How did Maddy get it, though? They kinda made that messy. If Jean was never Phoenix, why did Maddy get a connection?
When the faux Jean killed herself on the moon in X-Men #137, the Phoenix force tried to return all its memories of walking around in Jean's form to her, along with an unintended sizeable dollop of cosmic power. It missed her coccoon under Jamaica Bay and instead slung 'em into Mr. Sinister's artificially-aged, not-yet-programmed Jean clone. Sinister implanted fake memories of a life as Madelyn Pryor and manipulated her into meeting Scott as part of a big byzantine scheme. The rapport to the Phoenix power apparently went dormant upon her initial awakening (with a few subtle hints that it was working in the background), then activated when Maddy got corrupted by demons.
They NEVER explained exactly what the deal was with an elementary school aged Maddy Pryor appearing in Avengers Annual #10, which is listed as Maddy's first appearance.
(with a few subtle hints that it was working in the background)
Like the flames in the plane crash, IIRC.
So .. in Rachel's future, the Phoenix force finds the right chick, I guess.
Actually, I think Rachel's future is one in which Xavier's psychic dampeners hold and "Jean" never powers up again on the moon. The original Claremont/Byrne take on the story goes forth, with "Jean" surviving to have a kid with Scott. Meanwhile, I guess the real, original Jean Grey stays cocooned underneath Jamaica Bay forever.
I miss Rachel Summers. The Summers family reunions must be like The Ice Storm, only with superpowers and aliens included.
To be fair, The Ice Storm does have an extended protagonist-family/The Fantastic Four metaphor going on. No aliens, though.
The original Claremont/Byrne take on the story goes forth, with "Jean" surviving to have a kid with Scott. Meanwhile, I guess the real, original Jean Grey stays cocooned underneath Jamaica Bay forever.
Doesn't the original take not have "Jean" just Jean? So no cocoons?
Rachel also gets thrown way into the future along with a rescued Nate, who she raises, and then he comes back into our present and becomes Cable.
And somewhere in there, Jean and Scott travel to the future and have a hand in raising Cable, too.
It's all very confusing.
Doesn't the original take not have "Jean" just Jean? So no cocoons?
True, but so did the version that actually got printed—until Jean popped up in that issue of Fantastic Four many years later. I assume that the reveal about our Jean would hold true for Rachel's as well, since the two timelines supposedly diverged in X-Men #137.
I think I need a rundown of all the Jean Grey iterations (including clones and Phoenix force fakes) and their current status?
I'm afraid the original is still in a cocoon. Or is that only in the alternafuture timeline?
That'd be (I think) the Days of Future past alternate future that Rachel vacated to come back in time. Our Jean that just died (yeah, right!) was supposedly the genuine article. Though I suppose there's a conga line of Jean Grey clones out there somewhere that the Phoenix could be playing shell games with.
Though I suppose there's a conga line of Jean Grey clones out there somewhere that the Phoenix could be playing shell games with.
Now I've got a mental image of a whole bunch of Famke Janssen's doing the conga. As these things go, it's not unpleasant.