 Phoenix I (Baron Zemo II) |  Phoenix III |  Phoenix IV |
Affiliation: NoneThousands of years later, the Phoenix watched as Marvel Girl sacrificed herself to save her friends. The Phoenix saved Jean, placing her in a healing cocoon at the bottom of Jamaica Bay and created an exact replica that for all intents and purposes was Jean Grey. (This is the entity commonly called Phoenix II.) However, the Phoenix-Jean could not deal with the flood of human emotions in her human form, and was seduced into evil by the Hellfire Club, becoming Dark Phoenix. After fighting off the X-Men, Dark Phoenix ventured far into space, destroying a Shi'ar spaceship with all hands, then consuming the star around the D'Bari homeworld to feed her hunger for energy, blowing away the entire solar system and all five billion D'Bari.
Eventually the X-Men were able to overcome the Phoenix, if only temporarily, and she committed "suicide" during the battle with the Shi'ar Imperial Guard in the Blue Area of the Moon, destroying the human form she had adopted. The Phoenix then tried to return the essence it had borrowed from Jean, with the intention of reviving her immediately, but it included its terrible memories as Dark Phoenix, so Jean rejected it, and remained in the bay for months. The Phoenix then found the unconscious body of Madelyne Pryor, a clone in one of Sinister's labs. It brought Jean's essence to Madelyne, causing her to scream "Scott!" and awaken with a real consciousness.
When Rachel Summers sent her astral form back to the twentieth century, the Phoenix felt the presence of her former host (even if it was her alternate-timeline daughter) and merged with Rachel, who became the next Phoenix, although she did not know it until a post-hypnotic suggestion activated the Phoenix, jumpstarting Rachel's time-travel power and allowing her to physically transport herself to our era. During "Inferno," Madelyne, who had been corrupted by demons and the evil part of her that was dark Phoenix, tried to kill Jean Grey, who had emerged from the cocoon months before. As Madelyne began to kill herself, hoping to take Jean with her while they were telepathically locked together, the piece of the Phoenix that Madelyne had revealed itself to Jean, who accepted it (mainly memories) as part of her, thereby saving her life, even as Madelyne died.
Rachel Summers was "the Phoenix" for a few years, until she died in battle with Necrom. The Phoenix Force resurrected her in infant form and took her into space to regrow. While in deep space, the Phoenix (Rachel was still unconscious) encountered Galactus, the world-eater, and attempted to stop him. Galactus accused Phoenix of being a hypocrite, because while he consumed life, she, in her current form, was taking energy from life that was to come in the future. Phoenix realized the truth and shut herself down. As a result, when Rachel returned to Earth, she was still bonded with the Phoenix, but had a lesser access to its power. In one (now-defunct) timeline, The Phoenix Force apparently stayed bonded with Rachel until her death as the Mother Askani 2000 years in the future. In Rachel's (new) timeline, the Phoenix Force left her when she was adrift in the timestream after exchanging places with Captain Britain, and it apparently transferred it back to her "mother" Jean Summers.
Later, the Phoenix Force began to manifest in Jean again, complete with the firebird. It actually put Jean in a trance and talked to Professor X, showing him a vision of destruction in the future, yet reassuring him that his dream would survive and win in the end. So far, the Phoenix has augmented Jean's telepathic range, and her telekinesis to the point where she can feel the touch of another person on an object she levitated. When Magneto IV lured Jean to Asteroid M to save Wolverine, the two were trapped as the station descended into the sun. Not wishing to see Jean suffer, Logan stabbed her in the heart, but the Phoenix Force resurrected her and gave her the ability to create a spaceship and save herself and her teammates. Jean vreferred to the Phoenix as they, and said that she wasn't sure how much time the Phoenix would give her (presumably, to live). After her death, Jean encountered hundreds of Phoenix-costumed individuals in an astral plane of existence, indicating that acquiring or merging with Phoenix may be a stage of evolution most humans have not yet attained. Rachel Summers still maintains a fiery power signature, but does not appear to have the Phoenix Force any longer.
Recently, the Phoenix returned to Earth searching for Jean, and finding her dead resurrected her. Jean fought the Phoenix, however, and the Phoenix tried to possess Scott. It also woke Kid Omega from his formless existence, and he returned to life hoping to use the Phoenix Force to reanimate his dead love Sophie. All the X-Men's efforts, including Jean's own will, were not enough to stop the Phoenix, though Wolverine "killed" Jean countless times. Eventually, they managed to get Jean to shut down under an icecap, but the Phoenix escaped and came after Scott, hungering for his love and energy. Emma Frost enticed the Phoenix to enter her, and she took hold of Cyclops's energy beams, feeding off his near-limitless power. The momentary adjustment allowed the X-Men to throw both Emma and Scott into a module that was a scaled-up version of the scrambler tiara Beast had made years ago to stop Dark Phoenix. Unfortunately, Kid Omega damaged the module and freed the Phoenix. He tried to use the Phoenix to resurrect Sophie, but she spurned his affection and opted to remain dead. Quire's anguish released his hold on the Phoenix, and it came after the X-Men again, but this time, Scott had Emma telepathically link all the X-Men's thoughts to the Phoenix, and they overwhelmed it with their memories and love for Jean, and Jean was able to reassert control, stop a Shi'ar doomsday attack and leave the earthly plane. But a jot of the Phoenix Force visited one of the Stepford Cuckoos, who was waiting for it...
Phoenix I (Baron Zemo II) | Phoenix III | Phoenix IV |