Uncanny X-men #13

[sherkahn]

"Who profits?" - If you ever want to find out who is the archvillain pulling the strings in the background and pitting sides against each other, always ask that question. With that said.

Why is the Phoenix coming to Earth again, this time?
Why has Hope become so rebellious lately?
Who gave Hope a plan of action?

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW:



Magneto and the survivor's of Storm's X-men squad lick their wounds as they try to piece together what has gone on. The remainder of the Lights also regroup, and pay a visit to the one person who may have answers for them. The last person Hope talked to before committing to a course of action as the Phoenix approached.

Unit, from the X-men last story arc before this. He's the Benjamin Linus from Lost of the X-men universe. More dangerous in prison than just roaming around.





Y'see, for the Phoenix to make the changes the world needed, it needed the 5 Lights that Hope herself had kindled. With them dead or out of play, the closest 5 mutants were selected.

(and that's why Logan was not made into a host of the Phoenix... only 5 hosts).

Unit told this elaborate tale to distract the Lights, and his co-opted machine slave Danger took them all out with a sneak attack, and altered their memories so they would not remember this encounter.

Comments

[mrstatham]

Well, at least someone's trying to explain the bullshit going on in the main event, although it's alarmingly hilarious how often the tie-ins are far, far better than the main book itself.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm this actually explains alot... i wonder what WOULD have happened if the LIghts were there.... and the Avengers didn't interfere...

can i also say... i love to hate Unit...

[crabby_lioness]

A smart, patient villain is hard to find.

[greenmask]

What shall we make most prominent in this panel? Hmm, I know, a teenage woman's naked behind. It's a new idea AND it's good storytelling.

I like test tube man, though.

[auggie18]

Yeah, interesting how this is the first time this has come up in the thirty-odd years the Phoenix has been around. I mean, the Phoenix has done a lot of shit without these magical five people it apparently suddenly needs.

Also, there were originally four Lights (Teon, Idie, Gabriel, and Laurie) and then they found three more. (Kenji, The Ward, and that melting dude.)


*HEAD DESK HEAD DESK HEAD DESK*

Man, I hate this event.

[stillanerd]

Well, let me play Devil's Advocate here: during the original Phoenix Saga in Uncanny X-Men, if I remember it correctly, there were five people with "Jean"--Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler. So technically, they could have been the "Five Lights" for "Jean." Although this still doesn't get around the "Phoenix always needed a host" since, in the original saga, it didn't actually take possession of Jean but made itself into a perfect "clone" with all of Jean's memories and emotions that it actually thought it really was Jean.

Also, if the Lights are just the people whose powers were awakened by Hope, then that would mean that even if Hope did stay on Utopia when the Phoenix Force came, she still wouldn't have been able to control since she needs, presumably, the original Five Lights. She only had three, as Idie was already off Utopia and Kenji is, presumably, dead.

[auggie18]

Then I guess Rachel's Lights would've been Captain Britain, Meggan, Shadowcat, Lockheed, and, um, Nightcrawler.

Huh.

[icon_uk]

Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler

And Professor X makes six.

[auggie18]

But Jean wasn't the only host. Rachel used Phoenix powers with different groups of people who weren't eternally loyal or whatever. Ditto for Giraud and Feron.

Also, none of the people around Jean were all that comfortable with her using the Phoenix powers. (Particularly Ororo and Scott.) And none of them got Phoenixy powers/costumes like Scott and the others.

This really doesn't fit.

[long_silence]

I thought Kenji's powers were activated at the same time as the other four. She just got to him last.

She grabbed the first four in Uncanny X-men but she didn't get to Kenji until Gen Hope started, and since Japan is so far away and she took so long collecting the others, Kenji kinda destroyed some of Tokyo before she could fix him.

[icon_uk]

You'd think that Danger would just shut down her wifi link every now and again.

[crabby_lioness]

Teon of all people told her that.

[nyadnar17]

Unit is one of the best new villains in a while. I also "love/hate" s/he/it and I really hope he continues to be a baller.

[drexer]

They told this in a side-in book? Really?

The concept of event really passes by those folks minds, doesn't it?

[salinea]

you know what I notice? UNIT never finished his story about what happened in the best case scenario with a Phoenix.

[icon_uk]

Following our discussion yesterday about me not having read this... Now I have, I still think my point pretty much stands.

This seems to me to be the most contrived form of "reveal", the surprise revelation of something of pivotal significance we should be impressed by but which flies in the face of everything that's already been established.

Now in a good whodunnit that moment can be sublime, something logical, obvious and overlooked, but which makes everything clearer as soon as it's said aloud.

But UNIT going on about the "five acolytes, just like always" is completely new and doesn't actually make much sense based on any appearances of the Phoenix, past, present or future that has been published in several decades, so it doesn't make me go "Wow! Cool! Of course...", it makes me go "Huh? But what about when..."

I'm glad this explains things about the event, and UNIT does look like quite a fun character (Though I was almost expecting it's reply to "Why did you do it?", to be something like "Because it was Tuesday"), but it does throw up any number of questions about all the past Phoenix stories.

[salinea]

Oh, I agree with you that the 5 acolytes revelation feels both weird, not fitting with either what we know about the Phoenix Force so far, or what we know about Hope's Lights (they were more than 5), and if it's supposed to be important should have been in the main mini. What I was disagreeing was that UNIT handing out those informations was overly convenient, because that part felt naturally brought up by the storytelling, with UNIT having been interested in Hope before the start of the event, etc.

I don't think it's meant to be a whodunnit revelation. It's not a big revelation in itself at all. It feels like it's still... pieces of the puzzle, maybe, at this point.

and UNIT does look like quite a fun character (Though I was almost expecting it's reply to "Why did you do it?", to be something like "Because it was Tuesday")
He is! I really like him. I always love affably evil villains :)
Haha, but that's the point of UNIT, he doesn't just do things because it was Tuesday, he has a higher purpose and he will be utterly, coldly, and terrifyingly ruthless about pursuing it. But he won't be any more cruel than he thinks he has to be, and will say "please" and "sorry" about it.

[notactuallyauser]

The important thing about UNIT is that UNIT lies.

[sherkahn]

Which means we will revisit this again.

[salinea]

Hopefully.

[maseiken]

I'm impressed by UNIT's sheer troll-logic, but I am not impressed by random exposition on the Phoenix that has nothing to do with anything previously established about the Phoenix.

[sherkahn]

I'm guessing he's seen more of it than we have.

[auggie18]

We've been hearing Phoenix stories for the past 30 years. You'd think this would've come up.

[maseiken]

Or even like, the number 5. Anything really.

[mullon]

He looks like a giant floating tampon.

[sherkahn]

I always thought of him more as a Swiss army knife.

[kraesil]

This event is a big tangled ball of.. yarn.

[spacebetween]

For something that supposedly likes balance, the Phoenix has done a slack job during some incidents that threaten the balance of things. I would love to know where it was during Annihilation as that sure as hell could not be good for the balance of things. Let alone when Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet. Those are just 2 events which surely would have altered the balance of the universe and I'm sure there would have been more.

Also a fair chuck of time has passed since Decimation and House of M so obviously that it wasn't that worried about the balance of things. Also as it is in such a large universe, species would be going extinct by various means some of which would be unnature. So does that mean the Phoenix force steps in there? Or are mutants the odd exception.

As much as I love the X-Men and mutants they seem to be making the Phoenix just there solely for the mutant community screwing other races at their expense.