I love Rachel-- Heck I love her more than Jean. But is it just me or do the writers only give her a voice for unimportant crap?
During AvX with the phoenix she should have had more of a key voice and role due the fact that she was phoenix host. IF ANYONE HAD THE MOST PHOENIX EXP-- Wouldn't it be her???
Moving on...
Jean comes back to the past and Rachel has very little to say to her... AAAALLLL these years you were ranting about how your mother is dead (616 Jean, not her own timeline!!) and now that she is here she has nothing really to say???
Now that Quire is possibly the next Phoenix host-- Rachel says Nothing....

Yet instead Rachel speaks up only to yell at students, telling Wolverine not to drink, and question Storm's authority.... Priorities, girl.. find them.

@poisonfleur: Well She said twice during AvX that she knew the Phoenix could be controlled....but her involvement pretty much went...--->

And in her defense.. she spent years crying about Jean, defending Jean, and Honoring Jean....and just when she starts moving past it someone decides to go back in time and bring her back....as a teenage girl even younger then her. I wouldn't have much to say either....except you know..."seriously guys?"


Calling out Storm was pretty cool while it lasted, but Quire and the Phoenix is just blatant character misuse as she is definitively connected to it and they chose to ignore it. She definitely drowned for the first couple of years under Aaron, and is pretty much useless in any book she's seen in that's not XX-Men. It's a hard life.

Yeah there's really no excuse for such incompetence. I think its fairly obvious that Marvel would like to get rid of her. She has no voice and is left out of every event. She's always lost out in space or some other nonsense. Leaving her out of the Phoenix stuff is ridiculously inexcusable. Im surprised she hasnt been killed off yet. No one seems to know how to or even wants to use her.

i'm not a Rachel fan. At All. But i agree that she is being blatantly misused. And the reason - Psylocke is INFINITELY more awesome. AND Teen Jean is here. She's treated as a nothing character - even on the XX-team. ((calling out Storm was ridiculous... if all she's going to do is "punch" why would she call out the person making the decisions on whom to punch?))

I like Rachel. It's so so sooooo sad she's isn't really used in most stories. As for for @koays' comment, picture says it all. It's one of the reasons why I dislike AvX so much, not the only one though...

@devilsgrin81: For a moment it looked to be a question of competence which was believable because of Storm's decisions through the run, and Rachel was pretty much directing traffic as much as Storm was at some points so the arc so it could've been a step up moment for her if she had kept at it....but it sort of lost meaning...

I think it's a combination of sexism and a general malaise about using existing characters in favor of relying on either old or newly characters. The current creators clearly have their favorites, and while they try to mix it up by including characters with smaller fanbases (Jubilee, Rachel, etc.), the senior writers just end up going to the characters that they are fans of, and that are the most popular.

The general approach always seems to miss the point:

Scenario 1:

Writer 1: "Rachel's codename was the Phoenix for a long time."

Writer 2: "Better change it to Marvel Girl or something so we can give that codename to someone else during an event involving the Phoenix."

Scenario 2:

Writer 1: "The Avengers and X-Men will be arguing about whether the Phoenix can be controlled."

Writer 2: "Better focus on Captain America, Wolverine, and Cyclops. Put Scarlet Witch and Hope in the background, but on many covers, too."

Writer 1: "But Rachel held the Phoenix for quite a while - she could be a leading figure in the event."

Writer 2: "What was that? Oh, yeah, let's give the Phoenix Force to five people who have never been hosts. That way we can talk about people who held the Phoenix."

Writer 1: "But Rachel already held the Phoenix! Why create new Phoenix hosts when we already have one to advise Hope and the others on it."

Writer 2: "What was that? Oh, Rachel? Hey, Artist 1, throw her in a fighting scene somewhere. Oh, and btw, Spider Man and Iron Fist will train Hope on how to wield the Phoenix."

Writer 1: "O_O.."

Artist 1: "You got it! Oh, wait, no room on this cover. I'm just going to give her two panels in this random title X-fans don't even read."

Writer 1: "You just wanted to make a fighting game, didn't you?"

Writer 2: "Wow, how did you guess?! Marvel vs. Capcom and X-Men v Street Fighter were my favorite games growing up!!!"

Artist 1: "Mines, too!"

Writer 1:

I don't think the treatment of Rachel has been THAT bad during the 2000 ' s since she was always treated as a powerful character with big story potential especially during and prior to going into space.

The real problem only started when Rogues X-men Legacy was canceled, and Aaron was the only one using her.....she became very directionless and pretty much just a faceless authority figure. And the portrayal carried over up until Wood...though she's still a bit of a tree in Amazing X-men.

Gugenheim is dedicating his first arc to picking up where she had her last major developments so I'm with it now.

marvel just made money out of the issue of avx. they wanted an excuse for the avengers to share some limelight with the x-men.

why would or should an avenger train an x-men in handling thenew phoenix host? duh, rachel was a host who handled it well. she even knew how not to use it even if she really needed it. avengers didnt even consult the host. what's even more irritating was x-men beast and wolverine were avengers too. they knew that rachel should have at least been consulted.

in avx her role was focused on her past a hound and not on being an ex host. there are times you just want to slap writers for not giving justice to your favorite characters. hahaha

Pretty typical for Rachel.

While I want to blame the writers for how they've written her, isn't it the editor's job to keep things in line and correct them? Sort of like an encyclopedia of knowledge.

Hey, yeah, what you have written is nice but we have a character on this side who has all this knowledge of what's going on, give me something concrete as to why she's not involved or something...

I am laughing so hard at all of this-- And I am glad you guys recognized this issue as well. There seems to be a LOT of illogical issues going on. IF I WHERE RACHEL and I saw young Jean go to Cyclops' team-- I would've followed in a heartbeat. ESPECIALLY after all those years of missing her & wanting to be her.

I agree she's been used pretty badly the last few years, but the current X-Men all girl series seems to be giving her an arc... I just hope the writer doesn't mess it up...

In AvX, her role should have been much bigger... Didn't she just lead the Avengers on a wild goose chase on Hope and that was just her major role...

A big problem with Marvel has been the overall lack of editorial control that seems to have been occurring in the last decade or so. There used to be a level of oversight that kept all the books in line back in the days when they still cited to previous issues that certain events occurred in. Now, with retcon after retcon, it seems like Marvel threw their hands up with keeping track of any of it. The result is tons of out-of-character moments, less overall coherence, and a lot more "mega events/cross overs" that end up getting forgotten in two or threat years.

Honestly i blame the writers as well.. i honestly believe they dont kno what to do with her.. if my memory serves me correctly. . I remember rachel workin at the hellfire club.. being a slave.. and crying about jean.. i didnt really read Excalibur like that.. so i never got a feel for her character besides being whiny and acting like a little brat.. but i will admit i did forget about why she wasn't involved more in the AvX.. but i guess it was for storyline..becuz it would've ended a lot sooner than the story that they created... i would assume she didnt run off to be with teenage jean..

A)becuz how weird is that??

B)teenage jean isnt her mother.. but the potential of the girl to be her mother

I mean how weird would it be to time travel to the past and see your mom as a teen..

She probably see jean more as a little sister than her mom..

I mean Emma feel threatened by the teenage jean.. so i know Rachel has to feel a certain way.. and it may be the real reason shes yelling at Storm... honestly i forgot that Rachel seems to be the only one who doesnt go crazy about hosting the Phoenix force.. but shes not force anymore becuz of scarlet witch?? Right?? Or does it not apply becuz she is from the future??

She was also the one sent to hunt them down when Cyclops outlawed them.

Yeah, that bothered me too.

Why? As confusing as her parental situation already is, it's just weird to see her chasing after a 16 year old who barely knows who she is let alone who some crazy 20 something with abandonment issues claiming to be her daughter is. I mean really there's not much i can see Rachel getting from teen Jean

@koays: Yeah, that's a good point, but I still don't understand why she stayed at the school.

Man i agree the writers just don't know what to do with her. Battle of the atom just made me wish she wasn't there anymore (worse enough what that arc did to kitty pryde).

Agreed...honestly she should've jumped ship after the first time the Uncanny Team came to recruit and everyone started jumping down Scott's throat. But i guess the JGS needed a telepath more then she needed character development.

As interesting as that sounds what purpose does she have going there to be honest?

The JGS should have reached out to Emma Frost then, she'd be a way better teacher than Rachel is.

Emma's currently a wanted fugitive though, wouldn't look good for the school to be harboring her....besides, no one there really likes her. Hank and Logan used to be friendly with her, but that was a while ago

@primebonnick: Well going there now is pretty pointless. She's better off where she is from a character and story perspective. But at the time Uncanny was in probably it's 3rd issue and still mostly dealing with AvX fallout. We didn't know what Scott's objective was, just that it was more active then before and that he'd go against the governemtn and the Marvel Universe that hates him to accomplish it. Had Rachel jumped ship at that time it would've shown that not everyone held grudges against him, while at the same time providing a voice on the team that didn't believe them responsible for their past actions, but didn't necessarily endorse what they were doing.

@squares- That's definitely more likely now then it was at any other time, now that the two factions are on speaking terms. But i think if anything being a teacher gave Rachel some cred at being a more then competent psychic. Though Emma is clearly the more qualified one.

@koays: interesting perspective i like that to be honest.

@koays: Emma is clearly the more competent psychic. The two have fought, and she came out the clear victor, which wouldn't be the case if Rachel were better trained because Emma clearly has less raw power.

@squares: No argument here. But comparing Rachel before she started to Rachel now and she seems to have become a lot more skilled. I seriosusly doubt if she's as skilled as Emma, but a lot more so then when she was first going against her and Emma literally had to stop to give her a lesson.

Rachel is a spy for cyclops at the school, i mean in AvX she contact cyclops that the avengers know hope split in five different directions. Thats my theory.

She also apparently knew where Cyclops was secretly based and didn't tell anyone according to the last issue.

oh cool

I absolutely LOVE this issue. That psi-spanking is one of my absolute favourite Emma issues.

@devilsgrin81: Yeah, it wasn't bad.

She downloaded all of Xaviers telepathic know how, the only thing she lacks is experience in using all she got from him, but there shouldn't be a telepathic trick/skill she doesn't know as far as Emma is concerned, being more powerful than her would also give Rachel the same potential Jean has at developing telepathic skills that Emma can't even imagine.

...and If we take a good look at the supposed Rachel vs Emma issue, They didn't really fight, they just threw issues at each other. It is clear and obvious that emma is more intelligent than her thats why she was able to play with Rachel's emotions. They didn't really throw Psychic energies or punches at each other. The true psychic battle was during BOTA when rachel fought xavier and xorn fought the cuckoos, jean and emma.

Emma's still got her own vast experiences and bag of tricks that i think Rachel doesnt have much in the way of because they are so different from Xavier's brand. And even after Rachel absorbed his skills Xavier was still giving her pointers so the experience is a huge factor between them. Plus Emma facing threats that are stronger then her at a much lower level of power gives her a perspective that someone with Rachel's immense power and range wouldn't even consider

The way we've seen psychic attacks displayed it seems like there are the kinds that are meant to cripple a person emotionally and those that are about over powering opponents minds. But it's rue, Idk if Rachel could beat Emma because she's very emotional compared to other psychics and that's an edge which Emma easily plays with.
Still Rachel is arguably the strongest psychic in terms of feat that' we've seen among the X-Men team.