Episode 013 - Last Stand on the Moon

==Episode Description==
In which Jean commits genocide, the Shi’ar are total dicks (again), we have feelings about X-Men #137, Claremont and Byrne do what they do best, shit gets real on the moon, Kitty joins the team, and the Dark Phoenix Saga concludes.
==X-Plained==
*Inhumans
*The Kree
*The Terrigen Mist
*Teamwork
*The Dark Phoenix
*Cameos with cosmic implications
*The Phoenix event horizon
*Establishing scale
*Psychic battles
*The winged never-nudes of the Marvel Universe
*Danger-room exposition
*The Shi’ar’s really dubious justice system
*Why X-Men #137 is the definitive issue of X-Men
*Pacing
*The power of friendship
*Quiet moments
*The blue area of the moon
*The best last stand
*Moon vandalism
*The Phoenix Retcon
==Listener Questions==
*Could Cyclops write his name on the moon?
*What is the best adaptation of the Dark Phoenix Saga in non-comic book media?
*We know that the Jean Grey that appeared from X-Men 101-137 was actually the Phoenix. People still seem to refer to this character as Jean, even though it's not her? Or did I make that up? But Kitty appears in Phoenix Endsong as one of the people who loves Jean even though not counting 101-137 Jean would mean that they'd have barely met. Is there a reason we still seem to count 101-137 as being Jean even with the Phoenix retcon?
== Transcript ==
[Editor’s Note: Rachel now goes by the name of Jay and uses male or neutral pronouns. This episode was recorded before Jay’s transition. At Jay’s request, we are using the name and pronouns they used at the time when this episode was recorded to keep the integrity of the transcript.]
Transcribed by Victor; Edited by Rebekah 
00:00 
Miles: Hey Rachel, what's the deal with Inhumans? Are they mutants, or what?
Rachel: Well, yes and no, Miles. They are essentially mutated humans, or at least descended from mutated humans, but they don't have X-genes, which is the Marvel Universe definition of mutants, and they're not mutants for intellectual property purposes either - that matters.
Miles: Okay, well, what are they, then?
Rachel: Okay, so very shortly after the evolution of Homo sapiens, the Kree empire set up a base on Uranus and started abducting early humans and experimenting on them. 
Miles: Wait, the Kree...
Rachel: Yeah, you know, big, big space empire, uh, they mostly fight the Skrulls a lot, they occasionally invade Earth. The first Captain Marvel was Kree.
Miles: Uh, Carol Danvers?, or Monica Rambeau...
Rachel: Oh, no, no, no, this was Mar-Vel, the alien guy Danvers got her powers from. I mean, except for the Binary powers, those came from the Brood.
Miles: Okay, so, the Inhumans..
Rachel: [crosstalk] Right, right. The Inhumans. Anyway, they're all descended from those early humans who were first mutated by the Terrigen Mists by way of a millenial-long selective breeding program. And they've got this really strict caste system, um, but their royal families ..
Miles: [crosstalk] Oh, wait, wait, wait. Terrigen Mists?
Rachel: Oh, so, those are these mutagenic mists that come from crystals, and with limited exposure, they'll cause normal humans to mutate and develop superpowers. And they can also give depowered mutants modified versions of their preexisting powers, but there's usually some kind of monkey's paw tradeoffs.
Miles: [uncertainly] O-kayyy...
Rachel: See, the problem is, it's really hard to control the mists' effects, and there's a lot of collateral damage. That's why the Inhumans are so obsessive about selective breeding. The genetic lines are super closely controlled and it's a huge taboo for them to breed with non-Inhumans, although Quicksilver seems to have pretty much gotten a pass for that because he was married briefly to a member of the Inhuman royal family.
Miles: But Quicksilver is.. not an Inhuman, right?
Rachel: Uhhh, not in the comics, but I'm guessing that he and Scarlet Witch are going to be either Inhumans or mist-mutated humans in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, since Fox currently controls the rights to everything mutant-related, like, they can't even say it.
Miles: A-and they live on the moon, right?  Uh, the Inhumans, I mean, not Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.
Rachel: Well, they used to, but then they turned their capital city into a giant spacecraft powered by Black Bolt's voice and flew off to take over the Kree Empire.
Miles: WHAT?!
[Intro: Excerpt of X-Men: The Animated Series theme song]
(01:57) 
Rachel: I'm Rachel Edidin.
Miles: I'm Miles Stokes.
Rachel: And we're here to X-Plain the X-Men.
Miles: Because it's about time someone did.
Rachel: Welcome to the 13th episode of "Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men," where we walk you through the ins, outs, and retcons of our favorite superhero soap opera.
Miles: This week... oh, man, this is the big one.
Rachel: This is the conclusion to the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Miles: Wow, uh, now, if, um, if you haven't listened to our last episode, it'll- this episode's gonna make a lot more sense in the context of that. And, like I said last episode, if you wanna just pause this right now, go read the Dark Phoenix Saga yourself, and then come back, [emphatically] it is worth it.
Rachel: So worth it, I mean, this is, I would say, X-Men #137 is the single definitive issue of X-Men.. any era.. any team. 
Miles: You know, I-I kind of have to agree, like, the Dark Phoenix Saga, a lot of people consider it to be the best X-Men story, and... it's really hard to argue with that opinion, at least- eh, I think it's at least in the top three for almost any X-Men fan, unless you really, really hate the space stuff.
Rachel: And that issue in particular is... it just nails so many points. We're gonna get to that in a minute, first, a quick recap.
(02:56) 
Rachel: So, Phoenix Force shows up in X-Men #101, bringing Jean back from the brink of death, the bottom of Jamaica Bay, where she's just crash-landed a space shuttle.
Miles: And, a little while later, we see Jason Wyngarde, who's really a villain called Mastermind, starting to give her these visions of herself as a 1700s woman, uh, who's mar- in love with and married to him. 
Rachel: Doing things like hunting humans for sport, going on trans-Atlantic voyages and becoming Black Queen of something called the Hellfire Club, which we meet later on. Meanwhile, in the present, Jean's powers, and the Phoenix's powers are amping up, up, up, culminating in her rewriting reality within the M'Kraan crystal, which is part of the Shi'ar empire, in a big space battle.
Miles: So Jason Wyngarde's manipulation of her is making the Phoenix Force within her a little bit darker, a little bit darker. This is all part of a plot by the Hellfire Club to essentially bring Jean Grey, the Phoenix, under their control.
Rachel: They capture the X-Men, including Jean, she becomes the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club briefly, but after Mastermind kills Cyclops in a psychic duel, or at least apparently kills him, she breaks free of his control, takes down the Hellfire Club, and then manifests as something called the Dark Phoenix, which is basically like the Phoenix, but wearing red instead of green, looking a lot more organic, with distorted foreshortening and some really, really scary overtones. And that's where we left off. That's where we're gonna come in now with X-Men #135.
(04:05) 
Miles: Let's talk about who's on the team. So, we have largely the same team of X-Men we've had for quite a while since the relaunch, uh, so we have Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Wolverine, and Phoenix. 
Rachel: We've also got Beast back now. He ditched the Avengers while the X-Men were at the Hellfire Club to go help them out.
Miles: Yeah, he's not with the team as these issues that we're gonna be discussing now start, but he'll be showing up very shortly.
Rachel: So Jean became the Dark Phoenix, and 135 begins with her just taking out the X-Men.
Miles: Right, she's doing all sorts of bizarre things to them, just these insanely powerful things. She, uh, turns this big tree into s- like, throws it at Colossus, and then, deactivates his powers and turns it into solid gold and has it crush him and Wolverine...
Rachel: Yeah, she's basically rewriting reality and she-she handily takes out the rest of the X-Men and just shoots off to space.
Miles: Before she does, like, they start to realize, obviously something has gone TERRIBLY wrong with Jean, with Phoenix.
Rachel: This is no longer Jean, in any recognizable way aside from visually.
Miles: Right, and, uh, Storm sees the difference immediately, you know, color scheme change aside. Talking about how the old Phoenix was all about joy and love, and this new form is all about pain, great sadness, and an awful, all-consuming lust.
Rachel: This is Jean who goes off to space because she wants... more.. She is hungry for something, she doesn't know what yet. 
(05:17)
Rachel: Meanwhile, things ramp up at the Hellfire Club. We discover that Shaw's behind the Sentinel program, and... Claremont takes a few minutes to root what's happening in the larger Marvel Universe. This is something that he's done before, and that he's gonna keep doing. The way you can tell that an event in X-Men is supposed to have cosmic implications, that it's supposed to be a big deal, is that he'll cut to, you know, the Fantastic Four talking about it, and the president talking about it, and the Avengers talking about it, and Doctor Peter Corbeau, Super Astronaut Ocean-Swimmer talking about it.
Miles: Yeah, and so, as we see Jean fly into space, as the rest of the X-Men try to recover, helped by Beast, who has just showed up, we do in fact see the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Doctor Strange, Doctor Corbeau, and the Silver Surfer, who I believe at this point in Marvel Comics is very, very new.
Rachel: Yeah, there's, there's a great little cross-promotion editorial note to go with that. Um-
Miles: [crosstalk] Uh, also some great dialogue. "But even as the sky rider of the space ways speeds round the globe. Even as others become aware of her existence, the Dark Phoenix bids farewell to her homeworld and soars spaceward to fulfill her malefic destiny.
Rachel: Ugh, God, I love it.
Miles: I want Claremont to write every commercial ever from now on.
Rachel: I want Claremont to narrate our lives. He'd just yell at us all the time, it would be terrible.
Miles: [chuckles] That's true, but it would be really dramatic.
Rachel: [crosstalk] It'd be like, [dramatically] "Can you hit this ra- deadline, Rachel? Can you?!" [echoes] [small voice] "Nooo..."
Miles: [dramatically] Caaan you?
Rachel: [small voice] No....
Miles: [dramatically] Caaan you?
Rachel: [small voice] I'm gonna have to ask for an extension.
Miles: Oh. That's much less dramatic.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah.
(06:33)
Miles: So, yeah, Phoenix is, is flying away, I mean, and, and she, uh, w-we get a little bit of uh, narration from her as she's talking to the X-Men before she leaves, that what she's essentially trying to do is sever all ties, all of Jean Grey's human ties, to just become this cosmic creature.
Rachel: And then she eats a fucking star!
Miles: Okay, so I really wanna focus on this, because I think a lot of people, when they think of the Dark Phoenix saga, they forget this part, and I- I think this is CENTRAL to the way things go down. 
Rachel: This is the Dark Phoenix moral event horizon, right here. This moment. This is not only why Phoenix has to die, this is why the Phoenix retcon happens. This is the setup not only for the end of this story arc, but for... the nature of the Phoenix and its relationship to the Marvel Universe for the next 40 years.
Miles: I'm actually just gonna read the narration here, because I think it's some really, you know, some very wordy, very over-the-top, but really GOOD Claremont narration. "Orbiting the stars, a system of eleven planets. The fourth is inhabited. By an ancient peace-loving civilization. On the planetary dayside, they see the light first. The awful light of Armageddon. Filling the sky from horizon to horizon, ten minutes after leaving the murdered star. Many who see this light, the last thing they will ever see, are confused, frightened. A very few, who realize at once what has happened, have time to curse cruel fate or make their peace with their god. Then, they all die.” And then we get to see the consequences of this, and I think this more than anything else that we've seen so far since maybe the M'Kraan crystal, like 30 issues ago, gives context to just how powerful the Phoenix is.
Rachel: Yeah, there is nothing ambiguous about this. This is the Dark Phoenix committing genocide. 
Miles: And we actually...
Rachel: [crosstalk] There's no question.
Miles: We see panels of these aliens and we hear more about them. “Following the light at a comparative snail's pace comes the heat flare. The instant it hits, the atmosphere and oceans on the day side boil away. The steam and super-heated air whirling around the globe in a flaming shock wave that obliterates all in its path. Those few awake on the night side are treated to a spectacular once-in-a-lifetime aurora borealis before death claims them. But half the world dies in its sleep. They are the lucky ones. And in the center of the supernova she created, Dark Phoenix thrills to the absolute power that is hers. She is in ecstasy. Yet she knows that this is only the beginning. That what she feels now is nothing compared to what she experienced within the great M'Kraan crystal. She craves that ultimate sensation, and she will pay any price to achieve it once more.”
(08:49)
Rachel: For scale, let's look at what the biggest cosmic threat in the Marvel Universe is at this point.
Miles: Uh, that would be... what do you think, Galactus?
Rachel: Sure. Let's go with Galactus. Galactus eats planets. 
Miles: And Jean, as the Dark Phoenix, just, with a moment's thought, a moment's effort, takes out an entire solar system including five billion lives.
Rachel: She consumes a star. The Phoenix is effectively omnipotent. It's a fundamentally primal force.
Miles: I- I don't think we've ever seen a threat this big in X-Men, ever, since the book started back in the '60s.
Rachel: The other thing that the Phoenix Force does at this point is take out a Shi'ar vessel that happens to be in the neighborhood.
Miles: Yeah, now the Shi'ar, you may remember, from previous episodes or previous issues, as space bird-jerks who are essentially the Roman Empire, in space, but bird-jerks. And their Empress, uh, Lilandra, is the lover of Charles Xavier.
Rachel: He spent a long time traveling around with her and then came back to Earth and tried to give Wolverine demerits.
Miles: Eh- there was some other stuff, but the- giving Wolverine demerits was the most important part, I think we'll all agree.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah, that covers it.
Miles: The Shi'ar kinda see what's going on, they're like "holy crap, we were worried this might happen, she's the worst threat of all time".
Rachel: And I wanna talk, for a minute, about what utter ASSHOLES the Shi'ar are. They saw this coming! This is what we were worried would happen, [scoffs] and they did not fucking bother to mention this to the X-Men, like- Xavier was running around in space with Lilandra for months and she was never like, "Oh yeah, we totally know what the thing is that possessed your friend and, it might take over her mind, so you might wanna like, do some things to address that early on". Like, we talked earlier about the Dark Phoenix Saga as basically a Greek tragedy, that it is.. an escalation, an inexorable escalation towards an inevitable and tragic climax. One of the great tragedies of it is that so much of what we learn, in you know, 135, 136, we see in retrospect points where it should have been, at least potentially avoidable, and it's not. And a LOT of those revolve around the Shi'ar just being complete dicks.
Miles: To be fair, Mastermind probably is more responsible than anyone else for this- things happening as they did.
Rachel: Yeah, but you know, you feel like if the Shi'ar had actually given them that information, they've got a level of technology, they've got telepaths, you know, there's Xavier, like- if they'd sat down, and you know, told Jean what was going on, even. Or told anyone what was going on. They could have taken steps to mitigate it, and they just didn't.
Miles: And I think this is, uh, where we see just the nature of linear comics storytelling, because- later on we see, like, WAY later on, decades later, that the Shi'ar even had this ancient order of warriors dedicated to containing and battling the Phoenix, and really, the first time we meet the Shi'ar, they don't even have the level of knowledge they talk about here. It's not mentioned at any point. This seems to be something that was tacked on later to work with this story. That-that-the, you know, the Phoenix and the Shi'ar are tied historically more and more and more as more comics are written about them, fleshing that out.
Rachel: Well, this is like with Professor Xavier, where you have retcon after retcon and with the addition of every retcon, it just makes them worse in retrospect.
Miles: I think that's kind of it, yeah, exactly.
Rachel: But to be fair, the Shi'ar were terrible from the start.
Miles: They were space-jerks. Space-birds. Space-bird-jerks.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Space- Space- yeah, space bird-jerks.
Miles: [chuckles]
(11:47) 
Miles: Uh, so while this is all going on, we're cutting back and forth between, you know, deep space and the Shi'ar empire, and Earth, as the X-Men are, like, recovering from getting trounced by a woman that they all love, y-platonically in most cases, romantically with Cyclops.
Rachel: So, Jean heads back to Earth.
Miles: Right, and while this is going on, Beast is with the X-Men at this point, he's like, well, I'm an Avenger, but my friends need me, this is where I belong, and he's been building, this, uh, sort of power-dampening psychic scrambler headband.. thing.. because he knows they're gonna fight her again, and he knows that they have NO hope of beating her AT ALL, at her current power level.
Rachel: Yeah, this is, this is a Hail Mary pass, and it's probably not going to work. But Jean doesn't head back to the X-Men, she heads back to her parents' house.
Miles: Her poor, poor parents.
Rachel: Oh, man, they have had such a rough time. Like, the last time they hung out with her, Firelord attacked. And- and then their kid got teleported into space. Like, it is, [laughs] it really really sucks to be the Greys.
Miles: Do you remember that time when I first met your parents, uh, my, my current in-laws, and Moses Magnum showed up, and, and held their house for ransom?
Rachel: ...[flatly] No... On the other hand, it, it also kind of drives home that they're really patient parents.
Miles: Well, I mean... 
Rachel: [crosstalk] I mean.... [sighs]
Miles: We may not understand your decisions to become a star-devouring galactic entity, but we do respect them, and we do love you.
Rachel: Except they don't, because they actually kick her out when she shows up as Dark Phoenix.
Miles: Yeah, one, once she starts...
Rachel: [crosstalk] Which, to be fair, is, kind of a reasonable decision on their part.
Miles: It's kind of a weird scene. Um..
Rachel: [crosstalk] It's tough love.
Miles: Jean's father, he, he sou- almost sounds like an exorcist when he does this, "I deny you, I cast you out."
Rachel: And she goes and rampages off. The- the X-men come and find her, and they fight her. And she is just.. demolishing them. They've got the headband that- that messes with her powers. It's enough to give Jean brief control again. She begs Wolverine to kill her. He doesn't. She burns out the headband, it looks like she's gonna take them out, and then Cyclops.. starts talking to her, and he- effectively talks her down, except...
Miles: Except when she's distracted by him saying, hey, I know why you aren't killing us, I know why you can't kill us, it's because Jean is still in there.. Jean who we still love, who still loves us. And then Xavier hits her with a mind bolt.
Rachel: Because Professor Xavier is why we can't have nice things.
Miles: You know, I can't say I disagree with that decision. [sighs]
Rachel: [sighs]
Miles: We've, we've seen what Dark Phoenix is capable of, now the X-Men don't know about the D'Bari star system, that's the one she annihilates, takes out-
Rachel: [crosstalk] But neither does Professor X!
Miles: -but, that being said, I mean, they do see just how ridiculously dangerous she is. 
Rachel: At the same time, though, I think, I don't think this is Professor X doing what needs to be done, I think this is again, an extension of what we saw in the first half of the Dark Phoenix saga, it's X having come back.. and not really trusting the team and especially not really trusting Cyclops to.. make.. strategic calls.
Miles: That's a valid point, I think. But what we end up with is, Jean, at that point, attacking the team again, and having this big psychic battle with Xavier. Now, we've seen psychic battles before, but this one is different.
(14:27)
Rachel: Yeah, I wanna talk about this, because normally, portraying telepathy visually, in a visual medium like comics, is an ongoing challenge. And you see artists and writers address that in, in different ways, and one of the most common, especially with-with standoffs, is something like what's done in, again, the first half of the Dark Phoenix Saga, where you have psychic battles that are literally just shown as physical duels, that, that take place outside of reality.
Miles: [crosstalk] Yeah, that sort of... it's sort of a visual metaphor, but a very clear, concrete one.
Rachel: Uh, so you see that a lot, you see a lot of, y’know, the Dark City standoff, two, two characters staring at each other with rays coming out of their foreheads. And then you get this, and this is.. one of the most effective single pages. And Byrne just nails it. And, it's a really different approach, and it's visually much simpler. And it's much tenser.
Miles: Yeah, and I think a lot of that is Claremont. Now, his narration can be described as over-the-top, but sometimes that fits, and throughout this entire storyline, Claremont's narration is perfect. The events that are happening really do deserve that many adjectives.
Rachel: Well, it goes back and forth. 136 in particular, he kind of slips into the Stan Lee thing of, of, the X-Men in the Danger Room describing in intricate detail what they're doing and giving the backstory on it. And all I can think is that they all must talk just, super, super fast because I mean, these lines, based on what's happening, yeah, it can't be taking more than a fraction of a second to say.
Miles: Maybe it's like, uh, maybe it's like a Bollywood musical, they're singing the whole thing.
Rachel: And also, actually, this, this scene doesn't have a lot of text.
Miles: The psychic battle one?
Rachel: Yeah.
Miles: Yeah, it's just a lot of these sort of, uh, abstract, uh, sort of, flame images. These psychic... eh... rages.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah, the, the Phoenix fire, um. Byrne does epic, and he does high-stakes epic, and he does visual tenseness.
Miles: I've, I've often said that, in, in my head, John Byrne's X-Men are the ones I see by default. And it's arcs like this that make me really understand why that, why that is my default.
Rachel: So Jean comes back at this point. X-Xavier wins, he manages to basically pull Jean back into control, pull what appears to be Jean, this is, this is again, before the Phoenix retcon. We're not gonna talk about that right now, we-we mentioned this last episode. This is later going to be retconned such that the Phoenix at this point ISN'T exactly Jean...
Miles: But it's really best right now for the purposes of, I think, appreciating the story as itself.. to just sort of ignore that part, and just to see, all right, this is Jean, she's merged with the Phoenix Force, that's all we need to know.
Rachel: So we're looking at the story, in its own narrative context at the time. We're just looking at the Dark Phoenix Saga as it first came out in the early 1980s, with the context that it had then.
Miles: [crosstalk] So...
Rachel: So Jean comes back, there's a psychic marriage proposal that looks like things are maybe gonna be okay and then.. [dramatically] oh.. teleported into space.
Miles: Yeah, uh, Angel also shows up right at the last minute here, like, he's essentially [frantically] "hey guys, what's up? Oh crap, we're being teleported. I'm an X-Man, this sort of thing happens all the time!"
Rachel: Is he still wearing his tiny shorts?
Miles: He might be wearing them under his uniform, but we see him in his uniform.
Rachel: I'd like to think that he's always wearing those tiny shorts.
Miles: Are we saying that Angel is also a never-nude like Sauron?
Rachel: Maybe it's a wing thing?
Miles: I think we've stumbled upon something. I think I see a doctoral thesis here. One of Tony Stark's degrees is on the never-nudes of the Marvel Universe.
Rachel: [stifling a laugh] The wing-ed never-nudes of the Marvel Universe?
Miles: [fancy accent] The wing-ed never-nudes of the Marvel Universe, by Anthony Stark. [normally] Okay, so never-nudes sort of aside, let's talk about that psychic marriage proposal a little bit, because, as Jean's getting back into control, Cyclops is thought-bubbling away, as comic characters do. You know, starts doing the "in sickness and in health" thing, talking about how much he loves her. And she says, "is- is that a proposal?" and he says, "well, whadd'ya say?" And it's actually a really wonderful, triumphant scene, like, all this horrible shit's going down. And not only is it gonna be okay, but these characters we're so invested in are gonna spend their lives together...
Rachel: And it is so, so not going to be okay.
Miles: Yeah, and I think...
Rachel: [crosstalk] Which brings us to X-Men #137.
(17:55)
Miles: If you've seen the logo we use for our podcast, um, the one of, of Rachel and I kind of as Cyclops and Jean, like, y'know, shooting our powers out in this big blasted landscape.
Rachel: Ours is by Ming Doyle, but it's a riff on the cover to X-Men #137, which is one of the really iconic X-Men covers.
Miles: This is just a stellar piece of... comics writing and art. Everything about this just makes me happy.
Rachel: The story is amazing, but the storytelling in this issue, I think, is worth spending some time on. So Claremont is a very wordy writer of, yeah, a friend described this on-on Twitter last night as, as it's, like, he writes the novelization and then he puts all the text into the comic, with the simultaneous storytelling and the art. And.. 137 is wordy, but it's wordy in a really effective ways because something that Claremont nails when he's on, and when he and the artist are really in sync, which he and Byrne REALLY are this issue, is... conveying scope.
Miles: And, uh, also, this is a double-sized issue, so, Claremont and Byrne really have the space to not only tell a story with a lot of content, but to also give that story room to breathe when it needs to. And to, to emphasize that sense of scale. So for instance, on the first page we see Uatu, the Watcher, bald, pantsless aficionado of the Marvel Universe.
Rachel: And we talked earlier about bringing in other characters to set up scope. [emphatically] This is the trump card of the characters you bring in.
Miles: [crosstalk] Right. I mean, the Watcher is the dude whose job it is to watch the most significant things that happen in existence.
Rachel: When he shows up to do the introduction, it's a big. Deal.
Miles: And I actually want to go ahead and read this introduction, because we talked about... the Dark Phoenix saga as a Greek tragedy, and to me this feels like, uh, like the chorus at the beginning of a Greek play, sort of setting the scene. Then, at the end, of course, coming back to kind of close out, which the Watcher also does. [as the Watcher] "I am.. the Watcher. Since time immemorial, I and others of my race have beheld the myriad wonders of the universe. Our charge, our most sacred trust, is that we ever observe but never interfere. Years ago, I beheld the birth of Jean Grey. I watched her grow from child to woman. Watched her take her destined place as one of the X-Men. I saw her die. And I saw her reborn as Phoenix. Though she did not know it then, Jean had become one with the primal force second only to that of the Creator. It was more power than she or any human could ever hope to control. In time, it twisted and warped her soul until Phoenix was transfigured into Dark Phoenix. The X-Men fought to save their friend, to return Jean Grey to her humanity. And after an epic struggle, they succeeded. But then at the very moment of their triumph, the X-Men vanished from the face of the Earth. This drama's final act is about to begin. Before it is ended, these young mutants will be put to the ultimate test. If they are found wanting, the entire universe may well pay the price." [enthusiastically] So dramatic, I love it!
Rachel: It's appropriately dramatic. You see a lot of lead-up, you see a lot of build-up, and you see a lot of, sort of, the [dramatically] "this is gonna be a dramatic moment, everything will change!" And, they're not messing you-with you this time. Everything is going to change. It is that. Damn. Dramatic.
Miles: Yeah, and, and there's just so much that goes on, like, I think X-Men #137, so, it's the final issue of the Dark Phoenix Saga, yes, it's a double-sized issue, but it is just one issue. And I think if this were the modern world of comics, this much stuff would've taken, like, an entire miniseries, or an entire summer event, or an entire crossover or whatever. 
Rachel: Oh, it would-it would've been an event, yeah. A miniseries. At least.
Miles: [crosstalk] Yeah. A- and that- that's, again, not the whole Dark Phoenix saga, just this single issue.
(21:08) 
Miles: So, yeah, it starts out, and the X-Men are, um, they've just been teleported away from their purging Dark Phoenix from control of, of Jean Grey. And all of a sudden they're teleported into space!
Rachel: Onto a Shi'ar ship. And, Lilandra says, [condescendingly] "So, about that sentient race you just wiped out, Jean, this is a problem, we're gonna have to kill you now."
Miles: The X-Men are like, wait, wait, wait, sentient race, wiped out? Huh? Because they don't know this. 
Rachel: [crosstalk] This is like... yeah... sorry 'bout, yeah, yeah, it happens.
Miles: [crosstalk] Th- they've been able to exchange maybe, like, two or three sentences with Jean after the Dark Phoenix was, uh, sort of submerged, before they're teleported into space, so this is news to all of the X-Men. 
Rachel: And most of that was just make-outs. [long sigh]
Miles: There's a brief exchange, the X-Men are like, "No way, no way!" and Lilandra explains a bit more, and, uh, Araki, the chancellor, is sort of a space-bird-jerk, like, 'cause that's his job to..
Rachel: [crosstalk] He's a super space-bird-jerk.
Miles: Uh, one of the things I like about the way the Shi'ar are structured is that Lilandra, you have her as, this very sympathetic character, who's the head of this very unsympathetic empire. And so I like that you always have Araki the Chancellor and some of the other Shi'ar, to essentially be big jerks to make her look good by comparison, like, y'know, she, she does what has to be done, but she doesn't like it.
Rachel: She doesn't actually look that good by comparison here. She's like, yeah, I regret it, but we're still, we're gonna have to execute her. [condescendingly] "I am your space girlfriend. I like you, Professor X, but I'm gonna have to kill one of your students, it's not really a negotiable thing," like, she feels bad because it's gonna fuck up their relationship.
Miles: I get the impression that she does have a lot of genuine compassion for Jean and the X-Men.
Rachel: Pssh. Bird-jerks.
Miles: So, uh, as this is about to happen, the X-Men are trying to figure out what to do, like, shit, are we just gonna attack the heart of the Shi'ar empire right here, 'cause that's not gonna go well. And so Xavier, um, thinking back to all the Shi'ar politics stuff he absorbed while he was in space with Lilandra, says, calls out for a [dramatically] "Rin-in hey-lar," which is a duel of honor.
Rachel: This is basically trial by combat. Jean and a team of her chosen champions can fight the Shi'ar Imperial Guard for her life.
Miles: Now we've talked about the Imperial Guard before. They're homages to, slash rip-offs of, uh, the Legion of Superheroes from DC Comics. But they're the, uh, sort of space-superhero team that are the enforcers, like the, the sort of head of the police of the Shi'ar empire. They're all from different alien races, they all have different superpowers, and they are RIDICULOUSLY tough.
Rachel: Something else we find out at this point, because Lilandra has to go and talk with some other folks about whether this is gonna be approved, is that this isn't just a solo Shi'ar action. This is the Shi'ar in collaboration with the Kree and the Skrull. That's how big a deal this is.
Miles: Yeah, these are like, the three big galactic powers, or inter-galactic, I guess, in the Marvel Universe, and they're all like, hey, what do we do about this.. one.. person. Because goddamn, we are all really worried by her.
Rachel: And for scale, I mean, what Xavier does is a pretty ballsy move, but it's also the only thing he really can do, because if they just straight-up resist, they can't stand up against the Shi'ar. The X-Men can't, and frankly at this point, Earth can't.
Miles: Now, later on, uh, like, in-in the modern Marvel Universe, we see Earth at the center of cosmic wars. At this point, they're not nearly as powerful. You have a few super-teams, you have a semi-effectual-but-not-really military in various countries. And the Shi'ar Empire, I mean, they've been around for longer than human civilization ruling just, this, gigantic, the- HUGE tracts of space.
Rachel: Wowww, you went there.
Miles: I totally did. I mean, the X-Men are like, holy shit, is this really gonna work, I mean, we've- we've fought the Imperial Guard before, but- eurghh, that's been tough.
Rachel: But they don't really have a choice. They're gonna fight on the moon. 
(24:26)
Rachel: And it goes, then, to the night before the fight. And this is a series of just, very quiet character-focused moments. In a lot of ways this issue is the culmination of Claremont's run so far. This is what everything is buil-building up to. This is what these characters, who we've seen gradually established, and building up and building a dynamic and building camaraderie, have been working up to. This is where all of the momentum that we've seen rise.. hits peak.
Miles: Yeah, and so, really getting this, getting this space with each of the characters, and that's one of the great things about this being a double-sized issue, it lets us sort of see- who they are... where they've come from and what they're fighting for. So we see, for instance, Nightcrawler, who's really conflicted, because he.. grew up in Germany, and.. he... hears that Jean's committed genocide, and well, if you grow up in Germany, you know about genocide. And he's wondering if he can forgive her, he's this incredibly compassionate character, but he's wondering if he has it in his heart to be able to forgive this crime.
Rachel: And, you know, Wolverine's.. having trouble.. There's Jean, and there's the Phoenix, and he's having a lot of trouble.. reconciling those, but ultimately decides, you know, Jean's part of it, he's gonna stand by her.
Miles: Then you have Beast, who hasn't been in the X-Men very much, but still gets half a page here. And he's-he's really all about the law, he's like, this is barbaric, this is ridiculous. We need to look at this logically. And then, yeah, we also have Colossus. 
Rachel: And Colossus is, ultimately, he's the one of the X-Men who has killed as a member of the X-Men, I guess other than Wolverine wiping out the Hellfire Club-
Miles: [crosstalk] Right.
Rachel: -but who's specifically saying, you know, love is what matters, we're gonna stand by our comrade.
Miles: And Storm is kind of in the same place, as much as the Dark Phoenix is anathema to everything she represents, like, this harmonic view of nature and the world, she loves Jean as a friend, and she's gonna do everything she can to fight for her.
Rachel: And Scott and Jean just make me all teary.
Miles: Oh, God, they have this moment, so, Jean, um, she, y-y-we get a brief, uh, scene of her, ah, talking to somebody about getting some new clothes. 'Cause I think at this point, like, her-her costume's been destroyed when she was taken out as Dark Phoenix. She shows up to talk to Scott, who's been up all night, wondering if Lilandra might be right, if this might be necessary.
Rachel: And also ultimately that he doesn't care.
Miles: And she shows up in her old green and yellow Marvel Girl costume.
Rachel: And there's just sort of an amazing last stand against impossible odds moment that they have. And- and that's sort of what's on the cover. That, for me is the heart of this issue.
Miles: What matters to the X-Men, what matters is that they're a family, they're friends, they're lovers, and, no matter what, no matter what the consequences are, they're not gonna forget that, because they can't, 'cause that's not who they are.
Rachel: This isn't about saving the universe, this isn't about justice, this isn't about consequences. This is about the fact that they're gonna stick together no matter what. We talk about this, the Dark Phoenix Saga, as the iconic X-Men storyline. And this is not an X-Men and the mutants metaphor storyline. This isn't really about the mutant thing at all. This is about the characters and their relationships as a team. And.. them coming together in the face of legitimately impossible and insurmountable odds, because if they win this fight, they've still got the Phoenix Force and the Dark Phoenix to deal with. There is NO real victory to be had here.
Miles: This is what superhero stories can be. Dealing with these levels of power, and emotion, and intensity, and consequence.
Rachel: Well, and it's just a really good... story.
Miles: Absolutely.
(27:28)
Miles: So, the day dawns, and, it's the X-Men, they're- they're taken to the Blue Area of the Moon, if you haven't been there, I recommend visiting, it's very nice. Which has a sort of atmosphere mini-bubble that Angel almost immediately almost flies out of and suffocates.
Rachel: Yeah, Angel's kind of adorably dumb in this issue.
Miles: He doesn't get his own, like, preparing for the battle scene, does he?
Rachel: I don't think he does.
Miles: [crosstalk] Huh. 
Rachel: I don't think he really does.
Miles: I guess he hasn't really been in Claremont's X-Men much, so, I-I guess I understand that.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah, he's just kind of around, and.. they have a moment to catch their breath, and then the Imperial Guard attacks. And, the battle goes back and forth, but effectively the Imperial Guard take out the X-Men, one at a time.
Miles: Yeah. Now, I don't wanna downplay how awesome this battle is, 'cause this is one of the greatest freaking fight scenes in X-Men history. Just goes on and on of them fighting back and forth in various combinations across the Blue Area of the Moon, against the very [inhales] colorful, interesting Imperial Guard members, who have a bunch of new members. It's really cool, but-
Rachel: Wolverine randomly ends up falling into the Watcher's house.
Miles: It's like Wolverine and the Watcher's giant face.
Rachel: And the word 'epic' gets thrown around a lot these days, it's- as an adjective, just to mean really cool, or really badass. This is epic in the traditional sense. This is the sort of thing... there would be legitimate goddamn sagas about. They- if Thor were in this, he would be talking about how the bards would someday sing of it, and he would be right.
Miles: But yeah, the battle ultimately.. we are down to only Scott and Jean, who are still standing. Like, everybody else has been taken out and captured by the Imperial Guard.
Rachel: Making their last stand, and I- I want to read this page. This is one of those moments where the narration and the art just click. "As they make their last stand, they find themselves remembering the day they first met. So long ago, so far away. They remember all that's happened since, good times and bad, and dream of what might have been. Once upon a time there was a woman named Jean Grey, a man named Scott Summers. They were young. They were in love. They were heroes. Today they will prove it beyond all shadow of a doubt."
Miles: And goddamn if I do not get chills every time I read that page.
Rachel: It's that moment of.. swelling optimism.. made that much more significant by knowing what has to come after it. So they take out the rest of the Imperial Guard, they do it. Just as they do, Jean starts to manifest the Phoenix Force again.
Miles: And specifically, Dark Phoenix, not just the Phoenix Force itself. [exhales] She realizes pretty soon, like, she's going back and forth between moments of being Dark Phoenix and moments of lucidity. And she tells Scott, she tells Cyclops, that, maybe she can submerge this for now, maybe she could triumph over it, but it's gonna come back, she knows there's no way she can keep this force under control forever.
Rachel: And he just says no. She tries to get the X-Men to kill her, and Professor X tries to get the X-Men to kill her. And... you know, some of them.. pull their punches because they can't bring themselves to do it. Some of them just straight up refuse. They're in ruins with ancient Kree weaponry. We find out that she's gradually led the battle there because she's found.. this old decommissioned weapon that's powerful enough to take out the Phoenix, and she sets it up, and she kills herself.
Miles: And Scott realizes right after that happens, you know, after she's just annihilated in this burst of light, that was in fact her plan, she was getting the X-Men to weaken her because she knew that if they won, if Lilandra was not able to execute her, then she would still be a danger forever. As soon as she's lucid after, I think, Colossus punches her at one point, she starts talking about that, and that's... the end of Jean Grey.
Miles: For now, admittedly. 
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah.
Miles: But in the context of this story, that is the end of Jean Grey, Phoenix, Dark Phoenix.
Rachel: I cannot emphasize how good this issue is. I feel like I can't even objectively say that it's perfect because... the parts of it that are good are SO good that I genuinely don't care if anything else isn't. It's... Claremont and Byrne as a storytelling partnership at the- absolute top of their game. And it's comics doing what comics should do, which is... a fantastic synthesis... of language, of-of-of visual and verbal language, you know, each supporting each other, telling a story that you really couldn't do... just in writing or just in art. You know, I was going through this last night, I- I read through it like three times last night, and I was thinking, y-kn-I- I usually go through and try to take a look at the panels that I wanna clip and stick in the as-mentioned post on our blog. And I wish we could just post this whole issue. Because... it's so cohesive, and it's paced so beautifully long-form, you know, it's got the quiet moments in the middle. [emphatically] Find this. Read it.
(31:38) 
Miles: I do wanna pull one more thing out of the issue while we're still talking about it, which is, I mentioned that the Watcher opens this with this sort of Greek chorus speech.
Rachel: He also closes it.
Miles: He does, so, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, this is very long. But the last part. "Yet when faced with a choice between keeping her godlike power, knowing she would then wreak death and destruction across the stars, and dying herself, she chose the latter. That is what makes humanity virtually unique in the cosmos, my friend. This extraordinary capacity for self-sacrifice. This ability to triumph over seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and the cause be just, knowing all the while that to do so means certain death. The X-Men do not realize it. They may never realize or accept it. But this day they have won perhaps the greatest victory of their young lives. Jean Grey could've lived to become a god. But it was more important to her that she die.. a human.
Rachel: That's gonna become so... ironic in about ten years.
Miles: [laughs] It's true, 'cause, you can't really stay dead in X-Men, especially if your name is Phoenix.
Rachel: But, see, here's the thing that I really appreciate about the way this issue and this story has been retconned. It's- when it's been retconned, it's been retconned in ways that don't strip the significance away from that act.
(32:40)
Miles: Absolutely. Now what's really interesting, is this wasn't the original planned ending of the Dark Phoenix Saga. In fact, it was originally completely different. I'd love to talk a little bit about that. If you're interested, you can track down this issue, it's called Phoenix: The Untold Story. In the original issue, the, X-Men, uh, actually, are, they're - they're beaten by the Imperial Guard. But it turns out Lilandra doesn't actually wanna execute Jean, she just wants to remove her telepathic powers, to, uh, sort of sever her connection to the Phoenix. And that's what happens, the X-Men reluctantly accept it. Uh, Wolverine refuses, Cyclops says no, it's necessary. And the idea is that Jean is completely depowered at the end of this, and this - this was actually the way the issue was written before Jim Shooter, who was the editor-in-chief at the time of Marvel, said no.. After what Jean did, after wiping out that entire solar system, this can't happen, this doesn't fit, stakes-wise.
Rachel: And this is- I wanna talk about the whole arc a little bit in that context, too, because this was unprecedented. Something Claremont mentions in Chris Claremont's X-Men documentary is that they'd had villains become heroes before, they'd had villains become morally grey. This is the first time we'd seen a central hero full-out become a villain.
Miles: And I think the other issue they were having, the- the reason that the Dark Phoenix saga happened to begin with, be- was because Phoenix was just too powerful for the book, they needed to do something. And, all they could really think of to do was to depower the character, and then, in this case, kill the character. And they had other ideas for where it would go from there, one idea was that Xavier would regress Jean to her nine-year-old self before her powers manifested, and so she would.. be..
Rachel: [crosstalk] Oh... that gets so much creepier so much faster.
Miles: [crosstalk] It does... They describe it, at one-one- in an interview, they describe it as her being essentially mentally retarded, which is super messed up. Uh, they were talking about Magneto trying to bring the Dark Phoenix out in Jean again, and then the X-Men maybe having to kill her to prevent it.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Which obviously is the direction they took in The Last Stand.
Miles: Unfortunately.
Rachel: [glibly] Choices!
Miles: But, yeah, I think what it comes down to, um, is that- the- it's a better story for the second ending, for the ending that we got stuck with, for the much more tragic ending, it's way more effective and it sets up way more interesting character moments later on.
Rachel: This has consequences. And even after the nature of the story is retconned, those consequences aren't. They never go away. This is gonna keep having major repercussions in the lives of all of the characters who are involved in it. And in all of the stories around them. There have been other versions of this, we mentioned The Last Stand, um- in the version of this that appears in the X-Men animated series, Jean does live.
Miles: Right, uh, they go for sort of an ending kind of like the M'Kraan crystal saga in the comic, where, essentially, the love of her friends, she's able to use that to pull herself out of this. Now, in the cartoon, she doesn't wipe out an entire solar system, which I think is what makes that much more okay.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah, Wolverine also doesn't kill a lot of Hellfire Club guards, [whispers] 'cause they're all robots in that.
Miles: [chuckles] Just like the Foot Clan in Ninja Turtles.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Um, it's also done really differently in Wolverine and the X-Men, and that is a VASTLY different take on the Phoenix Force in general, um. It takes it in such a different direction that I think it's hardly even comparable or recognizable as the same story.
Miles: Agreed.
(35:19) 
Rachel: X-Men #138 is the only issue th- it's, technically the last issue of the Dark Phoenix Saga. it is basically a recap. I mean it, it renders the first [chuckles] 13 episodes of this podcast essentially superfluous. Maybe not the one where- the Greg Rucka one because we talk about future stuff. 
Miles: [crosstalk, laughs]
Rachel: But, um, so everything- everything but I, what, Episode 9? Or 7? Which one was that?
Miles: [crosstalk] Ehhh, whichever it was.
Rachel: It's from Cyclops's perspective, a recap, of, the first 137 issues of X-Men. 
Miles: At the end of which, Cyclops, understandably, leaves the team. And we're gonna get to that in our next episode, how that all plays out.
Rachel: Kitty joins, and the last caption is... the beginning.
(35:55)
Miles: Okay, let's jump into questions very very briefly. This is from Indigo Calleigh. Could Cyclops write his name on the moon?
Rachel: So this came at the end of a long string of jokes about a character from the Tick named Chairface Chippendale who tries to carve his name into the moon with a laser. The answer to that is... well, in the sense that he went to the moon and can write, yes. If you mean, with his powers from Earth... no, his, his force-beams have a limited range, they dissipate in the atmosphere or with friction. So, no, he can't do that.
(36:21)  
Miles: All right, and we'll j- we'll just do one more question, this is from douglocked, great name, on Tumblr.
Rachel: Yeah, props, we're gonna get to those two characters later, but they are among my very favorites of all time.
Miles: Doug Ramsay and Warlock.
Rachel: Word.
Miles: We know that the Jean Grey that appeared from X-Men #101 to #137 was actually the Phoenix. People still seem to refer to this character as Jean, even though it's not her. Or did I make that up? But Kitty appears in Phoenix: Endsong as one of the people who loves Jean even though not counting 101-137 Jean would mean that they- they'd have barely met. Is there a reason we still count 101-137 as being Jean, even with the Phoenix retcon?
Rachel: Yes. And the reason for that, and again, we're not gonna go into this in a lot of detail right now, is that when Jean dies, the Phoenix basically comes and finds her, and says, I can fix this for you. Seals her to heal in a cocoon at the bottom of Jamaica Bay. And with her memories intact, goes off and basically lives as her. The Phoenix at this point thinks it's Jean, it's not aware that it's a separate entity. It has all of Jean's memories, it has all of Jean's feelings, it has all of Jean's associations, and that ultimately is also why that Jean-Phoenix chooses to sacrifice herself on the moon, because that-that is Jean Grey's choice. Later on, Jean is going to get those memories back, the memories from the time as Phoenix. When she sacrifices herself, the see-the Phoenix Force, um, basically fractures at this point, a little bit of it goes to Madelyne Pryor, who you will meet later.
Miles: That is a LONG story.
Rachel: Ohhhhh, yeah. Little b-bit of it goes into this, this memory crystal. That the Shi'ar make for- as a, it, as a thing for Jean's parents, a lot of it just kind of dissipates. And in the Inferno crossover event, much, much later, Jean is gonna recollect all of those again. She'll have all of those memories. And she'll remember making those choices, because again, the-the Phoenix during this time was making the choices that Jean would have made. It, for all practical purposes, was Jean. So, while technically Jean isn't who Kitty meets, when she meets her, she might as well be. She's got the same memories, she's got the same volition, she makes the same choices. So, yeah, close enough.
(38:09) 
Miles: All right, well, we are outta time for this episode. 
Rachel: "Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men" is recorded at the Roseway in Portland, Oregon and produced by Bobby Roberts, who's also the co-host of the awesome "Welcome to That Whole Thing," which you can check out at welcometothatwholething.com. 
Miles: If you're enjoying the show, please take a minute to rate and review us on iTunes and Stitchr. And check out our shop at rachelandmiles.redbubble.com for T-shirts and stickers.
Rachel: We've put some new stuff up this week, so if you haven't been over there in a long time, might be a good time to click back. Uh, you can also find a visual companion to this episode, as well as blogposts, fanart, and additional fun at rachelandmiles.com .
Miles: We'll be back next week.
Rachel: After all, as the saga says.. this is just the beginning.
Miles: See ya next time.
[Outro: Excerpt of X-Men: The Animated Series theme song]Category:Podcast episodes
Category:Transcribed
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