PHOENIX #12
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Roi Mercado
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Annalise Bissa
PHOENIX
Jean doesn’t appear much in this issue, which mostly consists of Sara giving her account of how she came to be in Greyhaven. She appears briefly at the end, to look overwhelmed by her sister’s return, and to react to Cable’s entrance.
Jean also appears briefly as a child in Sara’s flashback, when she challenges Sara on deliberately throwing a baseball match. From Jean’s point of view, the significance of the scene probably lies mainly in the fact that she can verify it as a real incident. Well, if she does – it’s minor enough that she might think it’s something she doesn’t remember, and she doesn’t actually tell us that she remembers it.
SUPPORTING CAST
Sara Grey. So, as I said last time, the previous appearances of Sara Grey are not exactly extensive. But since this is Sara’s account of her life, let’s briefly run through her previous appearances:
- In X-Men Origins: Jean Grey (2008), after Professor X helps Jean to overcome the trauma that accompanied the emergence of her powers, Sara reacts with delight to her sister’s recovery.
- In a flashback in Uncanny X-Men #322 (1995), Jean says goodbye to Sara before leaving to join the X-Men. Sara knows that Jean is a mutant and that she’s off to be a superhero.
- In flashbacks in Bizarre Adventures #27 (1981), Jean and Sara rent a sailboat and get kidnapped by Attuma. Technically, this is Phoenix rather than Jean, though depending on how you read Rise of the Powers of X, there may not be a difference any more. Attuma turns Sara into a water breather but Phoenix just changes her back (which is apparently when Chris Claremont suggested that she might have become a mutant). In this version, Sara has only just learned that Jean is a superhero. Sara is married with children and worries about whether they might be mutants too. Phoenix erases Sara’s memories of superhero type things. Perhaps not for the first time, if you really want to square off all these appearances…
- In X-Men #136 (1980) – Sara’s first published appearance – she’s staying at her parents’ home when Dark Phoenix visits. Sara has learned that Jean is a superhero (again!) from her mother and, according to Phoenix, is worried about her kids being mutants. Quite why a married adult woman is staying with her parents doesn’t seem to be touched on.
- In X-Men #138 (1980), Sara is a background mourner at Jean’s funeral, accompanied by a man who’s presumably her husband Paul.
- In the framing sequence of Bizarre Adventures #27, Sara lays flowers on Jean’s grave and reminisces about that thing with Attuma – the mental blocks on that incident dissolved on Phoenix’s death. She describes herself and Jean as “as much best friends as sisters”. She refers to having an 11-year-old son called Tommy (though he’ll be called Joey in later stories). Sara is no longer afraid of the possibility that her children are mutants.
- In X-Factor #12 (1987), Sarah shows up on the news as a “pro-mutant spokesman”, and gets one line of dialogue about how it’s criminal to harass mutants by firebombing their homes. Jean hasn’t yet been in contact with her family since her return, and is surprised to learn about Sarah’s activities. She claims that Sarah is standing up for everyone “just like she did when I was a kid”, and worries that Sarah is making herself a target. Jean and Scott visit Sarah’s home to find her missing, and the house is then blown up by anti-mutant terrorists.
- Sara remains missing, though her children Joey and Gailyn show up in later issues of X-Factor.
- In X-Men #36 (1994), Sara very briefly appears as an alleged member of the Phalanx (or a Phalanx impersonates her, if you prefer).
And that’s it, until this storyline. Here’s what this flashback adds, although Cable shows up at the end to expressly cast doubt on the whole thing:
- Sara claims that she was there when Jean’s telepathic powers activated, which would be new.
- The baseball scene seems to be Sara’s new earliest appearance, coming before Jean’s activation. She throws a baseball game so that a girl who’s leaving town gets to win her last game, though she strenuously denies it.
- Immediately after leaving the TV studio in X-Factor #12 (and repeating her one line of dialogue from that issue), Sara is attacked by members of the Purifiers in an alley. The previous issue also blamed the Purifiers for Sara’s disappearance, and Jean appeared to know this already, though it’s not entirely clear how. As I said last time, the Purifiers weren’t really active around 1987 in publishing terms, but they did exist, so as a grass roots outfit with some degree of continuing presence, they’ll do for the role.
- The Purifiers made a deal to hand over mutants to Cameron Hodge, who in turn wants to turn them into the Phalanx. This is a bit more of a continuity issue, if it’s meant to be an accurate account. Sara describes Hodge as “One of the most vocal anti-mutant ‘activists’”, but she was hauled off the street in X-Factor #12, which is when Hodge was still posing as an ally of the X-Men. Even if Sara is kept as a prisoner for some time before this scene, Hodge is shown as a normal looking man, so either it’s before he was beheaded in X-Factor #34 (way earlier than any previous story linking Hodge and the Phalanx), or it’s after he becomes a Phalanx member and has shapechanging abilities (in which case Sara was held prisoner, apparently in the same clothes, for years of continuity).
- According to Sara, as she was absorbed into the Phalanx, it told her that Jean Grey was dead. This doesn’t really make sense. As noted above, when Sara was abducted immediately after X-Factor #12, she still thought Jean was dead. So it would hardly have come as news. Jean doesn’t die again until New X-Men #150 in 2003, long after the Phalanx stuff.
After all this stuff, Sara somehow crash lands meteor style on the planet Elarunn-7, eleven years into “the Thales Civil War” – she claims to have no recollection of how she got there. She quickly discovers her ability to unlock mutant powers, gives power to an entire rebel faction – she claims to be unlocking them – and helps them “take back this planet from the loyalist government that was oppressing them.” She skips over all this bit and doesn’t really address the question of why the planet has been renamed after her.
John Grey and Elaine Grey (the parents) have minor cameos in Sara’s flashback.
Captain Keldros Verrick. One of the rebel soldiers who found Sara when she crashed on Elarunn-7, and the first person whose powers she unlocked. She claims that he’s “remained one of my most trusted friends ever since”. He doesn’t seem to appear in the previous issue. In the flashback, his initial reaction to her is that she’s some sort of loyalist spy.
Cable. He shows up at the end to accuse Sara of lying and shoot her. In the previous issue, he was reacting in the future to some sort of catastrophic impact on the timeline, so presumably this is something to do with that.
