"I am fire and life incarnate! Now and forever -- I am Phoenix!"

Well, another week, another Mutant Monday! And today, I'm going to be covering an alternate version of my favorite character, Jean Grey. The book in question is What If? #32, What If. . . Phoenix Had Not Died?

The What If? series really doesn't get enough love. It's one of my favorite series, and I've tried to get my hands on as many issues as I can find. In this series, Uatu the Watcher gives you a premise and then shows you what would have happened if events went another way. Not every issue is dark or has a sad ending, but a vast majority of them do. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the angst. And, boy, does this two-parter have angst in spades (I'll cover issue #33 tomorrow)!

Okay, quick recap (or as quick as possible) on Phoenix, for those unfamiliar with her/it. Jean Grey was a mutant who had telepathic/telekinetic powers. In a story from the early 80s, the X-Men were traveling in a shuttle craft through a solar flare, but the radiation began seeping through. One person had to stay at the controls while the rest remained in a shielded part of the craft; Jean used her telepathic powers on the ship's pilot to learn how to fly the craft, all while using the telekinetic portion of her abilities to keep the radiation out. She managed to save the X-Men, but not alone: the Phoenix Force heard her pain and offered to save her life, which she accepted.

The Phoenix took on Jean's form and placed her body in a cocoon on the ocean floor, and when she returned to the X-Men, they believed she had died and was resurrected by Phoenix, but it was just Phoenix becoming Jean.

They went through a lot of adventures with Phoenix, but the power became too uncontrollable for her. She was manipulated by Jason Wyngarde (Mastermind) and the Hellfire Club, she destroyed a planet full of broccoli people by consuming its sun (yeah, you heard me right; I might go into that part of it one day), and, finally, she was sentenced to death by the Shi'ar Empire (an alien race) in order to bring her madness to an end.

Jean/Phoenix had seemed to have her powers back under control by this time, but it wasn't enough for Lilandra, leader of the Shi'ar. The X-Men fought to save Jean by battling the Imperial Guard; Jean brought the battle to an end by committing suicide. She just couldn't stand the risk of Phoenix taking over her again and possibly dooming more people.

And that brings us to the beginning of this What If? issue. See, in this timeline, Jean was taken out early in the battle with the Imperial Guard, and instead of executing her, they performed a psychic lobotomy, removing all traces of her abilities and powers, making her just a normal human.

The X-Men return to Earth, and life goes on pretty much the same as in our timeline, except that Scott (Cyclops) and Jean marry and leave the team. Jean is plagued by nightmares of the horrible deeds she committed as Phoenix, which strains her relationship with Scott.

One night, they have a visitor to their home out on Martha's Vinyard (oh, yeah, purchased for them by Warren Worthington III, Angel): Magneto. He's come to take Jean up to Asteroid M and offer her a chance to have her powers back.

She nearly takes that offer, too. The X-Men come to the rescue, but it wouldn't be a Claremont-era X-Men comic without a some internal monologues (Claremont didn't write this book, but he was credited with plotting it):


And then we get this awesome image, a great homage to the cover of Giant X-Men #1:


Okay, back to Jean. She struggles with the allure of allowing the Phoenix Force to overtake her once more. She finally decides not to give in, and she begins destroying Magneto's energy chamber, and, Magneto being the evil dude he is, nearly strikes her in his anger. Hey, I'd be kind of pissed, too, if someone started bashing my electronic gizmos with a metal bat!

When Jean rants at Magneto and tells him how he could make the choice to become good, too, he turns away and says that his path was chosen years ago, and he lets the X-Men go.

They return to Earth once more, and things start returning to normal. They return to the X-Men, Scott as leader, Jean as a teacher for the younger New Mutants team. And they have a baby, little Rachel Summers (who, in our timeline [well, not really our timeline because she came to ours from another timeline; man, the Summers family tree really messes me up!] became a member of Excaliber in the 90s and a member of the X-Men in the 2000s). Life seems to be going really, really well for them. Which, of course, means that it's all about to go into the crapper.

Little Rachel wakes Jean up one night, crying horribly.

It turns out Jean may have been right about Rachel having powers; Scott enters the room, only it isn't Scott, it's Mastermind. He tries to manipulate Jean once more with his powers of illusion.

Ugh, that creeps me out so bad, especially the image of her covered in maggots!

But in typical convoluted fashion of the X-Men comics of this time period, he's not the only one trying to manipulate. Mastermind himself is being manipulated by the Shadow King, an old X-villain who once crippled Charles Xavier.

Jean tries to fight back, but Mastermind/Shadow King shoot her and steal Rachel; Shadow King has plans for Rachel, but he doesn't really explain those plans.

The shots kill Jean, and as her body lies cooling on the bedroom floor, Phoenix comes back and saves her life once more, but Jean fights back against Phoenix to no avail.

However, Phoenix finally realizes that she has been Jean this entire time. She was always Jean from the time she saved her on the shuttle craft and took on her form and psyche. This knowledge drives her over the edge, and she flies to the ocean where Jean's body lies in its cocoon.

She imagines how Scott will react to the truth that the woman he loves, the mother of his child, is a farce, and she believes that he will hate her for the lie. And she performs a horrible, unforgivable act:

And that is one hell of a cliffhanger. We'll continue with part 2 tomorrow, so come back for that!

In parting, I'll leave you with my top 5 X-Men list. Granted, this list is always subject to change, but these are my top 5 for the moment (and most of them are eternal top 5 members). They're not in any particular order, no method to my madness.

5) Wolverine: Okay, confession time - I have not always liked Wolverine. Phew! That feels good to get off of my chest! When I first got into comics & into X-Men comics specifically, I absolutely hated Wolverine. I thought he was completely over-used and over-exposed. I thought most people gave him more credit than he deserved, that he wasn't that great of a character. What changed my mind? Wolverine #75. It was the aftermath of the Fatal Attractions cross-over, and Logan was adjusting to life after having his adamantium ripped from his skeleton by Magneto. I may cover this issue soon, so I won't go all the way into it, but the clincher for me was the ending. His relationship with Jubilee showed me how much variety Wolverine COULD have when written well, and, for the most part, I've enjoyed him since. I like my Wolverine tough, ass-kicking with a side of gentleness for kids and ladies.

4) Nightcrawler: I've loved Kurt from the first time I saw him. He's Errol Flynn in fuzzy-blue-elf form. He's a bit of a throwback in that he believes in chivalry and loves to fence, but that's part of his charm. One of my all-time favorite images of Kurt is as a pirate. He's kind of been one both in the Excalibur series and in his 4 issue mini-series from the 80s. I don't know if I really care for his current incarnation (he became a priest a couple of years ago), but I do like that he's a man of strong faith, especially given the contradiction it creates with his nearly demonic appearance. If you want to read some really good Nightcrawler stories, search out Vol. 1 of Excalibur, especially through about issue #50. I'll definitely be covering some of those stories here, so keep an eye out for that!

3) Beast: Hmmmmm. . I'm detecting a pattern. Blue, fuzzy, sense of humor. . . I mostly prefer Hank from the 80s-90s; I'm not real keen on the current catlike Beast. Hank is one of my favorites because of his intelligence and his sense of humor. I also love the dichotomy he faced once his secondary mutation kicked in and he became beast-like: the intelligent man who looks like a monster.

2) Jean Grey: I like Jean because she's more than what she seems. For so many years, she was underestimated and underused, but then the Phoenix storyline hit, and the depth of her innate powers was revealed. Jean often gets relegated to second fiddle and usually doesn't get the respect she deserves (she was one of the founding X-Men for heaven's sake, and the first one Xavier recruited!), but when she's written well, she's amazing.

1)Magneto: The first and best X-villain. Like with so many X-Men characters, Magneto benefits best by great writing. He's such a great character: Erik was a child during World War II when he and his family were interred in concentration camps for being Jews, and he went through absolute hell there. Some of his origins have his powers first appearing while in the camps, but what is interesting about him to me is even though he went through this ordeal, he himself believes that mutants are superior to humans, and some of his statements over the years have been rather Hitleresque. One of the best Magneto stories is the Testament miniseries from last year; it shows his years in the concentration camps, and it's utterly heartbreaking. I definitely plan on covering it here.

So, there ya go. Come back tomorrow for part 2 of the Phoenix What If?, and I also plan on showing you a few panels from The Incredible Hercules.