Phoenix Force (Earth-616)
From Marvel Database
Former Avatars: Rachel Summers, Quentin Quire, Emma Frost, Rook'shir[2], Feron, Necrom, Madelyne Pryor[3], Diamanda Nero, Korvus Rook'shir[4], Giraud, Colossus, Prime, Amber Hunt
Current Avatars: Jean Grey-Summers (Phoenix), Celeste Cuckoo
History
The Phoenix Force is one of the oldest known cosmic entities, representing life that has not yet been born. The Phoenix Force is an immortal, indestructible, and mutable manifestation of the prime universal force of life. Born of the void between states of being, the Phoenix Force is a child of the universe. It is the nexus of all psionic energy which does, has, and ever will exist in all realities of the omniverse, the Guardian of Creation, and a de-facto guardian of the M'Kraan Crystal. Phoenix is among the most feared beings in the entire universe - having the power to cut and regrow any part of the universe, as well as destroy it entirely, which is part of the Phoenix's purpose: "The Judgement of the Phoenix": to burn away what doesn't work. Recent interventions of the Phoenix suggest that "what doesn't work" is what has become stagnant instead of naturally evolving.
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During its time as a sentient entity, it traveled the cosmos just like other cosmic beings though at first, the Phoenix Force was a formless mass of energy, but thousands of years ago, it came to Earth, and met a magician named Feron (who worshipped the legendary Phoenix), whose daydream-like visions prompted the Phoenix to adopt the firebird form it has today. He asked the Phoenix to help him by lending its energy to project a stone pillar (which resembled a lighthouse) across the multiverse. The pillar became the lighthouse base for the British superteam Excalibur (a team its future host Rachel Summers herself would join). Phoenix Force left Earth, but was called back when it felt the mind of a human transcend the physical realm, a mind that resonated with the Phoenix's energy. A young Jean Grey had telepathically linked her mind to her dying friend, Annie Richards, to keep Annie's soul from moving to the afterlife. In doing so, Jean's mind was being dragged along to the "other side" with Annie. Phoenix lent its energy to break the connection, and kept close watch on young Jean, as it felt a kinship with the young mutant. Years later when Jean was dying on a space shuttle, her mind called out for help and the Phoenix Force answered and saved her, transforming Jean into the Phoenix.
As originally written, the Jean Grey incarnation of the Phoenix was not a separate cosmic entity, but Jean herself, having attained her ultimate potential as a psychic, only to become slowly corrupted by the manipulation of such foes as Mastermind and Emma Frost; unable to adapt to her enormous power, Jean was driven mad. Becoming Dark Phoenix, Jean destroyed a planet populated by sentient creatures and subsequently committed suicide on Earth's moon.
In order to return Jean to the fold several years later, this storyline was retconned to reveal the existence of the cosmic Phoenix Force entity, which had created a duplicate body of Jean, believed itself to be Jean, and acted in her place while the real Jean lay in a coma in the ocean. This let Jean be revived as a member of X-Factor. The extent to which the duplicate and Jean are separate entities depends on who is writing the character(s) at the time.
Part of the Phoenix Force joined with Jean's clone, Madelyne Pryor, until she also committed suicide and the Phoenix consciousness rejoined with the awakened Jean. Another person who possessed a portion of the Phoenix Force is Rachel Summers, Jean's daughter from the Days of Future Past alternate future. She was able to access the Phoenix Force and allow it to possess her to use limited amounts of its immense powers.
Later, when Rachel was sent into the future, Jean assumed the code name of Phoenix once again. She even began to manifest the Phoenix raptor without the Force. In New X-Men Jean and the Phoenix Force merged into one being. The Phoenix Force told Xavier, that "Jean is only the house where I live."
X-Men: Phoenix: Endsong
During the mini-series X-Men: Phoenix: Endsong, the Phoenix Force returned to Earth and resurrected Jean Grey from her grave. Through a number of incidents; including Jean having Wolverine kill her a number of times, Jean trapping herself in a glacier, the Phoenix Force jumping into Emma Frost, and parts of the X-Men being trapped in a Shi'ar-generated event horizon, Jean Grey managed to assert herself and gain control of the Phoenix Force, becoming the White Phoenix, and rescued everyone from the event horizon. As a result of a Shi'ar attack on the Phoenix Force, it is currently in an incomplete state.
We learn during this series that Jean Grey is the closest thing the Phoenix Force has to a true earthly Avatar or physical embodiment and further that the Phoenix Force empowers Jean with life in a kind of mutualistic relationship or psychic bond.
Phoenix (Rachel Summers)
Years in the future, when the Phoenix Force took Rachel Summers into the cosmos to heal her, it ran into Galactus, the world eater, who was consuming a planet. The two battled and the Phoenix Force was able to stop him. Unfortunately, the world it tried to save was destroyed by their combined powers. The Phoenix told Galactus to stop because he does not have the strength to continue. It said that it wanted to save the life of the planet Galactus was devouring and its actions were just. Galactus, however, accused it of being a hypocrite. He claimed that while he devoured life on planets, the Phoenix in turn took life energy from the future - killing countless beings that have yet to be born.
Phoenix (Phoenix Force)
When Jean Grey and the X-Men were in battle with the sentinels, Jean was close to death and calls out telepathically for help. The Force answers, and stores Jean in a cocoon of psionic energy to let her wounds heal. It then assumes the form of Jean, with a part of her psyche and personality included. It then professes to be Jean and fights on long the X-Men for a time, until turning into Dark Phoenix. After Dark Phoenix is destroyed, Jean is released from her cocoon and returns to the X-Men. Later the force returns and Jean once again becomes Phoenix, eventually becoming the White Phoenix of the Crown.
Dark Phoenix
As the Phoenix is the light and life of the universe, the Dark Phoenix represents power and destruction. The Phoenix will become Dark Phoenix if it allows human emotions to cloud its judgment. In this state, Phoenix is the strongest, but also is an evil entity. It thirsts for power and destruction. Totally uncontrollable, it is a force to be reckoned with as it is not bound by a human conscience. When Dark Phoenix flew back into space, her true firebird form was seen across the entire universe and even attracted the attention of Eternity. Lilandra stated in the saga that the Phoenix can destroy all that there is.
Over the years whenever Jean Grey's powers flared, many of her teammates feared Dark Phoenix's return, although Dark Phoenix had never actually been Jean Grey. After once again merging with the Phoenix Force, Jean had all of Dark Phoenix's memories and she feels the weight of five billion lives upon her soul.
Dark Phoenix appeared as one of the forms Phoenix assumes during the Phoenix: Endsong mini-series. It desired to return to Earth under the pretense of wanting Scott's love, as the Phoenix and Jean were one and the same but actually desired the engery from his optic blasts.
The White Phoenix of the Crown
When the Force returned again to Jean[1], it was broken after being attacked by a Shi'ar warship. Its billions of pieces were spread out all over the galaxy. So then, after a complex sequence of events, the Force possessed Jean. However, with the Force's sanity deteriorating, the two became Dark Phoenix again. Then the X-Men followed them to the North Pole, where Scott had the Stepford Cuckoos connect Jean's mind to all the X-Men around the world, whose lives Jean had come into contact to. Their support was more than enough to repair the sanity of the Phoenix, and it became the White Phoenix of the Crown and set off to the White Hot Room, to begin locating all of the Force's lost pieces.
Taken from Phoenix Force (Please Integrate)
Comic-book readers today know the Phoenix Force as a psionic cosmic entity linked to Jean Grey-Summers. However, the original character, as far as anyone knew, was Jean, a mutant with psionic powers.
Returning from a mission in space with the New X-Men, Jean volunteered to pilot a shuttle through a solar flare while the others remained in a shielded area. Instead of killing her, the radiation allowed her to reach her ultimate potential as a telepath and telekinetic. In that moment, Jean became a being of pure thought. Upon crashing to Earth, she reformed herself with the costume, identity, and power of the Phoenix. Her power levels grew, slowly at first, then exponentially. Shortly after her transformation, she repaired the M'Kraan Crystal and saved the entire universe. She began to enjoy using her new and vastly improved powers, but as always, power corrupts.
The Phoenix entity became too strong to control for the merely human aspects it had acquired from Jean, but the other X-Men had no way to know what was happening and little chance of preventing a tragedy. Professor X helped Jean establish "psychic circuit breakers" in her mind, but they became less and less effective. Thus Phoenix began its downward spiral into the entity known as Dark Phoenix. (see that page for further history).Powers and Abilities
Powers
Future Life-Force Tap: The Phoenix Force can tap into the energy provided by life-force reserved for future generations, thus denying them existence. The Phoenix Force possesses limitless cosmic energy. With or without a host, it is one of the most powerful entities in the Marvel Universe.
- Concussive Force Blasts: It can wield this energy to project beams of immense concussive force.
- Quantum Singularity: It can transmigrate throughout time and space by folding its energy back into itself, causing it to collapse akin to a black hole. It then reforms itself upon reaching its destination.
- Energy Absorption: It can directly absorb energy such as Cyclops' optic blasts or the entire energy of a sun.
- Force of Life: The Phoenix Force can control life and death itself.
- Psionic Nexus: As it is the nexus of all psionic energy, it has powerful mental abilities, including telepathy and telekinesis, and often seeks out hosts who have psionic abilities. When bonded with a host, the Phoenix Force amplifies their abilities to incalculable levels.
- Matter Transmutation: It can manipulate matter on a sub-atomic level (e.g., turning wood to gold, stone to crystal, etc).
- Teleportation: It can teleport others across vast distances.
- Resurrection Force.
Its powers appear to be at their strongest when bonded to Jean Grey (possessing the powers of telekinetic/telepathic godhood, complete control over the realms of matter, energy, and thought), as the two have a strange, profound connection to each other (Jean is the closest thing the Force has to physical form).
- Like Jean Grey-Summers, the Phoenix used telepathy and telekinesis, but at a much higher level. She was able to rearrange the molecular structure of matter and fly at supersonic speeds. Using the Phoenix Force, she could travel through hyperspace and destroy Shi'ar battlecruisers with little effort.
Abilities
Strength level
As Jean Grey-Summers, the Phoenix possessed the normal human strength of a woman of her age, height, and build who engaged in moderate regular exercise. Using her cosmic powers and telekinesis, Phoenix could lift an unknown amount, probably in the range of thousands of tons.Paraphernalia
Transportation
Flight under her own power, intergalactic flight through hyperspace, X-Men Stratojet, Shi'ar stargates
Links
- Appearances of Phoenix Force (Earth-616)
- Character Gallery: Phoenix Force (Earth-616)
- Images that feature Phoenix Force (Earth-616)
- Fan-Art Gallery: Phoenix Force (Earth-616)
- Quotations by Phoenix Force (Earth-616)
- Dark Phoenix
- Jean Grey
- Phoenix (Phoenix Force)
- White Phoenix
- Scott Summers (Earth-616)
- Shi'ar
- Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #9
- Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #10
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- ↑ Phoenix: Endsong
