After the mutant nation of Krakoa fell, the X-Man Jean Grey rose from the ashes to embrace her identity as the one true Phoenix. Phoenix #1 is a blazing new beginning for an iconic heroine as she seeks her destiny among the stars.
Phoenix #1
David Curiel (color artist), Alessandro Miracolo (artist), VC’s Cory Petit (letterer), Stephanie Phillips (writer), Yasmine Putri (cover artist)
Marvel Comics
July 17, 2024
The X-Men famously protect a world that hates and fears them, but what X-Man is more hated and feared than the Phoenix? Once upon a time, founding team member and omega mutant Jean Grey bonded with the Phoenix Force to save the universe, but later, as the corrupted Dark Phoenix, she devoured a sun and killed billions to sate her cosmic hunger. Flash forward to 2024, and Jean Grey is the Phoenix once again – can she protect a universe that hates and fears her?
Stephanie Phillips and Alessandro Miracolo lay this supermassive black hole-sized question at the center of Phoenix #1. This comic is a departure for the fan-favorite redhead – literally, as it sends her millions of miles away from the only home and family she knows to protect the peace and safety of the galaxy. Cleverly, the issue begins with a full-circle moment for Jean; reigniting a dying sun, she saves countless lives in the inhabited star system. She then answers a distress call from Nova, as the intergalactic prison Kyln-2 is in danger of being consumed by a black hole. Saving a sun, stabilizing a black hole, and stopping an interstellar jailbreak should be no sweat for Phoenix – but even with the powers of a god, Jean Grey is still only human.
Look, it’s no secret – I love Jean Grey. And I love Phoenix #1. Phillips immediately displays a fantastic grasp on Jean’s character, introducing our heroine and all her cosmic contradictions via the young alien girl Adani who regards her with mythological awe. Jean is a passionate young woman, warrior, and wife, but also the physical personification of life and death in the universe. She’s the soul of the X-Men, but a destroyer of worlds. As Adani’s eloquent narration puts it, Jean is “the one who could make the planets stop spinning.” But it’s Jean’s mortal heart that makes her vulnerable, as the issue illustrates – in a dire moment, she makes what she thinks is the most compassionate choice, but may have unleashed a god-level threat on an unsuspecting world instead.
My two favorite scenes in this issue are sublime reflections of the character’s duality. Favorite scene the first: after her first space adventure, Jean has a telepathic Zoom call with her earthbound husband, Cyclops. As drawn by Miracolo, their pages together are deeply intimate, despite their physical distance – Scott shirtless and making coffee, Jean smiling as she feels the spike in his heart rate even in deep space. (Insert the Ben Wyatt “It’s about the [yearning]” meme here.) Their romance is just one facet of Phoenix’s story arc, but it is, dare I say it, hot.
Favorite scene the second: Jean vs. the black hole. It’s easy to imagine a version of this scene that’s just a two-page spread of Phoenix blasting that big hole into submission. (Hey! Keep your eye emojis to yourselves!) Light vs. Dark, Life vs. Death, it writes (and draws) itself, right? Instead, Phillips and Miracola give us something much more inspired, more original, more visually dazzling, than a fight: a dance.
Phoenix gives her energy to the collapsing black hole in a gorgeously stylized sequence, with Jean’s elegant and precise movements becoming part of a celestial communion that saves the Kyln. David Curiel’s coloring is vital to this scene as well, bathing Jean in vivid golds and yellows like the heart of a star. And, again, no shade to any Marvel hero who would have just thrown a punch or a hammer at the black hole (Thor, we love you), but this scene is crucial to understanding Jean’s unique point of view as a hero and why the power of the Phoenix is infinitely more interesting when it isn’t treated as a generic Super Saiyan power-up.
Jean Grey became Marvel’s first cosmic superheroine all the way back in 1976’s Uncanny X-Men #101, and as many of her superfans (it’s me, I’m a superfan) will attest, this ongoing series is decades overdue – but thank that big fiery space chicken it’s here at last. Longtime fans of the redhead in question will be relieved to read a comic book that embraces her complexity and lets her finally (finally!) embrace her ultimate potential, and any new readers latching onto the new “From the Ashes” publishing push will get a strong introduction to a charismatic lead in search of celestial redemption.
Oh yeah, and there’s a pretty gasp-worthy cliffhanger, too.
