From: bgrubb@dante.nmsu.edu (GRUBB)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc,rec.arts.comics.xbooks
Subject: Nature of Phoenix and the Multiverse
Date: 20 Dec 92 19:13:18 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM

The concept of the Phoenix force as a unique entity in the entire Marvel 
Multiverse is totally FUBARed.  {Marvel's whole consept of a Multiverse
is FUBARed, more on that later}.
The idea that Phoenix is unique was reinforced during the Crosstime caper in 
which Rachel comments that during the entire trip they never ran into another 
Phoenix.
There are three main problems with this idea (in assending order of 
importance):
1) What if has shown at least eight Earths with Phoenix in them:
    A) Dark Phoenix goes nuts and destroys the universe. (What If Vol 1 #27)
    B) Nightcrawler gets the Phoenix force and is killed.(What If Vol 2 #?)
    C) Alantas Attacks succeeds and Rachel gets killed.(What If Vol 2 #?)
    D) Wolverine meets Conan and later Conan frees Dark Phoenix and
       she destroys the universe.(What If Vol 2 #?)
    E) Inferno is lost and Phoenix purges the demons before the Tribunial
       fries the Earth.  It then returns to the Universe.(What If Vol 2 #?)
    F) Korvac banishes Phoenix, Silver Surfer, and Dr. Strange from his 
       timeline and later on destroys that timeline.  Later on all three 
       return but only Dr. Strange remains in the timeline; Phoenix and 
       Silver Surfer go history or dimension (I don't remember which 
       exactly) hopping for a new home. (What If... Vol 1 #45?)
    G) Phoenix really becomes Jean Grey but is found out after the US 
       becomes anti-mutant and goes into seclusion while most of the 
       X-Men get killed and at the end it saves the X-Men and returns 
       to the universe (What If... Vol 2, #32-33)
    H) A vampire Jean Grey claims the Phoenix force and later 'lives'
       in the Dark Dimension. (What if Vol 2, #37 and #39).
{Most people ignore everything What if does and that is why it is ranked so 
low on the list.}
2) The Guardians of the Galaxy, a timeline which diverged between Dark Phoenix 
and Rachel Phoenix, is more of a problem then the What If worlds.  It is a 
regular book, it happens in an alternate future, and more important it has 
just resently effected a part of the mainline Marvel universe.  Its Phoenix 
cannot as easily be ignored as the What If, but since it effects were outlined 
only in Guardians of the Galaxy and not other books people can choose to 
ignore it as well.
3) The last and most important problem stems from the very idea of alternate 
timelines itself.  If timelines branch when different events happen (as Marvel 
has presented) then how can Phoenix just vanish from other worlds whose only 
difference is that a particular atom of uranium decayed rather then another 
atom.  {Not all alternate worlds have to be ratically different, some may only 
have different atomic and microscopic histories and still be identical to each 
other at the macroscopic level.}

The problem with Phoenix seems to stem from the fact that the writers at 
Marvel failed to take into consiteration what making any character unique in 
the Multiverse intailed and how the Marvel Multiverse of alternate histories 
worked.

The Marvel Multiverse:
The dimensions side of the Marvel Multiverse is in good shape few people
could confuse  the Dark Dimension, Kang's Limbo and DarkChild's Limbo with
each other or Earth.  The alternate history section is, on the other hand, a
mess. Marvel seems to be playing with the 'go back in your own past and create
a new timeline' idea {reprecented by Bishop}, the 'you can only enter into 
another Earth's past' {Represented by Rachel Summers and Guardians of the 
Galaxy}, and the 'you can't change history because you being there is part
of history' (Time loop idea) {The Thing becoming Blackbeard the pirate
is one example, the resent battle between Thor and Loki being another} all
being used without tieing them together.  Like PreCrisis DC, Marvel has made 
Time Traveling and dimension travel too easy and disjointed. There needs to 
be a standard idea of how time and dimension travel should work before 
things get more messed up. And patch fixes like the Time Variant Authority
to try to prevent the time stream from becoming Grand Central Station
are not going to solve the problem because other writers may not use them.

Comments welcome