Shellshocker wrote:
68Pontiac wrote:
Can someone explain the pheonix thing to me?
Didn't follow X-Men as a kid (a Batman guy myself), and not understanding the importance of the change. I did see the bird at the end of X2, but why is it important?
JHC
I did collect the comic as a kid and found the Phoenix thing a bit confusing at the time. Like many other things in the movie, they changed it a bit from the comics. In the comics, though this was not explained right away, Phoenix was actually an alien life force who took over Jean Grey's body and gave her those incredible powers, with the desctructive temper to match. Jean Grey apparently died in the comics but was resurrected by the Phoenix, I think at the moment of her apparent death. She was eventually killed, I think perhaps by Wolverine, as in the movie. However, my memory is a bit fuzzy plus I think she may have been resurrected after I stopped collecting. In the comics, often when Phoenix would fly around, and be about to kick some ass, you'd see the giant firebird in the sky behind her. It was her trademark, a bit like the Batman spotlight in the sky, to put it in terms you can relate too. :)
As you know from the movie, the Phoenix there is just the evil, powerful, multiple personality of Jean Grey. She firebisr, unfortunately, did not manifest itself in X-Men 3. I don't know why they left that out. Then again, several other things about the movie left me wondering as well.
I may have slightly butchered the Phoenix explanation, especially to a Phoenix purist, but hopefully you get the general idea.
Below is from the Marvel dictionary site and talks about the Phoenix:
Sometime later, after Xavier had recruited several new members for the X-Men, Grey and some of the other X-Men decided to leave the group in order to lead their own lives. Scott Summers, however, remained in the X-Men and he and Grey continued their romantic relationship. Shortly after she left the team, Grey and the then current members of the X-Men were kidnapped by Steven Lang's Sentinels and taken aboard Lang's space station. After defeating Lang the X-Men had to escape back to Earth aboard a space shuttle during a solar radiation storm. The craft's pilot had to sit in an area without enough shielding to protect him or her from the lethal radiation. Grey volunteered to be pilot, but while guiding the shuttle to Earth, the solar radiation finally proved to be too great for Grey to hold back any longer with her powers. She began to succumb to the radiation's lethal effects.
It was long believed that Grey had indeed died aboard the space shuttle but became linked with a primal energy force known as the "phoenix-force" which recreated and reentered her body, The vastly more powerful being took the code name Phoenix. Phoenix joined the X-Men, but Grey had not had the proper training for coping with such immense power. At first Grey's strong moral sense kept the phoenix force under control, and usually subconsciously prevented her from using her powers beyond a certain limit. But then Phoenix fell victim to psychic manipulation by Mastermind, who was attempting to prove his worthiness to become a member of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club by mesmerizing Phoenix into becoming its new Black Queen. He psychically induced dark, repressed desires from within Grey's consciousness to come to the surface of Phoenix's mind, submerging Grey's true normal personality. Phoenix finally freed herself of Mastermind's control, but was unable to prevent the dark side of Grey's personality with the full power of the phoenix-force behind it, from overwhelming her, not having had the training necessary to repress it. Grey's true personality was submerged more fully than before, and Phoenix became the malevolent Dark Phoenix. After Dark Phoenix wreaked incredible devastation, Grey's true personality reasserted control of Phoenix once more, and, before Cyclops' horrified eyes, Phoenix committed suicide rather than revert to Dark Phoenix. Summers mourned Grey, and eventually married Madelyne Pryor, who greatly resembled her.
It was later revealed that Grey did not die, nor had she ever become Phoenix. The phoenix-force responded to Grey's anguish and telepathic calls for help as she was dying aboard the space shuttle, and appeared before her, shaping its form and consciousness after Grey's own. The phoenix-force told Grey that she was dying, but that by taking the phoenix-force's hands, Grey would gain her "heart's desire." What Grey most wanted was to save the lives of the X-Men and herself. She held onto the phoenix-force's arm and fell into a coma-like state. Simultaneously, the phoenix-force fully took on both the form and the memories and personality of Jean Grey. The phoenix-force used its powers to ensure the survival of the X-Men in their return to Earth and crash landing in Jamaica Bay off New York City. It was also responsible for casting Grey into a coma-like state and placing her within a pod like construction, which rested for years at the bottom of Jamaica Bay while Grey's injuries healed completely. Thus the phoenix-force fulfilled its pledge to Grey. The phoenix-force creature compelled itself to believe it was indeed Grey, whose personality it had assumed. Indeed, it had imitated Grey's consciousness so perfectly that not even Xavier realized the imposture. It has been theorized that it was the phoenix-entity's own power rebelling against the duplicate of Grey's personality it had given itself that caused it to become Dark Phoenix. When Phoenix committed suicide, it was acting exactly as Grey herself would have done under the circumstances, since it had endowed itself with an exact copy of Grey's personality.
Many months after Phoenix's death, the Avengers found Grey's pod beneath Jamaica Bay and brought it to the Fantastic Four for study. Grey released herself from the pod, at first unable to remember her encounter with the phoenix-force, but with the help of the Avengers and Fantastic Four, she recalled what had happened and learned what happened to Phoenix. As a result of her harrowing experiences, Grey had somehow lost her telepathic powers, but the strength of her telekinetic powers had greatly increased.
Hope this helps to explain the Phoenix character a little better.
Psy
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And that kryptonie stuff is so lame. Lex pulls it out of his pocket whenever he's in a tight spot. Now, if Superman could fight someone as powerful or more powerful than him, it might be interesting... At least the $265M wasn't on Brandon Routh's salary. 
