was forced into him because of Tony Stark. And again, intent does matter. He intended to use the Phoenix Force to save a dying race. And if he were called to a witness stand, he would probably testify that the dangers of the Phoenix Force can be mitigated and had been successfully in the past. It was only when someone caused great stress to the Phoenix Force that problems arose. In this instance, Xavier and the Avengers caused the stress, not him.
What he did with that power was not inherently a crime, nor does it affect the facts of the case in question. It would be a separate case entirely if what he and the Phoenix Five did warranted serious concern. Even if there were risks associated with such power, those risks did not manifest until the Phoenix Five were provoked and attacked.
I can't think of a good analogy for it. Say someone was on a drug that caused them to be violent and impulsive. However, they didn't take that drug willingly. Someone put it into their drink by mistake. Then, some friends decide they're going to be proactive and subdue him before he commits any crime. In doing so, they instigate a crime. In that sense, it's the friends that are the aggressors and not the person on the drug.
And yet Cyclops still didn't attack them. If he attests that he knew of the Avengers concerns, that would only confirm that he was not the aggressor. He could've attacked first and stopped them before they organized an attack that led to Hope's abduction. But he didn't. The Avengers and Charles Xavier struck first. On top of this, he still didn't ask for the Phoenix Force. That's something else the Avengers caused when Tony Stark shot it with his big cosmic gun. And the extent to which Cyclops committed a crime while under the influence of the Phoenix Force is still debatable. None of his violent actions really manifested until after the Avengers attacked him.
I think 2nd Degree Murder would be a serious stretch and so would voluntary manslaughter. There's too much reasonable doubt that Cyclops was the main aggressor. A court can't take into account his thoughts. His actions speak louder and according to his actions, he did not commit this crime until he was provoked and attacked. If a prosecutor wanted to convict him, he or she would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the aggressor and I think there's too much doubt in this case.
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This has been a very insightful discussion to read. One point, though.
There's the question.
The Phoenix Force, in the temporary form of a Jean Grey, sucked in enough energy from a Sun-like star to trigger a core-collapse supernova, as the D'Bari star's outer layers collapsed on the core and bounced off. Even though not a true supernova, it would have been evident to practically everyone that this would have been an enormously destructive event.
It's quite possible that Jean knew nothing of the D'Bari before arriving in their home system. The question arises as to whether she could reasonably have suspected if anyone who could plausibly be harmed by a supernova might be there.
D'bari (1) by Randy McDonald, on Flickr
We do know, from the information given on panel, that the sun of the D'Bari was a solar analog closely resembling the Sun. (Its surface temperature was perhaps two hundred degrees greater than Sol's, but this is a minor difference.) Jean, coming from a planet that orbited a star quite like that of the D'Bari homeworld, would have had reason to suspect that there could well be here a life-supporting and potentially populated planet. Caution would have been justified before feasting on the local star.
Is this decision-making process something that she was capable of at the time of the Dark Phoenix episode, or something that could be reasonably expected of her?
Well, Phoenix wasn't Dark when Rachel was its host so its bad hosts at fault.
It's certain that she didn't know. Her reaction when she learned about it is proof enough.
Jean has no notion of astronomy. And this is happening in the 60', early 70' at most. We barely walked on the moon at that time. It's doubtful that a young girl, raised in the 60, was exposed to much theories about star system formation. She probably didn't even watched Star Trek...
In fact, even with the information we have today, it's seems very improbable that any random start system would have a sentient life-form (and assuming that a G-type star, like Sun, is needed for life is pretty antropocentric). Occurrence of sentient life form seems to be exceptionally rare, for whatever reason (see Fermi Paradox).
Anyway, Phoenix/Dark Phoenix wasn't in her "right mind" when that happened. The Phoenix Force is a primal force, the embodiment of passion, not reason. The Dark Phoenix persona wasn't a sane entity and was in comflict with Phoenix/Jean real personality.
(It's doubltfull that a sane person would dive right away into a star, whaver the reason lol)