Marvel and Disney have a lot of work ahead of them when it comes to bringing the X-Men into the MCU. After two ill-received attempts to bring the Dark Phoenix story to the big screen, perhaps the third will be the charm.
For one thing, the X-Men / Dark Phoenix narrative is a tough sell in one or even two movies. Another obstacle is, unfortunately, that the Phoenix Force is quite confusing. Years of retcons and stories have made the cosmic firebird difficult to pin down, to say the least.
10 Why does the Phoenix Force need a host?
The Phoenix Force is a cosmic entity of unimaginable age and power. It is death and rebirth, the nexus of psionic energy, and it will always exist, so why does this incredible power need a mortal host?
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An avatar doesn’t do much good for the other abstract entities in the Marvel universe when it comes to spreading their will, so why is the Phoenix Force any different? The easy answer is that when the characters become a host, you get a dynamic storytelling, but that doesn’t explain why this is the case in the universe.
9 How does the Phoenix Force choose its host?
When the Phoenix Force saved Jean Gray’s life in Uncanny X-Men # 101 by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, and Frank Chiaramonte, details explaining why weren’t revealed until much later. It turns out that when the radiation from the solar flare began to destroy Jean, she called for help and the Phoenix Force responded.
However, an ancient Iron Fist named Fongji Wu turned into a Phoenix host for no other reason than a prophecy. There have been other Phoenix hosts as well, but why were they all chosen?
8 Why wouldn’t Phoenix want young Jean Gray?
At one point in the comics, teenage X-Men from the past were brought to the present, including a young Jean Gray. In his own solo comic series, Jean Grey # 11, by Dennis Hallum, Víctor Ibáñez and Alberto Jiménez Albuquerque, the young Jean was killed by the Phoenix Force, who wanted a “real Jean” as a host.
From a continuity standpoint, this doesn’t make a lot of sense, as the Phoenix Force first connected with her as a child, which means this Jean should be an acceptable host.
7 How can Jean Gray be the ultimate host after Retcon?
After the saga of “Dark Phoenix” in the series Uncanny X-Men Jean Gray had been dead for years and there was nothing that could bring her back, especially after committing a space genocide.
But wait, what if that wasn’t really Jean? The catch is that it was the Phoenix Force alone during the aforementioned saga and since Jean was innocent, Marvel was able to resurrect her. If this is the case, then how can Jean be the true host of the Phoenix Force?
6 What makes Jean Gray so special to the Phoenix Force?
At this point, you can’t separate Jean Gray’s character from the Phoenix Force any easier than you can separate Eddie Brock’s alien symbiote – even outside of the comics, they are synonymous with each other.
But what is it about Jean Gray that draws Fénix to her? It is said that the cosmic entity felt a kinship with Jean even when she was a child, but that is not a good explanation for why Phoenix keeps returning to Jean on Earth.
5 How could Jean reject the Phoenix Force when it was locked up?
After Dark Phoenix was “destroyed”, a piece of the Phoenix Force went to Jean’s body in Jamaica Bay, where it was cured in a psionic cocoon. Jean rejected Fénix and this one left by the world, apparently lost until he found the clone of Jean to inhabit it.
This is puzzling for two reasons. In the first place, why should a cosmic entity that has to do with death and rebirth not resurrect itself? And two, how is it possible that Jean rejects the Phoenix Force?
4 Why did Cyclops believe that the Phoenix Force would create more mutants?
In the first issue of Avengers vs. X-Men, it becomes clear that the Phoenix Force is coming to Earth to make Hope Summers – the first mutant born after M-Day – its new host.
Even though Phoenix only brings death and destruction to the X-Men, Cyclops believes that by being a rebirth entity, it would bring back the mutant population. In reality, there is no basis for Phoenix to do this, and in the end, he only does it with the help of the Scarlet Witch’s powers.
3 What is the essence of the Phoenix Force?
The retcon meant that Dark Phoenix was not actually Jean Gray, it was the Phoenix Force in a carbon copy of her body that ended up destroying the planet D’Bari for no real reason.
However, the purpose of the Phoenix Force is to destroy what is no longer evolving, to resurrect things so that they come back better than before. Before, it was humanity in Jean that made Phoenix dark, but now his corruption was internal and antithetical to his cosmic essence. What is your purpose now?
2 Wouldn’t it make more sense for the Phoenix Force to seek out the Iron Fist?
Besides the fact that the Phoenix Force’s obsession with Jean Gray doesn’t make much sense, if the Phoenix is going to inhabit the body of a mortal on Earth, wouldn’t it make more sense for him to seek out the Iron Fist?
The power of the Iron Fist comes from the energy of the life force and the Phoenix Force is life incarnate, so it stands to reason that both powers are linked. The reasons for Phoenix to return to Earth are varied, but the most logical is the rarest.
1 What about the gray genome?
Another reason given in the comics for Phoenix being so obsessed with Jean is that she carries a genetic trait that the Shi’ar believe turns her and her entire bloodline into free ground for the bird of fire. Known as the Gray Genome or the Gray Bloodline, the Shi’ar theorize that this is what draws Phoenix to Jean and her relatives, to the point that they attempted to slaughter their entire bloodline.
Considering that Phoenix has inhabited mortals for millennia, this is an exaggeration.
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