The Batlord

Well, this was a task. Finally got all the way through the first Phoenix Saga and I need a break from this comic for a bit, not to mention from reviewing a series issue by issue as I read along. I feel like Trollheart doing all this ****. At least this saga went out with a bang. I was all prepared to roll my eyes at the phlebotinum, but Claremont managed to come out with some pretty good sci fi epicness.

It starts out about as I pictured, with the X-Men and Starjammers marveling at the terribleness of the M'Kraan Crystal being activated. Soon they are confronted by a midget/robot/goblin-looking thing that turns out to be a guardian of the crystal. There's a nice little scene of Wolverine taunting it and then mocking Cyclops for warning him to be careful.




A battle ensues, and even Phoenix/Jean can't beat the midget-thing head-on, until Banshee finally hits it with a sonic blast that scrambles its circuits. No sooner have they patted themselves on the back than a giant robot with power "a thousand times greater" than the midget-thing's arrives to **** on them. One of the Starjammers arbitrarily decides to throw Lilandra's dictator brother, D'Kan, at the M'Kraan Crystal, which causes them to be immediately transported to a weird, dead, alien city inside of the crystal.

At this point I'm thinking things are finally getting a bit interesting. I can't find the picture, but all the buildings have got that white, quasi-futuristic look that's just a bit too Utopian. What should be the sky is just blackness. Not even stars, just blackness. And then there's the weird yellow sphere in the center that looks like a small sun. The history of this place is never explained, but we can assume that the sphere had something to do with it. All in all it's a pretty mysterious and menacing place.

The sphere then emits some kind of rays that hit the X-Men and make all their worst nightmares come to life, but only Jean is able to overcome them. Unfortunately, Scott is panicking at this point and accidentally hits the sphere with an optic blast, cracking it. Jean now switches to Phoenix form, all flame-birdy, and merges with the sphere to try to repair it.

Alright, here's where things get obtuse. Jean seems to have some kind of instinctual understanding of what the sphere is, so most of the rest of the issue is her narrating what's going on. The sphere is some kind of containment field, a "geodesic latticework of... anti-energy?" that is holding in a neutron galaxy. The fact that I have to look this up and most of it isn't even in Wikipedia after almost forty years is pretty impressive, even if their scientific validity is highly dubious.

This lattice is dying, and when it does the neutron galaxy will be released, and since it is so ultra-dense, it's gravity will destroy the universe (go with it, this isn't Larry Niven). All throughout all of this exposition is some stunning imagery that would be pretty special even by today's standards.





In order to rebuild the lattice she must use her life energy, the energy of the Phoenix, but it's still not enough. So, she gets help from Storm and Corsair, who she now informs that he is Scott's father. This is successful, though there is again question as to whether Jean will survive, but this time she does. Then there's talk about a tree, and, **** it, here...




Apparently this nebulous, tree concept is the new anti-energy lattice or something, and then everybody is back through the stargate (not skipping anything, they're back the very next panel), Jean's okay, Fire Lord knows they're the good guys, D'Ken is now catatonic, Lilandra is still exiled until the Shi'ar council decides she's Empress, in the mean time she and Xavier can have cripple sex, and in general all's well that ends well. Of course Jean still has the Phoenix, but that's a tale for another day...

I don't know how much of this ending Claremont had planned and how much was just him flying by the seat of his pants. The abruptness of the concept of the neutron galaxy and all the rest suggests he was coming up with it as he went along, but if he pulled all of this out of his hat it's still impressive. It's likewise a mystery just how far along the concept of the Phoenix was by this point. If it's true that it was originally just cosmic rays supercharging Jean's powers and not an actual entity, this issue still hints that the Phoenix was something else. I also don't know how much of all this was thanks to new artist John Byrne, but given the unprecedented ambition of the artwork, I'm imagining he may have had a hand in the raised quality of this issue. From what I hear the very next issue is a Wolverine-centric one, and since Byrne was supposed to be his biggest fan on the team, I'm imaging he had a lot of creative input pretty early on. If so then it should be a pretty wild ride from here on out. An excellent finish to an up-and-down story arc. Well played.

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