Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: The Jean Grey Shuffle
Message-ID: <6106@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 17:58:09 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6106
Posted: Fri Nov  1 17:58:09 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Nov-85 17:58:09 EST
References: <878@cvl.UUCP> <2021@reed.UUCP> <317@pedsgd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 32
Keywords: Phoenix

> ...  You are saying in one world
> Phoenix appeared as the simulacrum of a cosmic being.  In the other, Jean
> gained exactly the same powers through radiation.  Both later became Dark
> Phoenix and behaved exactly the same way (as shown in Rachel's flashbacks
> in X-Men #199).  This is asking for a lot of coincidences.  The simplest
> explanation is that the events creating Phoenix were the same in both worlds.

Similarity of behavior is to be expected, given that the cosmic being 
absorbed Jean's personality to a very large extent.  Getting a sufficiently
exact match of powers is harder to explain, especially since any significant
difference in powers could be expected to have changed events noticeably.

But turn it around:  a cosmic being, masquerading as Jean Grey, did a
sufficiently good imitation to fool her closest friends, Scott Summers,
even Charles Xavier?  Even when in telepathic linkage with them, and on
one or two occasions (inside the M'krann Crystal) semi-fusion with them?
That too is an awful lot to swallow.

There is the issue I raised a while ago:  how do we *know* that the FF286
girl is the real Jean, and the Phoenix wasn't?  Remember the "resurrection"
of Guardian.  We have NO unbiased witness to the crucial events.  It seems
to me that this is actually the *simplest* explanation:  the account in
FF286 is just plain wrong.  Either the girl from the capsule is lying, for
reasons yet to be determined, or she really believes it but is mistaken.
(By her own account, the events in question happened at a time when she was
(a) under severe stress and (b) rapidly dying from radiation poisoning.)
The Phoenix of our world and the Phoenix of Rachel's world behaved the same
way because their origins were identical.  Both were taken for Jean Grey
by knowledgeable observers because both *were* Jean Grey.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry