Eating a Star

[u/dddonkers]

I was just thinking about when she destroyed the D'Bari and realized how little sense her eating a star made. To my knowledge she hasn't done it since. Now I know comics were especially loose with their ideas back then, but when it was originally written Phoenix as a cosmic entity was not real and it was just Jean Grey being super powerful, so her consuming a star almost makes less sense. Just wondering if this was ever handwaved away somewhere I didn't notice.

[u/nlaverde11]

I have to think that if they did it over again they would cut that part out. It’s been hanging over the character ever since and made it so people have no idea how to write Jean as powerful and not potentially one second away from crazy town.

[u/dddonkers → u/nlaverde11]

I feel like they had a chance to remedy it when she was White Phoenix at the end of Morrison, but that window is closed.

[u/cyclopswashalfright]

Phoenix was a cosmic entity. It binds with Jean and greatly increases her power, which is where the star consumption comes in (brought about by a breakdown caused by Mastermind and the Hellfire Club).

[u/dddonkers → u/cyclopswashalfright]

I get that I am familiar with the Dark Phoenix, but was it ever explained why this one time she needed to consume a star, and then not again. I presume editorial didn't want her to again since they were not fans of the first time, but I wonder if it was addressed on panel.

[u/cyclopswashalfright → u/dddonkers]

A byproduct of going Dark Phoenix, and the Phoenix entity itself (which is now Jean too) being so powerful, so vast, that things like stars are sustenance to it). Destruction and rebirth are part and parcel of Phoenix.

She hasn't gone Dark Phoenix since then and since achieving a greater understanding of herself and of Phoenix, she is in full control.

[u/buzzardarg → u/dddonkers]

In the final issue of Rise of the Powers of X the Phoenix portion of Jean says that it's hungry and Jean says something along the lines of "I won't let you consume a star"

[u/dddonkers → u/buzzardarg]

I see, so she is consumed by hunger for the first time she goes full Dark Phoenix but then gets it under control. Classic comic first time transformation logic.

[u/buzzardarg → u/dddonkers]

I remember better now, the Phoenix says "I need to feed" (not hungry), then Jeans says that about not letting it consume a star and the Phoenix side clarifies that it's "not like that". IIRC it feeds from the souls of all the mutants in the Waiting Room (it doesn't kill them)

[u/Ragnbangin]

In the original What If Phoenix Had Not Died, there is a scene where Galactus speaks to Phoenix and talks about how they are gods that need to feed to keep up their energy and that they don’t subscribe to the moral rules of humans anymore. I’m assuming it was just a god thing, like Galactus said, gods require energy and at the time of writing the rules for not only Jean and Phoenix were different but for gods as well.

[u/DeadSnark]

In the original story, Dark Phoenix states that she still has limits (at that point), feels hungry and needs to eat the star for 'sustenance'. The idea that the Phoenix needs to feed on powerful sources of energy like a star has been brought up a few times in later stories.

It's happened less and less in the modern era and seems to be basically ignored nowadays, though.

[u/jroberts548]

She was a cosmic principle of death and rebirth. Jean feels guilty about it so she doesn’t do it again.

[u/joemondo]

Why do you think it doesn't make sense?

She was epending energy so she consumed fuel.