> > Some notes on the movie...If you are at this message, you should be aware of possible spoilers.
> >
> > -How come no mention of Jean Grey as Phoenix? Does that occur later?
> >
>
> Jean Grey has borne the monikers "Phoenix" and "Marvel Girl" at various times; writers in the comic series can't seem to make up their minds about it. Her daughter Rachel took on the name "Phoenix" at one point, but I'm not sure whether she's still using the Phoenix name or not. I'm content to just say "Jean Grey" and have done with it.

Phoenix story in a nutshell: about to die from crashing a spaceship, Jean Grey called out for help and got it from this intergalactic entity known as Phoenix. It put her in a cocoon deep underwater, and took her likeness (it wanted to live as a human) and part of her personality. Jean's personality was so strong that it overrode the Phoenix and Phoenix thought that it was actually her. After a while, the incredible power that the Phoenix posessed started driving it insane, and it went off the deep end and absorbed a star to strengthen itself, killing all the people in the planet that orbited the star. This is about the point where it becomes known as "Dark Phoenix". Blah blah blah, it gets put on trial by some alien dudes who aren't happy and demand it is killed, the X-Men try to save it, but eventually the good part of the personality regains control and kill itself. Of course, nobody (including readers of the comics) knew at this point that it wasn't *really* Jean Grey.

Eventually somebody (the Fantastic Four, I think) find Jean Grey's cocoon and break it open and she's back. There's a lot of stuff in between this, including a clone of her named Madylene Prior who is the mother of Cable. But that's it, basically.

>
> I *did* wish that her powers had been somewhat more developed in the movie. In the comics, she's one of the baddest "muties" of them all. You can bet that if *I* had telekinesis, I'd do all kinds of basic common-sense stuff like lifting Sabretooth and Mystique off the ground where they could get no leverage to launch an attack at anyone.

Even if you had just the tiniest amount of TK you could be pretty lethal. There's a series called "Rising Stars" right now which is basically J. Michael Straczynski's (yeah, everyone's favorite Babylon 5 creator) own personal X-Men. In it there's a TK who can only lift very tiny objects, who goes to work for the government as an assasin. The reasoning? Hey, how big is, say, the carrotid artery?


> Sabretooth in the movie was rather a disappointment to me. He ought to be *far* more cunning, agile and capable of independent thought. Instead, he came off like a moronic barbarian warrior from a B-grade sword-&-sorcery flick. And I don't recall him ever working for Magneto, either.

I agree. He was totally moronic. Every thing he tried to do he failed at, and he seemed slow and stupid. Too bad.

>
> > -Obviously Mystique lives, but do you think Sabretooth and Toad survive?
> >
>
> Sure they do. Mystique was an interesting character in the film, but she seemed far less human than she does in the comic series. Also, if I remember rightly, she turns out to be
Rogue's mother in the comics.

Mystique is Rogue's surrogate mother. This is back when Rogue was a villain. The movie neglected that entire phase of the character...

Ste "Feeling way too fanboyish... where the heck did Speedball go?" phen