http://faerye.net/tag/phoenix Posts tagged with "phoenix" - Faerye Net 2004-03-18T14:07:43+00:00 Felicity Shoulders http://faerye.net/ http://faerye.net/post/the-roulette-wheel-of-death-and-rebirth The Roulette Wheel of Death and Rebirth 2004-03-18T14:07:43+00:00 2008-07-08T11:32:40+00:00 <p>Some of you may know &#8211; in fact, many people who have a minimal or marginal interest in comic books know &#8211; that Jean Grey (aka <em>Marvel Girl</em>, aka <em>Phoenix</em>, aka <em>The first X-Woman</em>) dies all the freakin&#8217; time. So much so that I have it on good authority that the following exchange actually occured in X-Men continuity at a recent Jean Grey funeral:<br /> <b>Emma Frost</b><em> (reformed villainess and X-Man)</em>: <strong>snicker</strong><br /> <b>Scott &#8220;Cyclops&#8221; Summers</b>: Goddammit Emma! It&#8217;s not funny!<br /> <b>Emma</b>: Yes it is, Scott, and <em>you know it</em>.</p> <p>If my source didn&#8217;t invent that passage through wishful thinking, then Marvel knows damn well that Jean Grey&#8217;s tragic deaths are as predictable as the tragic deaths of any number of Captain Kirk girlfriends. Why do they keep doing it? Why? I think I have the answer.</p> <p>Last night I was perusing the polychromatic pages of the periodical (okay, I&#8217;ll stop now) <em>Batman/Superman</em>. Er, <em>Superman/Batman</em>. Whatever, this is why they have a logo, not a title. And the last frame of this comic book, after several frames of people talkin&#8217; Kryptonian (yeah, Kryptonian. It&#8217;s kindee funny-lookin&#8217;.) shows Superman telling Batman as he gives the blonde girl he&#8217;s been talking to his cape to wear, &#8220;This is Kara Zor-El, my cousin from Krypton.&#8221; At this point, my head broke.</p> <p>You see, DC has had this here &#8220;Cousin from Krypton&#8221; angle before. She was the original Supergirl. Or the second one. Or something. Before Supergirl was an angel, or an alien-human hybrid, or an angel-human hybrid, or a shapeshifting girlfriend of Lex Luthor&#8217;s&#8230;umm, okay, I&#8217;m already confused. I don&#8217;t read Superman, and I don&#8217;t understand Supergirl history. But I do know she&#8217;s been reinvented so many times that even I, who, as I said, <em>do not read Superman titles</em> have seen at least one Supergirl debut — she was supposed to be Lois and Clark&#8217;s daughter from the future. So do you start to see what I&#8217;m saying here?</p> <p>A long long time ago, someone at DC and someone at Marvel made a bet that he (Marvel) could kill Jean Grey (Marvel Girl) more often than he (DC) could reinvent Supergirl. It all makes sense! At the time, it was a lark! Now, so many Jean Greys stenciled on that Marvel guy&#8217;s desk, a dartboard of Supergirl concepts mounted on the DC office wall, it&#8217;s a grim battle, each comics titan straining against the other to control the cheesiness of the superheroine ethos. This week some poor schmo at Marvel, with &#8220;counterintelligence&#8221; scrawled on his cubicle tag, read <em>Batman/Superman</em> and groaned. &#8220;Guys? Do you have the next Jean Grey death ready? I mean, have you got her alive again and ready to go? Those wily bastards have hidden it in this <em>Batman/Superman</em> thing &#8211; I know, a Bat-title! Sneaky! But &#8220;cousin from Krypton&#8221; only has one meaning&#8230;&#8221;</p> <p>Or, you know, maybe it sells comics.</p>