Just saw X-Men III (Now with spoilers!)

[wingsandsword]

They really did set it up in X3 for a sequel, even though they say there won't be one. Xavier returns from the dead at the end, Magneto is slowly getting back his powers, Jean Grey is the Phoenix. The only character who was eliminated (killed/depowered) without an easy way back was Cyclops (and even then, we didn't see a body).

The movie really did feel a lot like a comic book: fast & frentic action, occasional breaks for exposition, lots of big "wow" visual moments (like Magneto moving the entire Golden Gate Bridge), the serial feel of it stacking on the events of the prior movies, and even though main characters are killed off or seemingly ruined, you really know that all the important ones will come back one day.

Even if they don't do "X-Men 4", future spinoff movies could well be set in the future of this continuity, focusing on one member of the X-Men, but with others making cameos, or subplots that advance plots brought up in the original 3 movies. So Halle Berry won't appear as Storm again, there is such a large stable of characters for the X-Men from all the comics, and so many well known characters (and such a reputation for changing lineups), that a few actors not wanting to come back isn't a big deal.

 

[Staffan]

Hallie Berrie said flat out she will never do another superhero movie.

You say that as if it were a bad thing.

 

[Wayside]

Yeah, I know. It's just that "Jean Grey" is hardly a superhero name, and "Phoenix" doesn't relate to her mutant power...

... unless her mutant power is resurrection, and THAT explains a lot!

I have no idea why the original writers chose Phoenix (since originally there was no Phoenix Force, IIRC, and originally Jean was supposed to live, and even once it was decided she would die, originally she wasn't supposed to be resurrected); but 'phoinix' is Greek for a deep red, crimson sort of color, which certainly suits Jean in the same way Cyclops' name suits him.

 

[wingsandsword]

Actually, Jean Grey's original codename wasn't Phoenix, it was Marvel Girl (which was quickly dropped and she just went by her real name). The whole Phoenix thing came about with the Phoenix plotline when she was originally killed (and later Dark Phoenix when Phoenix lost control of her expanded powers).

She has died and been reborn several times, thanks to the Phoenix Force. While the movie changes Phoenix from a mysterious cosmic force she is the host of into her own innate mutant power (like it made Juggernaut from somebody powered by magic into being a mutant), coming back from the dead is a well established part of Jean Grey's powers once she becomes Phoenix.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I think the current version is that part of her mutant power is to be adapted to be the host of the Phoenix Force. I'm told there's a comic where Emma Frost gets possessed by it ("Phoenix: Endsong" or something like that), and can't stand the strain and is thus being consumed by it.

Well, Morrison played around with it a lot in his New X-Men run. Basically, in his version, the Phoenix is less of a singular force/being, as a state of being. There comes a time, when a mortal being becomes so powerful that it trancends time and space and becomes a Phoenix. They ascend to a higher plane of existance where they sit as gods (ala the ancients in SG).

Paraphrased, of course (it's Morrison).

What exactly happened the first time she became Phoenix is left a bit vague, but it has been suggested that it happened exactly as written. A Phoenix entity possessed Jean sensing her potentinal and made the cocoon and all that retconny goodness, but the latter time it was all Jean herself that tapped into the Phoenix force without any help from outer forces.

 

[Umbran]

While the movie changes Phoenix from a mysterious cosmic force she is the host of into her own innate mutant power ....

I have only read the beginning of the run as trade-collections, so I don't know where they take it, but the idea that it may be her own innate power was also raised some years ago in Ultimate X-Men. The Hellfire Club seem to think Phoenix is an external force, while Professor X thinks it's just Jean's full power.

 

[bodhi]

the misbegotten offspring of a werewolf and a Smurf

Ooh, what are the stats on a weresmurf? Err, smurfwolf. Maybe it'd be like the WoD version, except the warform is the Smurf! Three apples tall and FULL OF SMURFY RAGE!

Scurrying noises behind your back. Shadowy blue blurs out of the corner of your eye. The last sound you ever here is "la la, la-la-la-la, la, la-la, la-la!" And then it eats your head.

No, wait. La! La! Smurfuthulhu Fthagn!

 

[Wayside]

Actually, Jean Grey's original codename wasn't Phoenix, it was Marvel Girl (which was quickly dropped and she just went by her real name). The whole Phoenix thing came about with the Phoenix plotline when she was originally killed (and later Dark Phoenix when Phoenix lost control of her expanded powers).

By "original" I'm referring to the original Dark/Phoenix Saga. She was given the name Phoenix despite the fact that, originally, she was supposed to survive the ordeal, and after that, even when her death had been written, her resurrection was never planned (Claremont vocally opposed it).

She has died and been reborn several times, thanks to the Phoenix Force. While the movie changes Phoenix from a mysterious cosmic force she is the host of into her own innate mutant power (like it made Juggernaut from somebody powered by magic into being a mutant), coming back from the dead is a well established part of Jean Grey's powers once she becomes Phoenix.

In the original it was her own innate mutant power, no? The invention of the Phoenix Force was a later insertion (by Byrne) allowing Jean to be resurrected.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

By "original" I'm referring to the original Dark/Phoenix Saga. She was given the name Phoenix despite the fact that, originally, she was supposed to survive the ordeal, and after that, even when her death had been written, her resurrection was never planned (Claremont vocally opposed it).

She took the name Phoenix when she flew out of the water in her new costume after riding a space ship/shuttle down in flames and everyone thought she had to have died in the crash, or drowned. "I am Phoenix!" Or something like that with a full page splash panel as the last page in that issue, IIRC.

 

[WayneLigon]

Actually, Jean Grey's original codename wasn't Phoenix, it was Marvel Girl (which was quickly dropped and she just went by her real name).

No, heroes going by just a normal name is a recent construction. She went by 'Marvel Girl' and was billed as such, for decades.