Phoenix Song: Echo #1

[lordultimus]

Comments

[dan_ingram]

So what is the phoenix these days, anyways?

[lordultimus]

A headache.

[remial]

always has been

[buttz]

The issue starts out with the Phoenix Force killing someone and starting a fire that almost kills a little girl until Echo regains control of her powers, so it's about the same as it has been when it's showed up in other places previously.

[agharta75]

A jobber?

[silverhammerman]

Space-Bird-Venom tbh, under Aaron's pen it's been completely shorn of the personal and thematic significance it had tying into the X-Men and Jean/Rachel Grey, it's literally just a cool powerset and look to slap on characters now.

[donnblake]

Thor's mum?

[beyondthefringe]

Echo as Phoenix.
Yup, choices were made.

[mindsweeper]

Who is this for? It’s clearly not for X-fans. And does anyone else care about Phoenix? Weird.

[nyadnar17]

Avenger based Phoenix fans?

I mean we had AvX and the Avengers of 1000000 B.C and.....and there was something else right?

......at least I hope so.

[mindsweeper]

Do that many of those exist? Phoenix is intrinsically linked with the X franchise, Jean, and Rachel, so even if someone liked both Avengers and X-Men, would they want to see X-Men characters misused and mistreated in a Phoenix story yet again? Seems like that was one of the biggest complaints against AVX.

If I was going to take one of the iconic figures of one franchise for another one, I’d try to respect the source to attract those fans.

[mastermahan]

I assume they started with "give Rebecca Roanhorse something to write", and worked backwards from there. They managed to get a Hugo winner to write something for them, and she's an Indigenous woman who writes about Indigenous characters.

They probably should have just had her create a new character, like N.K. Jemisin did with Far Sector, but maybe she has somewhere she wants to go with this?

[akodo_rokku]

Forge at no point speaks like an actual human being in this.

[super_fly]

"Yah done goofed."

[scorntx]

Meanwhile, somewhere on a beach on Krakoa, Rachel leans back in a sun lounger and takes a sip from a daquiri, utterly content in the knowledge she's not needed for anything.

[leahandillyana]

Wait, wasn't Echo's thing that she was deaf mute? Wasn't she among best deaf representation in the comics? What is going on?

[sabertoothlotus]

Deaf, yes. I dont think she was ever mute-- quiet, maybe.
And she's always been able to read lips. There was a whole thing about it when she was Ronin and basically ignored everything Soider-Man said because she couldn't see his mouth.

[blues32]

I think she could understand Spider-Man because she can VAGUELY see his mouth move, but Iron Man couldn't talk with her.

[donnblake]

That makes sense, although the beat I remember specifically was Spider-Man assuming she hated him because she completely failed to respond to any of his quips or banter.

[blues32]

Well, it's probably a lot harder to notice what he's saying in the heat of battle. She'd have to focus on his mask movement, match it to how the mouth would move if uncovered, and piece it together from there.

[blues32]

Well, she's bonded to the Phoenix. I would imagine that restoring her hearing is child's play. And if the writers decide that she WOULDN'T...well, that's just ridiculous.

[alliterator]

Why would it be ridiculous? There are definitely disabled people who consider their disability a part of them and therefore wouldn't want to get rid of it. Saying that every deaf person would automatically want to be rid of their deafness is ridiculous.

[blues32]

Maybe if they're born that way, but anyone who had and lost the ability to hear would surely want it back. To never again be able to listen to music? A bird's song? A loved one's voice? I can't remember when Maya lost her hearing. She wasn't born that way, I remember that much, but it may have been in infancy.

[alliterator]

"Maybe if they're born that way, but anyone who had and lost the ability to hear would surely want it back."

No. That's ableist bullshit.

[blues32]

"Ableist"? What does that even mean? I'm not looking down on anyone with a disability. But seems to me that anyone who had their legs blown off by stepping on a landmine would want them back. So too would anyone who had their hearing taken by, say, a loud explosion going off near them.

It's all moot anyway. Another look at Maya's wiki page says she was born deaf. Suddenly introducing sounds would be extremely disorienting. Her other senses, so hyper focused by now, would be thrown out of sorts.

[alliterator]

""Ableist"? What does that even mean?"

You have access to a dictionary. You can look it up.

" I'm not looking down on anyone with a disability."

Except you are. You are assuming anyone who becomes disabled after birth would automatically wish to not be disabled. Which isn't true. I recommend reading up a lot on disability culture and people who consider their disabilities a part of their identity, because right now your comments are gross and ableist.

[whatsmoothbeast]

You're showing your ass on this one. There are a lot of deaf people who refuse cochlear implants and other interventions, not for any medical reasons, but on the basis of identity and culture. Deaf culture is definitely a thing.

[blues32]

Do those people engage in life and death battles with super powered beings? One where a "Look out!" might save their life? Anyone who willingly deprives themselves of a tool in combat isn't taking that fight very seriously.

[lizard_of_aus]

If we're really going into the hypotheticals of a world of superpowered beings, then there are at least a dozen inventive possibilities for getting around such problems, half of them mind-based.

I'm not really sure this is the hole you want to back yourself into.

[donnblake]

Yeah, assuming that God-Level telepathy and telekinesis are come standard with the Great Flamin' Birdie, then the need to gather information by vibrating a thin tissue stretched across a hole in your head is kind of superfluous.

[blues32]

I don't think it does. I don't remember any of the Phoenix Five outside of Emma using telepathy. There may be a level of cosmic awareness, but that may actually be impacted by her deafness. Very few (if any) people with that sort of power has ever had a deprived sense before.

[blues32]

"Mind based"? Wouldn't that person need super powers of that sort for them to have access to such work arounds?

[lizard_of_aus]

Psychic teammates, cyber earpiece, literally anything an author can imagine. Plus, y'know, goddamned PHOENIX. If it can make her fly, it can give her baseline psychic powers, or pretty much any other excuse that doesn't have to be a tone-deaf (pun unintended) insensitive slight towards disabled people.

Are we done here?

[mjscheer]

lol why'd jean catch that stray? echo didn't have to call her out there.

honestly the writers should avoid referencing jean/the x-men in these weird asides. even the choice of forge as the "x-man" rep here is an odd one.

[lordultimus]

Two reasons I can think of for Forge:

1) he's an indigenous characters, so an indigenous writer writing a book about an indigenous character interacting with other indigenous characters would probably want to use him.

2) he can be kind of a jerk, so it's in character for him to do something like this.