Replicant wrote: Unless you think his healing power was saving him when the Phoenix was able to reduce others to dust in a split second.
If you watch that scene every time she 'shreds' Wolverine his flesh strips as easily as anyone else's but the adamantium remains undamaged, which means there may be an upper limit on what the Phoenix even can dust. I think it was a combination of the skeletal integrity and rapid healing that kept him up but it was also Jean exerting some control. Even if she couldn't dust Logan she could certainly fling him away.
Not that adamantium is by any means a low threshold but the Avengers bring at least two thrown weapons to the fight that are more durable. Whether Cap's shield would ever make it to her is dubious barring a cheap shot but Mjolnir would have a good shot.
Anyway, to summarise my previous arguments I don't think that Jean in those final scenes is a good representation of her powers. It represents a distinct spike and is one she either cannot or will not maintain.
Even at its worst the skin was being burnt off him in small enough quantities that he could basically heal back before the next pulse. Soldiers and other mutants were being vaporized, their atoms pulled apart in a split second. The difference "I think" was that the Phoenix actively killed those other targets, while Logan was merely being subjected to the raw energy that was rolling off Phoenix in waves.
No, Logan was surviving because the Jean personae was doing everything possible to protect him so that he could kill her.
I will crawl out on the OP limb here and note that unleashing the Phoenix is a distinct risk in this scenario, but it is not automatic. If the Phoenix does come out, it comes with all of the control issues seen in X-3.
"This is supposed to be a happy occasion... Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
-- The King of Swamp Castle, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
"Nothing of consequence happened today. " -- Diary of King George III, July 4, 1776
"This is not bad; this is a conspiracy to remove happiness from existence. It seeks to wrap its hedgehog hand around the still beating heart of the personification of good and squeeze until it is stilled."
-- Chuck Sonnenburg on Voyager's "Elogium"
Ted C wrote:I will crawl out on the OP limb here and note that unleashing the Phoenix is a distinct risk in this scenario, but it is not automatic. If the Phoenix does come out, it comes with all of the control issues seen in X-3.
The Phoenix just kinda does what it wants. It didn't do anything until it figured the environment as hostile at the battle, but still managed to leave Magneto alive. It did a pretty good job at only killing Xavier and not everyone around it at Jean's house. My point is if it wants to figure the Xmen for friendlies and the Avengers for foes it can pretty well do that.
Gaidin wrote:The Phoenix just kinda does what it wants. It didn't do anything until it figured the environment as hostile at the battle, but still managed to leave Magneto alive. It did a pretty good job at only killing Xavier and not everyone around it at Jean's house. My point is if it wants to figure the Xmen for friendlies and the Avengers for foes it can pretty well do that.
It also killed Scott kind of arbitrarily, so it's not terribly reliable.
It is, however, reasonable to conclude that it would consider the Avengers to be far more of an immediate threat than the X-Men in this scenario.
"This is supposed to be a happy occasion... Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
-- The King of Swamp Castle, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
"Nothing of consequence happened today. " -- Diary of King George III, July 4, 1776
"This is not bad; this is a conspiracy to remove happiness from existence. It seeks to wrap its hedgehog hand around the still beating heart of the personification of good and squeeze until it is stilled."
-- Chuck Sonnenburg on Voyager's "Elogium"
Ted C wrote:
It also killed Scott kind of arbitrarily, so it's not terribly reliable.
Pffft. I said it does what it wants. I didn't say you'd always like what it does.
Given we've seen in the movies that it can single out people to kill, and that it can let single people go while killing masses, it thereby has the ability to identity friends and foes if it feels like it. You don't have to agree with the choices it makes for those IFF lists. But the Phoenix of the movies has such capabilities.
Gaidin wrote:Pffft. I said it does what it wants. I didn't say you'd always like what it does.
Given we've seen in the movies that it can single out people to kill, and that it can let single people go while killing masses, it thereby has the ability to identity friends and foes if it feels like it. You don't have to agree with the choices it makes for those IFF lists. But the Phoenix of the movies has such capabilities.
There's no doubt the Phoenix is deadly. The question here is 'what will it do?'. Does it watch it sit around idly like it did for the first part of the battle in X3? Does it attack everyone? Does it decide to make out with Scott then atomize him? She vapourises troops that threaten her along with those that don't. She even annihilates three of Magneto's mutants as they appear doing nothing more than running away. They had never attacked her or threatened her but... gone. Who's to say an unleashed Phoenix doesn't do the same to Storm or Colossus? The whole fight becomes a team up against the Phoenix.
Also from X3- "Her mutation is seated in the unconscious part of her mind and therein lay the danger. When she was a girl I created a series of psychic barriers to isolate her powers from her conscious mind. As a result Jean developed dual personality.... The conscious Jean whose powers were always in her control and the dormant side, a personality that in our sessions came to call itself the Phoenix. A purely instinctual creature all desire and joy. And rage. " - Professor X.
As much as X3 may suck there's no reason to doubt any of this exposition.
If the OP would care to define who know what about who- like do the X Men know who Stark is? Seems likely given he's a public figure. Do the SHIELD agents know who the X Men are? They'd certainly be on SHIELDs radar and what kind of encounter it is- like on some Manhattan street or what not we could run some scenarios.
The X-Men would certainly have access to any public information about the Avengers. SHIELD presumably has dossiers on the X-Men, but I'm not sure which of the Avengers would have actually read them, and the Phoenix aspect of Jean Grey's personality may not be in them.
I would say a "streets of New York" encounter is standard for such a contest. I haven't come up with a full scenario.
"This is supposed to be a happy occasion... Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
-- The King of Swamp Castle, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
"Nothing of consequence happened today. " -- Diary of King George III, July 4, 1776
"This is not bad; this is a conspiracy to remove happiness from existence. It seeks to wrap its hedgehog hand around the still beating heart of the personification of good and squeeze until it is stilled."
-- Chuck Sonnenburg on Voyager's "Elogium"
To be honest I don't see what the debate is over, since 'Phoenix destroys everything and everyone' would probably not be counted as an X-men win, and 'everyone sets aside their differences to dogpile Jean' is inherently inconclusive, and these are the two most likely scenarios if Jean goes all Dark Phoenix on everyone.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
