@lordofallhumans: Then Xavier, sure she surpassed him in power, but Exodus was at one point stronger then her. She had the most potential, but it's not like they were powering up DBZ style and she just keeps going because didn't have a roof for her power. She has unlimited potential for power but not unlimited power, she has to gain access to more power through struggle, practice,growth etc. If she could just snap her fingers and be more powerful then someone she'd have a much better track record and be a pure Mary Sue who never strains herself, but she has to work to gain access to those greater levels of power.

Exodus is a psi leech though, he is powerful, but at his most powerful he is leeching psi energies from others. Jean does have to push herself to gain more power, but if she embraced her Phoenix self she would not have to push. If she wanted to be the most powerful without losing herself she can, she just doesn't because she wants to stay Jean Grey,

@lordofallhumans: I think I understand your logic. But I don't agree with the Phoenix is Jean aspect and there's no way to know to what degree they are linked so I can't comment.

How can you not agree with something that was stated on panel by Jean and the force itself? Even as child it was a hidden aspect of her own mind. Jean is the Phoenix, but the Phoenix is not always Jean.

@lordofallhumans: Because depictions of the Phoenix are erratic?

Prior to her death Jean described the Phoenix as something that threatened to take her over if she got too close to it. Which is in line with your belief. Though to reach those levels she had to die and even when she was clearly in a life or death situation she couldn't tap into the power to save her life and their was a clear difference in her limits with and without its power

Then she came back and the force said they are the same being. The problem with that being that Jean couldn't even control that piece of the force until the last few pages of issue 6.

The thing is there is a connection but we don't know to what degree because it goes back and forth between saying that it is Jean and flying off on its own. And it's just as likely given how it behaves with other host that Jean, Rachel, Quire, Hope and even X-Man are all just able to manifest a portion of its power and create fire raptors but aren't able to access the Phoenix fully unless it comes for them.

She didn't need to die to reach those levels though, the only reason she needed to die was because she was ignoring her Phoenix work, dying was the only way to get her attention. Xavier had already proved that the Phoenix could be spoken to, Jean was not letting it get close enough to take over.

Jean and the Phoenix were the same way back in Classic Xmen, when she first became White Phoenix and had a talk with Death, about how basically her real power was to be the Phoenix and how her children would inherit it.

That is because Jean is the Phoenix, but the Phoenix is not always Jean. I don't see what's so hard to understand.

i have that comic. :) plus if a phoenix hosts dies they are reborn in a phoenix egg that takes alot of time to hatch unless you use cyclops optic blast to hatch faster

@lordofallhumans: The part where you believe Jean always has access to her Phoenix powers. Which is really the only part I disagree with.

Logan asks why Jean cant use her powers to save them she says it talks to her, can replace her and may be judging her. Logan kills Jean, Jean says he's awoken the Phoenix consciousness. Jean then says she doesn't know how long it will let her stay. It seems more like something living inside of her rather then something that is a part of her. Yes Jean is Phoenix, but Jean isn't always Phoenix...and the way it seems is that there's a wall between what is Jeans power and what is Phoenix and they both have a say and where that boundary is unless they decide they don't want their to be one.

If as you believe it is something that lives in her, then how can she not always have access to it's powers? Jeans unique power as explained by Death is to the wield the Phoenix, she is a piece of it.

@lordofallhumans: My belief is that shes linked to it and that through that link she can access it's power and it can access her. That this connection is similar within all Host but that possibly as a White Phoenix of the Crown she and her connection are special.

You can't reconcile the idea that she has the power to weild the Phoenix with the fact it has denied her that power on 2 separate occasions. The Phoenix has a mind of its own but shares something unique enough with Jean that they consider themselves to be the same.

jean has graduated from a phoenix host to phoenix itself. jean and phoenix have merged and they both said that they are one.

PHOENIX LEVELS

Able to tap into Phoenix Power/energy

Phoenix echo -Rachel

Phoenix Fragment - phoenix 5, cuckoos

Phoenix host-Rachel, jean, quire, hope

Dark phoenix -scott , jean/phoenix force

white phoenix of the crown/jean

PHOENIX FORCE

I can agree with this.

I feel the same was as Koays in that she does not always have access to the power of the phoenix, or free control to tap into its power since in planet X jean said, she can't fly in outer space yet, not yet anyway, meaning the phoenix is withholding the amount of power it is giving her. Basically while jean can tap into the phoenix and "become" the phoenix, it is dependent on the phoenix if it wants to allow jean to do it.

But i personally don't like jean as being the same entity as the phoenix coz it makes her seem dependent on a cosmic force for a power boost, even though she on her own is already among the most powerful around :(

@hopesummersforthefuture: what issue is that? I wanna check it out

When has it denied her power? It tried to separate itself from her when Rachel was dying, and it didn't stick. The Phoenix with all it's power can be confused. The Phoenix at it's core is not sentient, and has no real mind of it's own. Jean is it's minds that is why the white hot room is described as a place that you are always waiting for yourself to arrive at. Jean has always been the mind that is the Phoenix.

@martinceld

Jean does always have access to the Phoenix, it calls her she doesn't always answer, she can fly in outer space without the Phoenix, she just can't take passengers like she explained to Scott when Avalon was crashing to Earth. She certainly proved that she can fly in space when she chased down Binary.

Jean was never a Phoenix host.

Let us not go back to ancient times when jean was a host/avatar of the phoenix force, able to tap into the Phoenix power and then became a host again. also, The point is, jean has now merged with the Phoenix itself. It's like the Holy Trinity but this thime there's just two of the them combined as one yet the other is more powerful than the other

It denied her it's power during New X-Men when she needed it to save her and Logan and again in Endsong when it fought her.

But how is the Phoenix not Sentient??? It's took the form of Jean Grey and impersonated her, It talked to her when Maddie died. It talked to everyone during Endsong. The Retcon might be stupid but you can't ignore it.There is no evidence to suggest that they shared a mind prior to her becoming White Phoenix, only that (as Jean says in New X-Men) it was talking to her in her head and could threaten to take her over....

Again like i said I don't believe Jean Grey to have been the Phoenix throughout her entire existence,and there's no evidence to support the idea anymore...just speculation. We don't know why she is the White Phoenix, or what her connection to the phoenix is exactly because we've gotten too much information that contradicts itself. And the perfect point to that is that the White Hot Room is the After Life, The Center of Creation, The Heart of the Phoenix, The Freaking Mkraan Crystal, and a universal Nexus....now we can put together all we like from these names but they were ALL given by different sources without referencing each other so there is no straight answer.

X-men here comes tomorrow(grant morrison)book 8

Death told jean that if she didnt call it, it wouldnt have answered her. Also jean has tp and tk just like the phoenix has. She is meant to have the phoenix force and it passes down to her children.

Not denying that. But by the logic of "Jean is always Phoenix" then she wouldn't need to call it. They are separate entities with a strong connection, but not always the same goals or objectives. Plus Death's conversation with Jean doesnt make sense with the Retcon anyway..but pretending it does, the way things are phrased you could replace Jean with Rachel, Hope or Quire and it would be hard to tell if he meant she was special or that she was just another host.

All i'm saying is that she may be destined to become one with the phoenix, but she has to BECOME one with phoenix and that any type of power she shows without becoming one with it, is just a result of the connection that will one day allow her to become one with.

I wasn't denying her power during New Xmen, she said if it she let it get too close it would replace her, meaning she was keeping it at bay. All she had to do was let it get close and she could have saved herself and Logan. I'll have to read Endsong agin, but the way I remember Jean again was not trying to access it's powers anyway.

I said at it's core it is not sentient, in it's natural state when it is not bonded with mortals to give it sentience and the ability to feel. The reason negative emotions affect it badly is because they are not a natural part of the Phoenix.

This is Jean before the Xmen were formed, the Phoenix was already an aspect of Jean before the shuttle.

Jean in the White Phoenix because it is her unique gift to wield it, it is hers by right.

@lordofallhumans said:

I wasn't denying her power during New Xmen, she said if it she let it get too close it would replace her, meaning she was keeping it at bay. All she had to do was let it get close and she could have saved herself and Logan. I'll have to read Endsong agin, but the way I remember Jean again was not trying to access it's powers anyway.

I said at it's core it is not sentient, in it's natural state when it is not bonded with mortals to give it sentience and the ability to feel. The reason negative emotions affect it badly is because they are not a natural part of the Phoenix.

This is Jean before the Xmen were formed, the Phoenix was already an aspect of Jean before the shuttle.

Jean in the White Phoenix because it is her unique gift to wield it, it is hers by right.

Here's the New X-Men scan (which i've posted three too many times in one month)

To me it seems like she's confused about what she has to do to get the Phoenix and why it's not helping her.

Again my issue isn't with the evidence of Jean's connection with the Phoenix, it's with the fact that very little supports her connection being different from say Hope Summers who has several flare ups and manifestations of the Phoenix while it is still galaxy's away. Or from Rachel who even now forms Giant fire Raptors when mad. While there's room for interpretation that Jean Grey is the true other half of the Phoenix, we don't have anything that says that the Phoenix behaves differently with her then others....and the only thing that hasn't happened to Hope or Rachel is for them to die while being close to manifesting like Jean did when we saw the only instances of the Phoenix just coming out of nowhere and bonding with someone. And unless someone kills them we won't.

@lordofallhumans I don't think the phoenix is permanently bonded with jean. Like ya okay she is meant to be one with the phoenix but doesn't mean they are united at all times. We see the phoenix take on various people as hosts. And if the phoenix is always in jean, why is it that she's been smacked around a lot? She was totally and utterly powerless against stryfe and exodus. Sure she would have tapped into some of the phoenix's power in those situations if she could have

@koays: She's doesn't seem confused about how to get the Phoenix, when she explains the process that leads to it replacing her, and that is letting it get too close, as shown above the Phoenix exist as part of her on a deeper level, Rachel and Hope are not connected to the Phoenix as aspects of themselves. Deaths speech supports she is different than the other two. Hope was nothing but a means to an end IMO, her connection to the Phoenix for all intents and purposes is a thing of the past making her no different than the Phoenix 5 to me or at best a Rachel "clone". The Phoenix initially was only interested in Rachel and Maddie because of their similarities to Jean. The Phoenix only went to them because Jean rejected it when she saw what it had done as Dark Phoenix. So it went to the next best thing, Maddie, because genetically she was Jean Grey and Rachel was noticed because her psi sig was a near perfect match to Jeans. Rachel and Hope are children of the Phoenix, Jean was never it's child she was always said to be the Phoenix not a host or a child of it.

You are missing the point. The Phoenix and Jean are one and according to the scans posted the Phoenix has always existed as a part of her, but Jean can reject it's power. She rejected it after Dark Phoenix, she later in New Xmen keeps it from replacing her. It being able to take other host does not mean that Jean is still not bonded to it, since we have seen other hosts see an image of Jean when speaking to the Phoenix inside of them. Jean wanted nothing to do with the Phoenix because of the Dark Phoenix, why would she access it's powers to fight mutants when the price of that power comes with her losing herself and potentially becoming a greater threat?

@lordofallhumans: When Logan asks her why the Phoenix would let her die, she says maybe it's judging her and that all she knows is she still needs air to breathe. She doesn't know why the Phoenix isn't saving her.
I agree with their being a deeper connection with Jean. The thing is it's not always the case, she's been referred to as the original Host of the Phoenix many times. And Death directly contradicts himself when he says that "it came to you" after saying it "came from you". Honestly Hope Summers experience with the Phoenix seems almost identical to Jean's do to the deep connection seen since birth the manifestations and the overall behavior of the Phoenix before it's arrival. There's one instance at the end of Endsong where they say they are one and the same, there's really nothing that says they were always together before that....especially with the revelations that the Phoenix predates Jean Grey by millennia.

@lordofallhumans: Is it possible for us to gauge how powerful jean is without tapping into the PF? How would you rank her among other psionics if she is not tapping into it, since as you say, she can reject its power

@koays do you know the film "Single White Female" ? if you do, that is who hope summers is. a cheap copy-cat HAHA. sorry to hate on her, but i hate the essence of her existence. We already have a jean clone, maddie, we don't need another one. Rachel couldve have easily fulfilled the entire rebirth of the mutant race via the phoenix zzzzzzzzz

She was the second most powerful psi talent on Earth for years without tapping it's powers. Her only rival was Xavier so she is way up there

And then we find out that the Phoenix was not saving her because she was not letting it get close. She let her problems with Scott and the expansion of her powers get in the way of Phoenix work. She says in the same scan that if she lets it gets close it replaces her, meaning she was the reason it wasn't saving her.

Jean is mainly refereed to as the original Phoenix host by fans. Jean never actually hosted the Phoenix Force originally. He doesn't contradict himself, if came to her because she was separated from her, it came from her because she and it are one, like I said the Jean is the Phoenix, but the Phoenix is not always Jean Grey. It can be a firebird, it can be a force that simply is or it can be her. The nature of the white hot room explains why they are always together and separate and why even though it predates her, they are one. You are always waiting for yourself to arrive, meaning Jean can be Jean the Phoenix and Jean the mutant at the same time because she is waiting outside of space and time in the white hot room for herself to arrive there.

The confusion seems to be stemming from people trying to regulate the Phoenix simply to being power when it comes to Jeans relationship to it. Jean has a character history and mind of her own, knowing about Jean the woman means you can understand why she isn't always Phoenix powered, that does not mean she doesn't have access to it's power if she wants to access it. My scan proves that it has always been a part of her, your scan proves that it speaks to her and can replace her, if she allows it to. Hope and Rachel like everybody else had no real say the Phoenix wanted them and went after them, and eventually they were claimed by it. The Phoenix saw Rachel and took her, when Cyclops let it go, it took Hope. When it wants Jean and she doesn't want to be bothered with it she is not taken by it.

@lordofallhumans: Do you think she could beat the likes of exodus, stryfe, selene ? Also in regards to your reply to Koays, I personally think a better term would be "genuine" rather than original because that makes it seem like she was the first , which she isn't right? So ya genuine like shes the real deal, pretty close to "original" .just sharing :)

When Exodus proved to be a problem for Jean was when he has an audience to psi leech off of, so under normal conditions I don't think he can beat Jean, especially if Emma can keep him busy enough to only focus on telepathy during a battle. Stryfe had massive prep when he took on Jean and was later shown being blocked and taken out by Psylocke. Selene is not that powerful of telepath IMO so she shouldn't be a problem for Jean either. The Jean that can turn your thoughts to ash just by giving you a peek inside is her at her most powerful sans the Phoenix, and even Xavier was afraid to go in there.

@lordofallhumans: Ahh i see. As usual good arguments. Thanks for elaborating for me :)

Ok, so the proof for you theory would have to be a point in which Jean Grey says "Ok done being just Jean, now I'm Phoenix" and calls the full power. The proof for mine would be any instance where she specifically needs the Phoenix under control and it doesn't obey. The hole in your argument is the Phoenix manifestations by Rachel, Hope and X-Man when they were not joined with the Phoenix implying some deep but unexplained connection. The hole in mine being that Jean has a connection to the Phoenix that is unique in her roles.

The most control over Phoenix was shown by Rachel, be it because she is Jean's daughter, child of the phoenix, the one true phoenix or just another compatible host...we don't know...all we know is that she's had it longer and has controlled it more then even Jean has been showed too.

Hope Summers mirrored Jean Grey's childhood connection to the Phoenix and her ascension to White Phoenix in order to correct what was wrong.

The confusion i believe is from the idea of Jean Grey being destined to be the Phoenix. What we see may suggest that she will ascend to the White Hot Room, that she will have to do Phoenix work and that she will have to both embrace the Phoenix and let go of her attachments to do it; BUT we do not see anything that says definitively that she has her Phoenix powers at all times or that she is the only one with this level of connection to the phoenix. There's a clear line between the two entities that's being ignored here and that is where Jean Grey stops without becoming the Phoenix.

I can agree with your Jean is Phoenix assessment if it's referring to whatever there true connection is, I even support the two sides of a coin theory...but there's no evidence that she always has access to its power or the force itself. Period. We can go scan to scan but were both just speculating because it was never fully explained. Arguing the Phoenix is like putting together a 25 piece puzzle that has 27 pieces in the box, you have to leave out information for it to make sense.

exodus is dead lol so if rachel manages to do something to this guy that killed exodus then that is one big power boost

hope was white phoenix because that's the color she chose to have. she was not white phoenix of the crown. jean is the only white phoenix of the crown. according to rachel, the phoenix costume/color doesn't mean anything. dark phoenix was red because she had a better fashion sense. she said this when she returned from space, wearing the red phoenix costume(excalibur days)