Captain America for President !

This election cycle there has been a considerable amount of dissatisfaction with the choices for president. I suppose this is nothing new; we've griped about our choices before. Still, it would be nice to have an Ideal Candidate someday. But what would such an Ideal look like? I think it would have to be someone who represented our country and what is best about us; someone who looks like America.

Maybe even like Captain America.

In the early 1980s there was a “Draft Cap” movement chronicled in a story by Roger Stern and John Byrne and appearing in CAPTAIN AMERICA #250. “Cap For President!” begins with a group of terrorists seizing a political convention in downtown New York City. Captain America is on the scene and swiftly takes out the terrorists and frees the hostages.

The convention chairman, Samuel T. Underwood, a jolly fellow with a used-car-salesman manner and a smile almost as big as his cigar, enthusiastically thanks Cap and introduces him to the rest of his staff. His organization is called the New Popularist Party, a recent Third Party movement holding its first national convention. As Cap politely schmoozes with his admirers, one of the staff jokingly asks if he is considering running for office. Underwood seizes on the idea: “Sure, that would work ! It would work like a charm – a fifty million vote charm!”

At first, Cap laughs the suggestion off. After all, he's not a politician. “The people don't want a politician … they want a leader!” Underwood insists. “The people want a change, Cap … And you could be that change!”

Underwood's staff agrees. “Who could refuse to vote for Captain America?” “People wouldn't have to vote for the lesser of two evils – they'd actually have someone to vote FOR !”

Cap makes polite noises and promises to think about it; but he doesn't take the suggestion too seriously. Underwood, however, is not going to let the matter drop; and as soon as Cap has left the room he gets on the phone to leak a story to the Press that Captain America is considering a run for President. If Cap seems reluctant about running, then maybe Public Opinion will make him change his mind.

Cap spends much of that afternoon in his civilian identity as Steve Rogers, along with another friend helping his girlfriend, Bernie, move. After a couple hours of moving boxes and furniture, Steve and his pals are relaxing a bit and wind up talking about local races in the upcoming election. The conversation is fairly vague – I suspect the writer didn't really want to specify who Steve Roger's congressman was, or even his district – but before it gets terribly far, another friend breaks in with the big news: one of the local tabloids has reported that Captain America is running for President !

Steve is dismayed by this turn of events, and even more so that his friends seem to think it's a great idea. “You'd actually vote for a man who is basically anonymous … who wears a mask?” Steve asks. “Hey, better than voting for some crook who doesn't wear a mask!” Steve's girlfriend agrees: “Wouldn't it be great to have a president you knew you could trust?”

When Cap shows up at Avenger's Mansion the next day, he finds a mob of reporters outside the gate. Once inside, the Mansion's butler, Jarvis, hands him telegrams from both the Democratic and the Republican Parties asking him to consider running as their candidate. “Jarvis, has the whole world gone crazy? What next?!”

He had to ask. His teammate, Hank McCoy, the Beast, greets him with a song and dance. “I heard the good news, and I'm ready to hit the campaign trail ! I can guarantee that you’ll sweep the mutant vote! And then of course there are my lady friends ! Their votes alone should carry New York !”

It seems that everyone has an opinion. Iron Man asks if he's really serious about running. “You of all people should know better than to get mixed up in politics! You know the kind of red tape and corruption you'd be faced with!”

Wasp disagrees. “You're just the kind of man this country needs! People look up to you … respect you … trust you! When was the last time we had a president like that?”

The Vision addresses the issue in a coldly logical fashion. “The question is not one of respect, but of qualifications! You are a man out of time, Cap … 1940s solutions will not work for today's problems!”

As Cap ponders this conflicting advice, we get a series of one-panel vignettes showing the opinions of people on the street: the old guy who remembers Cap from the War Years; the black professional who wonders where Cap stands on the issues of minority rights, housing and education; the punk kid who thinks that Captain America is a hoax invented by the C.I.A. We get reactions from other super-heroes in the Greater New York Metro Area: Nick Fury, who worked with Cap during the War; Daredevil, Spider-Man, even Doctor Strange.

A full page is devoted to the offices of the Daily Bugle, where publisher J. Jonah Jameson discusses Cap's presidential run with his friend, City Editor “Robbie” Robeson. “Cap's a good man...” Jonah muses, “But you remember what happened when movie stars started running for office? It was like a flood gate! It seemed like they were all running for something. If Cap should run, Lord knows who else would! I can see it now … Iron Man for Governor … Mr. Fantastic for Senator!”

“Or even Spider-Man for Mayor?” Robbie teases.

That decides it. The Bugle will not be endorsing Cap.

As evening falls, Cap goes out patrolling the rooftops of the Lower East Side, trying to think through his situation. He comes across an old abandoned school, which has somehow avoided the wrecking ball, that he recognizes as the school he went to as a boy, back during the Great Depression. As he walks through the empty, dusty classroom, he recalls a teacher he had, Mrs. Crosley, who had tried to instill a sense of civic responsibility in her students.

“The United States offers its citizens more rights than any other nation in the world!” he remembers her saying. “But along with those rights come certain duties as well! It's the duty of each one of you to see that this land stays free … to see that Justice is extended to all!”

As he reminisces about Mrs. Crosley's Civics class, his course of action becomes clear to him. He will call Underwood. He has a speech to make.

A couple hours later, he is back at the convention center, standing at a podium in front of a gigantic poster of himself and addressing an enthusiastic crowd. He speaks of the decision he has been asked to make and of what that decision means:

“The presidency is one of the most important jobs in the world. The holder of that job must represent the best interests of the entire nation. He must be ready to negotiate – to compromise – 24 hours a day, to preserve the Republic at all costs!”

Against that responsibility, he sets his personal mission:

“I have worked and fought all my life for the growth and advancement of the American Dream. And I believe that my duty to the Dream would severely limit any abilities I might have to preserve the reality.”

I'm not sure if I buy Cap's rhetoric here. I think he could make a much better argument for refusing the call to run for office. But in the end, he decides that his mission as Captain America was important, and that he could not remain faithful to that mission and at the same time conscientiously fulfill the duties of President. If Captain America is going to represent America, he needs to remain above politics.

But although Cap pretty decisively rejects the idea of running for office, other writers have played with the idea. An issue of WHAT IF tells a story about what might have happened if Cap had taken up the New Populist Party's offer. It ends tragically, as the alternate histories in WHAT IF generally do. In Ben Dunn's manga-style re-imagining of the Marvel Universe, MARVEL MANGAVERSE, Steve Rogers is President and also leads the Avengers in his secret identity as Captain America. And in the universe of the MARVEL ULTIMATES titles, Captain America did run for President and won. Which is unfortunate, because Ultimate Captain America is something of a jerk.

But in this universe, Cap rejects the call to throw his hood into the ring. The convention-goers are disappointed and the final image of the comic is a discarded “Captain America for President” sign lying on the floor, as Cap walks past.

The rest is history. The N.P.P. Presumably went with John Anderson for their candidate. Ronald Reagan won in a landslide, confirming Jonah Jameson's worries about actors in politics.

More recently, Marvel had Steve Rogers step down as Captain America as his advanced age began to catch up with him. He passed on his mantle and his shield to his friend and long-time partner, Sam Wilson, the Falcon. And in the first issue of the new Captain America, Sam challenged Steve's stance on staying above politics:

In all these struggles, all these debates, and all these things tearing us apart -- I have a side. That's right. I have opinions. Strongly held beliefs, even. And here's the thing -- the more I saw the people I believed I was standing up for being walked on -- the more I heard a noise machine spouting intolerance and fear, drowning common sense out -- the more I wondered -- shouldn't Captain America be more than just a symbol? 

Steve always tried to stay above the fray, and I respected him for it. He took a stand when he had to, but as far as politics went -- he played it close to the vest. But if I really believed I could make a difference -- if I really believed I could change some minds, do some good -- then wasn't I obligated to try?

Perhaps if Marvel re-visited Cap for President today, he might make a different decision. But the original Stern & Byrne tale from 1980 is still an interesting read and touches on questions of why elections are important and what it means to run for public office that we don't often see in comics.

Zod Is Dead

A lot of fans like to gripe about the recent depictions of Superman in the movies. I know I do, and I haven't even seen them. Which in a rational universe would preclude me from having an opinion on the subject, but this is the Internet. One of the biggest gripes is how the Cinematic Superman is now a murderer. He defeats General Zod, the Kryptonian criminal escaped from the Phantom Zone, by killing him.

In Superman's defense, he did this as a last resort to save the lives of millions. And it's not like there hasn't been any precedent. Supeman has also killed in the comics. Not often, it's true, and always with a goodly amount of controversy, but he has on occasion done it. He's even had justification sometimes.

Let me tell you about the first time Superman killed Zod.

I suppose we'd better start with the Crisis. In the mid-'80s, DC Comics published CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, a ground-breaking, and reality-breaking maxi-series, the very first Company-Wide Crossover Event. Its purpose was no less than to re-structure the entire DC Universe, condensing the myriad alternate earths into a single, more manageable one. That was the plan, anyway. As the slogan said, “Earths will live; Earths will die; And the DC Universe will never be the same!”

Since they were re-organizing everything anyway, they decided to do the same to a couple of its most iconic character, stripping away decades of accumulated backstory and getting down to the essentials. To do this for Superman, DC scored a coup comparable to Jack Kirby's defection from Marvel a decade earlier. To redefine the biggest star in the DCU, they hired one of the biggest stars at that time at Marvel, John Byrne.

Byrne was probably most famous for his artwork on the All-New, All-Different X-MEN with writer Chris Claremont. He had gone on to draw and write other titles for Marvel, including ALPHA FLIGHT, which he created, AVENGERS, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and a well-regarded run on FANTASTIC FOUR. And I think he came from Marvel with a certain amount of snobbishness. A lot of Marvel fans had the opinion that DC comics were stodgy and unrealistic, while Marvel comics were more believable. Comparatively speaking, at least.

They had a point. During the era when Mort Weisinger edited the SUPERMAN comics, the character had accumulated what could be charitably called a Rich Mythology; (and less-charitably as a Lot of Goofy Stuff): Krypto the Superdog, the Bottle City of Kandor, Red Kryptonite and the broad spectrum of other colors, Clark's Mermaid Girlfriend Lori Lemaris.

Byrne had a mandate from DC to dich all the Weisinger Era stuff and rebuild the Man of Steel from the ground up; starting with a six-issue limited series titled, naturally enough, MAN OF STEEL, which retold Superman's origin and established key pints of his early career: the Destruction of Krypton, his adoption by the Kents; his first encounters with Lois Lane, with Batman, and of course, with Lex Luthor.

He made several changes. Some were trivial: Superman's cape was no longer indestructible. Some were beneficial: Ma and Pa Kent were still alive and able to give him advice from time to time and help keep him grounded. Some were significant: the Planet Krypton was altered from a world of scientific wonders to a cold, sterile dystopia; and Lex Luthor was changed from a criminal scientist to a corrupt zillionaire industrialist. And two of the changes caused severe complication further down the line.

For one thing, it was decreed that in the Post-Crisis Univers, Superman would be the sole survivor of the destruction of Krypton. No more Phantom Zone Criminals; no more Bottle City of Kandor; no more Krypto; and no more Kara Zor-El, better known as Supergirl. This last made a little narrative sense, because Supergirl had been killed during the Crisis, so there was some justification for saying that she had been retroactively deleted from existence. It was still a disappointment for fans of heroines in mini-skirts, though.

The other change seemed more trivial but had far from trivial repercussions. Back during the Silver Age, DC had expanded the Super-Franchise with SUPERBOY, the adventures of Superman, when he was a boy. With the Byrne reboot, it was decided that Post-Crisis, Clark Kent did not don the Big Red “S” costume and begin a public career as a super-hero until he was an adult. Superboy and all his wacky teen super-exploits in Smallville, were chucked down the memory hole, along with Supergirl, Krypto and the Legion of Super-Pets.

Ah, the Legion. There was the rub.

The Legion of Super-Heroes, a team of super-powered teens from the 30^th Century, first appeared in a Superboy story in ADVENTURE COMICS. They had been inspired by the example of the Boy of Steel's legend, and so traveled back to the 20^th Century to invite young Clark to join their super-club. Superboy became an integral part of Legion history; but with Superboy gone, where did that leave the Legion?

The explanation the writers came up with involved an old Legion villain called the Time Trapper who lived at the End of the Universe. Not the geographic end; the chronological end. It turns out the the Trapper had created a Pocket Universe, similar to our universe in many respects, except that it only contains two inhabited planets: Earth and Krypton. Oh, and the pocket universe has a Superboy. And it turns out that every time the Legion traveled back in time to visit the 20^th Century, the Time Trapper was shunting them off into this pocket dimension. Why? He lives at the End of Time, a place almost as boring as Des Moines. He has to do something for amusement.

Superman finds out about the Pocket Universe when that world's Superboy crosses over to his world (along with Krypto!) and appears in Smallville. After some initial confusion, (including a panel which rivals anything in the Weisinger Era for goofiness, in which Krypto tries to stop Superman by pulling on his cape. Superman comments on how odd it is that the flying dog seems surprised that his cape ripped), the Time Trapper's role in this is revealed, and Superboy is returned to the Pocket Universe.

This explanation for the continued existence of Superboy was ingenious, but inelegant. The whole point of the Crisis was to do away with all those extraneous universes. Superboy's Earth was a loose end; and calling it a “Pocket Universe” did not make it any neater.

I don't know if John Byrne received an editorial mandate to eliminate the Pocket Universe, or if he decided to do it on his own initiative; but within a year of the Superboy cross-over, he began a multi-part storyline to ensure that Superman was once again the Last Son of Krypton – any Krypton.

It begins with the appearance of a mysterious new Supergirl. She is not from Krypton, nor from the other Krypton either. Her name is Matrix and she is an artificial life-form created by the Lex Luthor of the Pocket Universe. In her natural state, Matrix looks like an anthropomorphic wad of bubble gum, but she is a shape-shifter and at first appears in the form of Lana Lang, Clark Kent's high school crush, because John Byrne has a thing for redheads.

Matrix has been sent to this world because the Pocket Universe needs Superman's help. Her Earth has been attacked by the three Phantom Zone Criminals led by General Zod and all but conquered.

A quick digression about the Phantom Zone. As old-timers who remember the Christopher Reeves SUPERMAN will recall, the Phantom Zone is an other-dimensional limbo where the Kryptonians used to exile their worst criminals. Superman's father, Jor-El, devised a means of sending criminals to the Phantom Zone as a humane alternative to execution. The idea was that the Kryptonian parole board would periodically check in on the Zone to release those who had served their sentence. Then Krypton blew up. Oops. No parole for you, Zod.

In the Pocket Universe, Zod and some of his followers have escaped from the Phantom Zone and have laid waste to the Earth. By the time Superman gets there, they have wiped out all life on the planet, except for a small enclave built by Luthor, who is a good guy in the Pocket Universe. Superman is just in time to participate in their desperate last stand.

And it is their last stand. In that final battle, pretty much everybody dies: Luthor, Superboy, the works. Zod and his cohorts are defeated, but apart from Matrix, who is badly wounded, only Superman survives on the good guy's side.

And here is where it comes. Zod is captured, at Superman's mercy. Zod has just killed the entire population of the Pocket Universe's Earth; (which, since Krypton has already blown up, is the entire population of the Pocket Universe). It falls to Superman to decide what to do with these criminals.

He goes into Luthor's lab and gets out the kryptonite.

It had been previously established that the kryptonite of the Pocket Universe did not affect Superman any, but it would affect Kryptonians of that universe. Superman takes the kryptonite out of its lead container and exposes Zod and his companions to it until the radiation from the kryptonite kills them. The last survivors of the Pocket Universe are dead.

And Superman broke his most sacred oath; to protect life and to never kill.

But surely, could he be blamed? These criminals had just killed an entire planet full of people; billions of them. Surely they deserved death. You could even make the argument that the relatively quick, if excruciating, death by kryptonite poisoning Superman gave them was more merciful than they deserved. But did Superman have to do it that way?

He could have just banished them to the Phantom Zone again, like Jor-El did years ago. It's not like there was anybody in the Pocket Universe who could bring them back anymore. They would spend the rest of eternity in a dimensional limbo as bodiless phantoms.

Perhaps crueler still, Superman could have just walked away. He could have just gone back to his home universe and left Zod to be emperor of a ruined, lifeless planet. Of course, Superman would want to make sure that Zod couldn't use Luthor's technology to follow him back to Earth, but that wouldn't be all that hard. Or so you would think.

No, comic book narrative logic insists that Zod would find a way out of the Pocket Universe eventually, just as soon as some other writer wanted to use him. Which is why he had to die. The whole point of the story was to get rid of the Pocket Universe, and eliminate all those pesky loose ends.

Byrne could have had Zod killed by a twist of fate; by an act of hubris that proved fatal. He could have had Superman kill him in the heat of battle, as Superman later did with Doomsday. Instead, he chose to have Superman execute Zod, with cold-blooded deliberation. I think that's what stuck in the craw of many fans. I know it bugged me.

And then Byrne left and went back to Marvel. The issue in which Superman kills Zod was the last one John Byrne wrote on his run of SUPERMAN; his farewell to the Last Son of Krypton. Later on he did other stories for DC, such as a decent WONDER WOMAN run during the '90s, and the Green Lantern graphic novel GANTHET'S TALE, written by Larry Niven; but his re-defining of the Post-Crisis Superman, and the bitter ending to his reign, marks a significant era in Superman history.

Afterwards, the Legion of Super-Heroes dealt with the Time Trapper, which wound up retroactively messing up their history further.

One character from the Pocket Universe survived: Matrix, who now formally adopted the identity of Supergirl, because DC has to keep the trademark active so that they can continue to license Supergirl Underoos; and who adopted the Supergirl look and hair color the fans knew and loved, because parents aren't going to buy their daughters Lana Lang Underoos. Supergirl dated Lex Luthor Jr. for a while, until she learned that he was actually Lex Luthor Sr. in a cloned body. Gross. Then she merged with an angel, (which was not as doofy as that sounds) and after a while faded away to be replaced by a more traditional version of Supergirl in a later DC re-boot.

And what about Super-Judge, Jury and Executioner? The writing team that replaced Byrne had Clark grapple with an enormous amount of guilt after killing Zod. He killed one dangerous enemy. What would he do the next time he was in such a situation? Would it become the easy way out? Troubled by his conscience, Clark began unconsciously fighting crime in his sleep, taking on the identity of a non-powered street-level hero because he was afraid of misusing his powers. Finally, worrying that he might become a danger to the public, he left Earth for a time, wandering space in a self-imposed penance. It was a while before he regained his equilibrium.

I guess at heart I'm a bit like Jim Kirk. I've never liked the Kobiyashi Maru, the “No-Win” situation, ever since the time in a college writing class we were given such a situation to write about. (I came up with a third option which the instructor hadn't given us; I had the option fail because under the premise we were given it couldn't work, but by Crumb I insisted on making a third option).

I can understand a writer wanting to challenge his hero by putting him in a situation where he has to make hard choices that test his ethical principles. And you can argue that allowing the hero to come up with an escape that lets him out of those choices is contrived and unrealistic. But it seems to me that the situations some writers come up with to force heroes like Superman into these choices is just as contrived.

And that's how I felt about the First Death of Zod.

The Fate of the Carrot People

It is a truism among comics fans that comic book deaths are rarely permanent. “If you don't see the body, he's not really dead” is the usual rule of thumb. Fans used to say that the only characters you could be really sure were permanently dead were Bucky and Uncle Ben Parker, and even Bucky wound up coming back.

Which isn't to say that there haven't been dramatic and truly moving deaths in the comics. There have; and sometimes, as in the case of Supergirl and the Flash in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, the Companies wait a decent interval before undoing them. For X-MEN fans during the Claremont/Byrne Era, one of the most momentous deaths would have to be that of Jean Grey, in the Dark Phoenix Saga. That particular storyline was notable for introducing Kitty Pryde, the Wesley Crusher of the Mutant set; as well as the scantily-clad White Queen, Emma Frost, who is on the side of the good guys these days. It also introduced Dazzler, created to capitalize on the disco craze, who once again demonstrated that when a comic book jumps on a fad, the fad is on the way out. But more significant than any of these was the death of Jean Grey, whose fate was sealed by the doom which befell the Carrot People.

As Marvel Girl, Jean Grey was one of the founding members of the X-Men. She possessed the same powers as Professor Xavier, telepathy and telekinesis, but at a lower level; and like Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four, her characterization tended to be subdued, and she often seemed to fall back into the role of The Chick in the X-Men's Five-Man-Band. By the late '70s, the team had broken up and gone in separate directions, but a new team, the “All-New, All-Different” X-Men, had been formed under the leadership of Scott “Cyclops” Summers and Jean. This was the era which saw the introduction of such characters as Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and everybody's favorite Canadian mutant, Wolverine.

On a mission into space, the X-Men had encountered a strange source of cosmic energy called the Phoenix Force. Jean became imbued with (or possessed by, depending on your point of view) the energy of the Phoenix, making her dang near omnipotent. Using this power, she was able to save the Universe from destruction; but because it was too vast to be handled responsibly by a mortal human, she blocked off the better part of the Phoenix Force behind a series of firewalls in her mind. She had it under control.

Or so she thought.

Some time later, Jean begins to have these strange experiences, like waking dreams. She thinks of them as “timeslips”. She seems to be living the life of an ancestor of hers in the 18^th Century and affianced to a dashing gentleman rogue named Jason Wyngarde, who introduces her into an exciting world of tight corsets and Regency-Era depravity. Is she actually traveling back in time? Or is she mentally experiencing a past life? Or has she simply been reading too many historical romances?

None of the above. Wyngarde is actually a villain named Mastermind who is trying to corrupt Jean by undermining her grip on reality and cultivating the Dark Side of her psyche, so as to unlock her Phoenix powers. As “Jason”, he introduces her to the decadent Hellfire Club, where she is welcomed as its Black Queen.

There were a number of historical “Hellfire Clubs” in England in the 18^th and early 19^th Centuries; gentlemen's clubs for hedonistic young aristocrats where they could flout conventional mores and indulge in socially-disparaged immoralities. Writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne based their version in part on these historical clubs, but also on an episode of the TV series THE AVENGERS (the one with Patrick Macnee, not the one with Tony Stark), which featured a latter-day Hellfire Club in which the men dressed as Regency rakes in tight breeches and ruffled shirts and the women dressed in kinky Edwardian Era lingerie. Yes, I know; the Prince Regent lived a century earlier than King Edward, but these are rake-hells, and respect neither the laws of God, nor of Men, nor of Historical Accuracy. Besides, Diana Rigg in sexy undergarments; need I say more?

Like the club depicted in the TV series, Claremont and Byrne's Hellfire Club is ostensibly a social club for wealthy businessmen, but has an Inner Circle bent on world domination. Which is why they've had Mastermind recruit Jean Grey into their number, thinking he can control her and her Phoenix Force.

And it sort of works. He does unlock her Phoenix powers, and he does lure her over to the Dark Side; she is now an omnipotent god-being, free of all moral and ethical restraints. But she's also free of Mastermind's control, and she returns the favor by blasting his mind into tapioca. She declares that she is now DARK PHOENIX !!!! (“Bwa-hah-ha!”) and flies off into space.

Y'see, that's the problem with Cosmic Powers. Not only do they give you delusions of godhood and make you regard your former teammates as ants beneath your go-go boots; but it makes you cosmically hungry. Just ask Galactus. Jean's apotheosis has left her with a case of the munchies that only an exploding sun can satisfy.

She flies off to a distant star and destroys it, causing it to go nova and obliterating all the planets orbiting it. And here comes the significant part.

In drawing this sequence, John Byrne included a panel showing the terrified natives of one of these planets cowering before the blinding flash which once was their sun and now has consumed the entire sky. Byrne later called these aliens “the Carrot People”, and although their presence had not been specified in the page breakdowns, Claremont ran with it, playing their fate for all the pathos he could manage:

“Many who see this light – the last thing they will ever see – are confused, frightened. A very few – who realize at once what has happened – have time to curse cruel fate or make their peace with their god. Then, they all die 

Following that light – at a comparative snail's pace – comes the HEAT FLARE. The instant it hits, the atmosphere and oceans on the dayside boil away. The steam and superheated air wirling around the globe in a flaming shock-wave that obliterates all in its path. 

Those few awake on the nightside are treated to a SPECTACULAR, once in a lifetime AURORA BOREALIS, before death claims them.
But half the world dies in its sleep. They are the LUCKY ones.”

Remember this sequence.

The Dark Phoenix returns to earth. Or is it Jean? Without thinking, she goes to the home of her parents. In their minds she can read love and concern and a desire to help her; but underneath it all she can read the fear the have of her. She lashes out at them, and against her teammates, who show up trying to help, and even against Scott, her beloved. The X-Men are no match for her Phoenix powers. Ultimately, it all comes down to a brain-wrestling match between her and Professor X, one which the Professor only wins because a part of Jean recoils from all this Dark Stuff and wants the Phoenix contained. Once again, the Phoenix is back in its bottle. For now. But now it's too late.

At this point, the Shi'ar show up; an alien imperial race whom the X-Men have met previously; (and whose Empress is sweet on Xavier). While Dark Phoenix was out on her munchie run earlier, she had encountered and obliterated a Shi'ar battleship. The Empress had known about Jean and the Phoenix Force, because she had been in the middle of the first Phoenix Saga; but at the time it looked like Jean had the Phoenix under control. Now the power of the Phoenix is most definitely out of control, and the Empress feels that something must be done.

The Shi'ar Empress agrees to a trial by combat, in which Jean's friends fight against the Shi'ar Imperial Guard for her life. (The Imperial Guard had been designed by Dave Cockrum, the artist who drew X-MEN prior to John Byrne and who had designed the look of most of the newer team members; he had also designed several characters from DC's LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, and the Imperial Guardsmen were pastiches of the LSH members) Although fighting valiantly, the X-men are defeated, one by one.

At this point, Claremont and Byrne's original plan was that the Shi'ar would use a techno-gadget which would exorcise the Phoenix force from Jean and she would be restored to how she was before. But Marvel's then Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter objected. By exterminating the Carrot People, Jean had committed an unspeakable act of genocide which could not simply be brushed away by a simple plot device. She had Crossed the Moral Event Horizon. And she had to pay the price. As Shooter later said:

“I personally think, and I've said this many times, that having a character destroy and inhabited world with billions of people, wipe out a starship and then – well, you know, having the powers removed and being let go on Earth. It seems to me that that's the same as capturing Hitler alive and letting him go live on Long Island. Now, I don't think the story would end there. I think a lot of people would come to his door with machine guns.”

The crux of the issue was the matter of responsibility: were the crimes committed by the Dark Phoenix the fault of the Phoenix Force possessing Jean, or was it her own darker, suppressed impulses? There are lines in the comic to support both views. Mastermind's whole bodice-ripper fantasy was intended to exercise Jean's repressed desires, after all; and in a number of places, Jean confesses to Scott that a part of her revels in the destructive nature of the Phoenix and embraces it. Claremont felt the situation was more akin to demonic possession, and that Jean wasn't really responsible for what the Phoenix did. Shooter felt otherwise.

Under Shooter's edict, Claremont and Byrne re-tooled their ending. Jean comes to realize that the Phoenix Force cannot be controlled. “So long as I live, the Phoenix will manifest itself through me. And so long as that happens, I'll eventually, inevitably become DARK PHOENIX.” She's not begging her friends to kill her; they've tried, and have been unable to bring themselves to do it. So she deliberately sacrifices her life so that the Phoenix Force will return to the cosmic void where it belongs.

Uatu the Watcher, whose home on the far side of the Moon happens to be next to where the final battle took place, delivers Jean's eulogy: “Jean Grey could have lived to become a god. But it was more important to her that she die … a HUMAN.”