If there’s one theme at the heart of Stephanie Phillips’ Phoenix run, it’s family. Jean Grey battled a young woman with godlike power in the first arc, who blamed her for the death of her father. She’s also kept in touch with her husband, Scott Summers, even though they’re separated by time and space. Recent issues have also brought Jean face-to-face with her seemingly deceased sister Sara. Phoenix #13 continues this trend by bringing in Cable, the time traveling soldier who Jean helped raise.
But far from being a warm family reunion, Cable brings a dire warning that Sara isn’t who she says is. This leads to a fight between him and Phoenix that looks pretty epic, especially when Roi Mercado draws it. Cable’s future weaponry and psychic powers are brought against the full might of Jean’s psionic powers, leading to a battle that crosses through the entirety of the White Hot Room and into a desolate future.
This battle stands out thanks to colorist Java Tartaglia. Tartaglia makes the White Hot Room feel like…well, a white room that seems to go on forever, matching its seemingly endless scope. In contrast, the future that Cable takes Jean to is full of shattered stones and bleached bones, with a fiery tear in the sky where the sun used to be. If you think that’s horrific, just wait until the zombified corpses show up.
Marvel
But while Phoenix #13 is a visual marvel, its story is fairly rocky. Cable tells Jean that Sara isn’t who she appears to be, and that her presence will cause the end of the world. However, he barely elaborates on how this came to be; it would be more intriguing if more of the issue were dedicated to how Sara’s presence supposedly causes the apocalypse.
The conflict between Jean and Cable also feels like it could be deeper, especially given the events of the Cable: Love & Chrome miniseries. Love & Chrome saw Cable forced to make some tough choices to preserve the time stream, which cost him the woman he loved; that could have been a way for Phillips to draw a connection between him and Jean, and strengthen the emotional core of the book. To Phillips’ credit, she does manage to tie the events of this current arc to the first arc in a way that’s not only genius, but also underlines how powerful the Phoenix really is.
Despite the ups and downs, I love that Phoenix is keeping its cosmic scale. The current line of X-Men books does have plenty of variety, but the ones that stand out are the ones that go above and beyond – or in this case, beyond time and space. It only makes sense that if you’re doing a comic about a character who’s the embodiment of an all-powerful cosmic force, you’d want to do stories that test that cosmic force. Phoenix #13 keeps up its cosmic scale and its family drama, even if its current story arc has hit a road bump.
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