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