X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong

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X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong

Cover to X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong #1. Art by Marc Silvestri.

Publisher	Marvel Comics
Format	Limited series
Publication dates	September 2006 – January 2007
Number of issues	5
Main character(s)	X-Men, Phoenix Force, Stepford Cuckoos

Creative team
Writer(s)	Greg Pak
Penciller(s)	Tyler Kirkham

X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong is a five-issue comic book limited series released in 2006, beginning in September. The series is a sequel to X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong. It is written by Greg Pak and illustrated by Tyler Kirkham.

In an interview, Author Greg Pak said "This is not a Jean Grey resurrection story."^[1] Depending on how the story proceeds and fan response, a third final story may follow.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Storyline

The story revolves around the Stepford Cuckoos and includes the team from Astonishing X-Men.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the first issue, the Phoenix Force attaches itself to the three remaining Stepford Cuckoos, amplifies their telepathic power, and gives them the power of telekinesis. With their newfound abilities, the girls overcome Emma Frost's psychic detention and resurrect their deceased sisters Esme and Sophie. Kid Omega also wakes, once again, from his stasis in Beast's lab.

In the second issue, several revelations come to the forefront: both for the audience, as well as the Cuckoos themselves. It is shown that the girls' bones are actually composed of or bonded to a yet-to-be disclosed metal. We also learn that they have the ability to mentally communicate with each other in binary language, at a rate far too rapid for other telepaths to decipher. Emma goes on to discover that the girls had placed all of the X-Men, including its most powerful telepaths, into a looping psionic memory-block which would disable their linear thought process whenever they began to question the Cuckoos' origin. And finally, the episode concludes with the Three-In-One's discovery that they're only three of over a thousand identical female units-- the remainder residing in individual incubation chambers hidden within an underground laboratory. The two deceased Cuckoos, now undead but still decayed, seem more aware of the unfolding events than do the Three-In-One; though how this is so has yet to be revealed.

Cover to Phoenix: Warsong #3, by Marc Silvestri.

In the third issue, it was revealed that Emma's ova were the genetic templates used to clone the thousands of identical telepaths; including the Five-In-One. They were harvested from her by John Sublime, at some point during her coma following the death of the original Hellions. The clones begin to refer to Frost as "mother", a title which she later accepts. It was also shown that Celeste now wields the Phoenix Force.

The fourth issue reveals the Cuckoo's original purpose. It is shown that the cloned sisters serve as telepathic antannae, their sheer number granting them projection and reception capabilities at a global range. The Three-In-One were to be linked with three egg-like compartments of the machinery which binds the clones, acting as its focal point. With all three Cuckoos focusing the combined power of their thousand-fold sisters, they would have the ability to obliterate any number of mental signatures that they chose-- in essence, giving them the ability to simultaneously eliminate all of mutantkind, worldwide, by simply concentrating on mutants' unique mental wavelengths. Many may notice the similarity between this plotline and that outlined by the 2nd X-Men movie X2: X-Men United; though here, the Three-In-One replace Professor X and their myriad of cloned sisters replace the duplicated Cerebro.

The fourth installment goes on to reveal that the Celeste/Phoenix combination has manifested for the purpose of destroying the Cuckoo clones; the entity wasting no time in incinerating Esme, Sophie, and the deformed rejected clones. To stop its activities, Emma enters into the egg-like compartment meant for Celeste; and synching with Mindee and Phoebe, she uses her significantly stronger mental abilities to disconnect the factions of Celeste's brain which grant her access to both her psionic powers and the Phoenix force fragment. Emma then settles to comfort her barely conscious daughter, only to be ambushed with tentacle-like extensions of Sublime's machine. Impaling Celeste, the machine absorbs a backlash of her residual Phoenix energy, which immediately disperses to all of the cloned units as well. Upon the issue's conclusion; the audience is left with a scene depicting each one of the cloned units, as well as the Three-In-One, how seemingly empowered by the Phoenix fragment.