GREEN LANTERN #48 – January 1994

Emerald Twilight Part One: The Past

Credits:  Ron Marz (writer), Bill Willingham (penciler), Romeo Tanghal & Robert Campanella (inkers), Albert de Guzman (letterer), Anthony Tollin (colorist)

Summary:  Hal Jordan visits the remains of Coast City.  With the power of his ring, he recreates an emerald version of his city and has conversations with replicas of his father, mother, and teenage girlfriend Jennifer.  When Hal’s ring loses its charge, he screams that it isn’t fair.  A holographic projection of one of the Guardians appears, ordering him to surrender his ring as punishment for using it for personal gain.  Hal is infuriated by the request and instead absorbs energy from the hologram into his ring.  He declares that he will return to Oa, but the Guardians won’t like him when he gets there.

Irrelevant Continuity:  The future Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner, debuts on the final page with his girlfriend, watching a “shooting star” (Hal on his way to Oa) and commenting that he’d just like to escape one day.

“Behold, the Unrivaled Imagination of Hal Jordan!”:  Hal Jordan has been mocked over the years for unimaginative uses of his ring (the common complaint is that he always defaults to a giant boxing glove), but he’s full-on ring crazy this issue.  Not only has he created an emerald sling for his wounded arm, but he’s recreated the entire municipality of Coast City and he’s having interactive conversations with its inhabitants!  

Total N00B:  I’m not familiar enough with Hal Jordan continuity to know the origin of his white temples.  You might think it was simply a decision to slowly age the character and distinguish him from other heroes, but I’m going to assume that there’s a needlessly complicated comic book origin behind the change.

Creative Differences:  “Emerald Twilight” began as a completely different storyline conceived by the previous Green Lantern writer, Gerald Jones.  DC even went so far as to solicit the original plans in Previews and run an ad for the aborted storyline in Darkstars #15.  According to online sources, series editor Kevin Dooley considered Jones’ plans too tame to attract new readers, and a new storyline was conceived at the last minute by Mike Carlin, Paul Levitz, Archie Goodwin, and Denny O'Neil.  

Courtesy of http://glcorps.dcuguide.com/curtain/gl48-50.php here’s the original solicitation for this issue:

GREEN LANTERN #48

   by G. Jones, Cobbs, & Tanghal

   "Superman and the Justice League gather by Green Lantern's side as Hal confronts the horror of the destruction of Coast City. Meanwhile on Oa, the Guardians of the Universe find themselves fighting a lethal battle against...the Guardians of the Universe!?"

   Cover by Kevin Maguire & Romeo Tanghal.

Review:  “Emerald Twilight” just might be the most outrageous stunt pulled by one of the major comics companies during the ‘90s.  Commercially, the impetus for the story was the success of Batman and Superman’s concurrent “event” storylines, ones that featured the iconic characters broken, killed, replaced, and ultimately returned as the stars of their titles.  Hal Jordan isn’t going to be so lucky.  Sure, he’ll eventually don the mantle of Green Lantern again, but quite a few creative teams and editorial regimes must pass before the traditional status quo is restored.

Creatively, the inspiration for “Emerald Twilight” would appear to be two of the most famous storylines to emerge during the Jim Shooter years of Marvel.  “The Death of Phoenix,” or “The Dark Phoenix Saga” as it came to be known, is the story of founding X-Man Jean Grey corrupted by a cosmic power and transformed into a villain.  (And I’m sure no one reading this has ever heard of that storyline before…)  “Born Again,” Frank Miller’s final Daredevil epic, brings the hero to the brink of insanity after an effort by the villainous Kingpin to systematically destroy his life.  To say that these stories were quickly elevated to the status of “classics” would be an understatement.  DC’s main competition in the category of “groundbreaking superhero work” at the time consisted of Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen.  Watchmen is an erudite science fiction novel told through the medium of superhero comics, and not an obvious inspiration for a monthly mainstream series.  Dark Knight Returns does star a slightly unhinged, more violent interpretation of Batman, but he’s still a hero by the story’s end.  DC had yet to produce an in-continuity story featuring a hero experiencing some form of trauma that pushes him into villainy.  Actually, I’m not an expert on DC continuity, so it’s entirely possible at least one character was put through those paces in the ‘80s or early ‘90s.  DC hadn’t attempted such an arc with a character like Hal Jordan, however; a hero with roots that go back to the beginning of the Silver Age and an established fan base.

I’m not sure what it says about the climate of comics at the time that the arc of driving a hero insane and recasting him or her as a villain was considered the pinnacle of sophisticated storytelling, but that attitude certainly existed.  It was one of those important stories that you never thought you’d see, yet it just had to be a great story, right?  “The Dark Phoenix Saga” prevaricated a bit by establishing that Phoenix had been brainwashed by the Hellfire Club, and years later we learned that Phoenix was never truly Jean Grey at all.  “Born Again” had Daredevil act crazy for a few issues, but ultimately the hero triumphs over the odds and is able to move forward with his life.  How great would it be if someone didn’t wuss out on the concept?

“Emerald Dawn” certainly does not wuss out on the concept.  DC will eventually begin to backtrack on its characterization of Hal Jordan, tying itself in knots for years looking for ways to redeem him until it’s ultimately decided just to restore Hal to his classic status quo.  There’s no hint of any second thoughts in the original issues, though.  It’s full-on fan wish fulfillment, and I mean that in a horrible way.  Yes, when you’re twelve, you think you want these comics, but ultimately they prove far too cynical and grim to work as superhero stories.  They’re not about inspiration or imagination, but instead exist as exercises in tearing heroes down and offering no means of redemption.  There’s a reason why Phoenix sacrificed her life in order to save her friends at the end of “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” and Matt Murdock walked happily into the sunset with Karen Page during the finale of “Born Again.”  Without those endings, the stories are just exercises in misery.

All that said, I have to confess that the first chapter of “Emerald Dawn” reads as an adequate Green Lantern comic.  Bill Willingham evokes a bit of John Byrne and a bit of Neal Adams, creating an iconic Hal Jordan and an emerald recreation of Coast City that does seem like a nice place to live.  The story, at this point, doesn’t come across as something written by committee, but is instead a melancholy reflection on what Hal’s lost and his frustration that he’ll never truly recreate it.  The previous creative teams clearly didn’t know how to address the destruction of Hal’s hometown -- he’s gone from indignant fury in Green Lantern #46, to a much more passive role during the subsequent Superman chapters of the crossover, to a seemingly non-sequitur team-up with Green Arrow in Green Lantern #47.  So, he yelled for a few pages, beat up a bad guy, and kind of got over it.  Ron Marz’s interpretation is at least grounded in human emotion.  It’s hard not to emphasize for Hal during the story, even if you do know where this is all headed.  And once Hal dons that evil grin at the end of page 20, this is going somewhere bad indeed.  If only DC had commissioned a story that allowed Hal to properly mourn the loss, fruitlessly search for a resolution, and then learn a lesson and move on.  If editorial wanted to use this as an excuse for Hal to retire and for the more “relatable” Kyle Rayner to take his place, fine.  Instead, things are just going to get nasty…

The Next Casualty - Hal Jordan’s Integrity

Yeah, I’m going to do this one, too.

FOXFIRE #4 – May 1996

Endgames

Credits:  Ian Edginton (plot), Dan Abnett (script), Kevin J. West (penciler), Philip Moy & Bob Almond (inkers), Edd Fear (letterer), Rob Alvord & Malibu (colors)

Summary:  Mourning Star and her Tradesmen soldiers follow Foxfire and her allies to the Marvel Universe.  Foxfire discovers that her powers have been temporarily disrupted by the transmat device.  While Punisher helps the heroes escape, Mustang is killed by one of the Tradesmen.  Eventually, Mourning Star catches up to Foxfire and attempts to steal her body.  Foxfire’s powers return tenfold and she melts her “mother” into a pile of goo.  Foxfire then erases the Punisher’s memory of the past few hours, and promises Dancer that she’ll use her new powers to take them back home.

Continuity Notes:  

• Last issue, Mourning Star’s goons were called the Custodians.  This issue, they’re the Tradesmen.
• Mourning Star has been harvesting young Ultra antibodies as a part of her scheme to replace her broken robot body.  She claims that the Tradesmen have given her the technology needed to swap bodies, so now she wants Foxfire’s.
• The mind-link Mourning Star triggered with Foxfire “somehow” opened up Foxfire’s “untapped reservoirs of control,” which is the explanation for her enhanced powers.

Review:  We’ve reached the end of Foxfire, surely the greatest legacy of “The Dark Phoenix Saga.”  A text piece in the back claims that this was a miniseries all along, and perhaps it was, but it does seem as if the entire Ultraverse line folded not long after this issue was released.  The text piece also tells us to look for Foxfire in upcoming issues of Ultraforce, which somehow reminds me of the hollow promises that Gunfire was going to play an important role in Justice League after his series was axed.

For the fourth issue in a row, the story feels the need to cram in an “untold tale” that really should’ve been told before this series began.  This time, the story flashes back to Mourning Star’s fight with her robotic husband, an event that apparently occurred fifty years ago and left her with a damaged robotic body.  This impaired robot somehow needed teen superhero antibodies to survive, but now that plot’s out-of-date, since she can simply steal her daughter’s body.  Somehow, there’s that word again, this leads to Foxfire reaching her true potential and becoming “the stepchild of the Phoenix.”  I suppose I should applaud Malibu/Marvel’s restraint for not using that as the subtitle of the series.  Actually, I’m surprised they didn’t, since this series all along was a pretty flagrant grab at X-completists’ dollars.  Of course, if you were looking for a book that honestly ties into the X-canon, you’re going to be disappointed.  And if you just want an entertaining superhero comic, you’re in for a mess.  I don’t have a real problem with Foxfire as a protagonist -- she’s thankfully not the Clueless knockoff I was expecting -- but she’s surrounded by half-formed plots that can’t withstand a small amount of scrutiny.  No one at Malibu seemed to know what was going on from issue to issue with this series.

What else is in the finale issue?  Let’s see…ah yes, the Punisher is still here.  And he contributes about as much as you expect.  This is also the Punisher during his “it's not a mid-life crisis” ponytail days, so I have even more motivation to pretend that this never happened.  The issue also features some of the ugliest lettering I’ve seen in a professional comic.  I don’t know if Edd Fear was using computer fonts in the previous issues, but this issue has a font so stiff and awkward it’s borderline Comic Sans.  The closing pages reveal the winner of some “We’ll Draw You in a Comic!” contest.  The results are predictably…1996.  I say we close out our look at Foxfire the Faux-Phoenix with this classic image:

FOXFIRE #3 – April 1996

Welcome to the Monkey House

Credits:  Ian Edginton (plot), Dan Abnett (script), Kevin J. West (penciler), Bob Almond & Philip Moy (inkers), Edd Fear (letterer), Rob Alvord & Malibu (colors)

Summary:  Foxfire awakens inside a cage, surrounded by young Ultras.  She’s welcomed by Mustang, who explains that power-inhibitors keep them in their cages.  Recalling the past few days, Foxfire remembers a cop named Tyburn shooting her with a tranquilizer.  Foxfire overpowers her cage’s inhibitor and then frees Mustang.  Close by, Jack Dancer is taunted by Mourning Star for trying to free her captives.  Foxfire and Mustang soon discover her father, who has been dismantled.  He explains that Mourning Star is Mariah, Foxfire’s dragoon mother, now corrupted by The Entity.  Her armed guards, the Custodians, arrive and destroy the remains of Foxfire’s father.  Jack Dancer leads the teens to a transmat terminal, which is hit by an energy blast as the trio teleports.  They arrive in New York, in the middle of one of the Punisher’s firefights.

Continuity Notes:  

• Jack Dancer, who may or may not be an established Ultraverse character, is immortal.  Apparently, he commits good deeds out of boredom.
• Foxfire is able to break free of her cage because she isn’t technically an Ultra.
• Apparently the dead body the police thought belonged to Foxfire’s father was one of Mastodon’s victims.  Except…there was no body; the police didn’t know if her father was alive or dead, only that he went missing during the Phoenix attack.
• Foxfire’s mother, previously believed dead, is responsible for pulling her father out of the timestream.  She was aiming for Foxfire and grabbed her former “husband” by mistake.

Total N00B:  The teleportation device is “used to link Earth with Godwheel,” whatever that means.  Later, Mourning Star says that the heroes aren’t “on the Godwheel” and have landed outside of the universe.

Miscellaneous Note:  The title of the issue is a reference to the Kurt Vonnegut book.

Review:  I seriously doubt the Punisher was that much of a sales draw by 1996, yet someone still had faith, since his one-page appearance is enough to merit the cover.  This issue exhibits more wonky issue-to-issue continuity, which has quickly become the hallmark of Foxfire.  The story opens with Foxfire awakening inside a cage, surrounded by the young Ultras that were featured in brief cameos in previous issues.  (One of them, the Chaotician, had a hole blown in his chest, but now we’re supposed to accept that the Ultras were merely being kidnapped.)  I’m fine with an in medias res opening, but the subsequent flashback just leaves more questions unanswered.  Foxfire explains: “When dad and I got back from the future, he disappeared.  The police found a body which they thought was his.  Of course, I was their main suspect...but I knew it wasn't my dad, ‘cause he's a bio-mucinoid, not flesh and blood.”  Okay…when did that happen?  The flashbacks to the events of the Phoenix Resurrection miniseries all have footnotes, but there’s nothing for these scenes.  Later, she claims, “Ultraforce cleared my name with the cops and I got assigned to a cop called Tyburn from the Juvenile Welfare Division.”  Oh, you did?  I love the creators’ commitment to the “Foxfire accused of murder” plot.  They were clearly so invested in it, they had to resolve the story in-between issues.

A few pages later, Foxfire is reunited with her father.  Since he’s a robot, he has nothing to do with the villain’s scheme of harvesting young Ultras’ antibodies, but as fate would have it, the evil mastermind turns out to be his sentient-energy-possessed robotic ex-wife, long believed dead.  Sure.  In another unseen story, Mariah (now at the point of her career where she’s christened herself “Mourning Star”) plucked Robot Dad out of the timestream by mistake while aiming for Foxfire.  This occurred during Foxfire’s unexplained, unseen journey back from the future into the present day.  At this stage, the number of “behind the scenes” events outnumbers what’s actually happened in the published series.  So far, Foxfire has snuck out of a police station, bumped into Ultraforce, and gotten kidnapped.  Her unseen adventures sound more stimulating.  

Daddy Robot has a death scene and the heroes escape, some Malibu continuity I don’t understand is tossed around, and suddenly the Punisher is making a guest appearance.  West’s interpretation of the Punisher is at least twenty years too young, which isn’t a huge surprise since his male characters don’t seem to have much of a range.  West’s art tends to be a blend of early Tom Grummett and Jeff Matsuda, and if you assume those two styles don’t blend particularly well, you’re right.  Foxfire herself usually looks okay, judged by the standards of the time, even though she’s occasionally too pneumatic this issue.  I could live with the art -- I wasn’t expecting an unofficial X-spinoff set in the Ultraverse to be penciled by Alex Toth -- but the overall storytelling in this series is appallingly shoddy.

FOXFIRE #2 – March 1996

Tunnel Vision

Credits:  Ian Edginton & Dan Abnett (writers), Kevin J. West (penciler), Philip Moy & Bob Almond (inkers), Patrick Owsley (letterer), Rob Alvord & Malibu (colors)

Summary:  Rose convinces Ultraforce that she’s a new hero, Foxfire, and not the runaway Rose.  The team splits up to locate Sludge and the feral monster, which they later realize is former Exiles member Mastodon.  Rose comprehends that Mastodon is only acting out of fear.  She changes back into her human form and encourages Mastodon to revert into his true form, a young child.  Black Knight tells Rose that Ultraforce won’t pursue her and encourages her to continue crime-fighting.  

Continuity Notes:  Another seemingly unrelated one-page scene features an Ultra named Mustang.  He’s apprehended by armed men.

Review:  Well, she does have a name now.  And I have to acknowledge that she didn’t pass out this issue.  Regardless, the series has wasted its opening arc on a series of gratuitous guest stars, while doing nothing to build up the main character or do even the basic things that need to be done when setting up a solo series.  Rose has no supporting cast, no job, no definable goals, and nothing to ground her in the present day.  She might as well be back in the future, fighting alien bugs.  The only real conflict that’s been introduced so far, Rose being falsely accused of her father’s murder, is casually brushed aside by Black Knight this issue.  She seemed to be an okay girl, so he lets her go, conveniently forgetting that she did lie about her identity when they met.  She’s innocent of the murders Mastodon committed, sure, but he has no reason to believe that Rose isn’t involved with her father’s disappearance.

The only moment that alleviated the boredom this issue was Black Knight’s conversation with Rose, which spells out the premise behind Ultraforce.  Per Black Knight:  “Ultraforce has a presidential mandate to police the Ultra community.  That means we get shot at by both sides.  Ultras who think we’re the bad guys and humans who think we’re just a figure head (sic).  … Humans have always been top of the food chain.  The day the Ultras came along, humans found there was something quicker and stronger and better than them suddenly…They’re scared of us.  We’re scared of them.  Unless the balance stays just right, it could tip over into anarchy.”  Get that…Ultraforce is the X-Men!  My natural assumption all along was that Ultraforce was Malibu’s answer to the Avengers, but this was the ‘90s…of course they aped the X-Men instead!  And why is Black Knight the one giving this speech?  He doesn’t have powers; just a magic sword, right?  Humanity’s not afraid of your magic sword and flying horse, Dane Whitman.

FOXFIRE #1 – February 1996

Interview with an Ultra

Credits:  Ian Edginton & Dan Abnett (writers), Kevin West (penciler), Philip Moy & Bob Almond (inkers), Edd Hendricks (letterer), Rob Alvord (colorist)

Summary:  Rose is interviewed by a detective, following the disappearance of her father.  As soon as the detective leaves the room, Rose activates her powers and flies away.  She returns to the ruins of her apartment and uses her powers to follow a trail invisible to the human eye.  Unbeknownst to Rose, an agent from the Juventus Clinic & Health Spa is tailing her.  Rose tracks footprints into the sewers and is soon attacked by a feral monster.  Another monster, Sludge, unexpectedly arrives to rescue her.  Rose passes out due to her injuries, and is confronted by Ultraforce when she awakens.

Continuity Notes:  

• Sludge is one of the original Ultraverse heroes, created by Steve Gerber as a ‘90s version of the muck-monster archetype.
• Rose is shocked to discover she bleeds blue blood.
• A one-page cutaway features Ultras named Thorn Boy, Chaotician, and Jack Dancer in one-panel scenes for an unexplained reason.

“Huh?” Moments:  Rose has returned to the present day with no explanation, following her last appearance in The Phoenix Resurrection: Aftermath.  Also, the path that she follows into the sewers, the one that no one has noticed, is a trail of gigantic footprints.

Review:  Foxfire begins its run as a regular series, although it would appear the entire Ultraverse line is canned just a few months after its debut.  I have absolutely no idea what was going on behind-the-scenes of this book, but it would appear that there’s been some last minute rethinking before the first issue was even completed.  A blurb on the final page of The Phoenix Resurrection: Aftermath told us that Rose’s story would continue in Foxfire #1, yet the character’s gone through an unrevealed journey through time in-between issues.  She’s also, somehow, been brought into custody as the police investigate the disappearance of her father.  Ignoring the continuity gap between stories, I’m willing to accept that Rose is going to have a hard time explaining the absence of her time-traveling robot father, but the conflict only leads to more confusion.  Rose returns to her former home, ostensibly to investigate the disappearance of her father…but she already knows what happened!  The damage from the Phoenix’s blast revealed his robotic nature, Rose passed out (something she does yet again this issue), and he took her to the future to join the human rebellion.  What does she hope to find at her old apartment?  

I briefly wondered if Foxfire #1 was completed before the Phoenix Resurrection event issues, but that wouldn’t explain the discrepancies.  If anything, having a complete Foxfire #1 in the drawer would’ve given the creators a specific goal to work toward and lessened the inconsistencies.  Instead, it reads as if no one knew what the other person was doing, even though this entire event has featured the same writing team.  It’s also possible that there’s a Rose appearance in-between Phoenix Resurrection and Foxfire #1 that explains some of this confusion, but it’s hard to ignore the blurb and hype page in The Phoenix Resurrection: Aftermath that tell the reader specifically to pick up Foxfire #1 to find out what happens next.  Was this going to be a sci-fi book set in a post-apocalyptic future, or My So-Called Life with superpowers?

Visually, Foxfire seems to have gone through another round of second thoughts.  The earliest preview images of Foxfire played up the cheesecake element, with Wizard and other fan press outlets promoting her as Marvel’s first “Bad Girl.”  

(I completely forgot there was a professional comic artist named “Fang,” by the way.)  That look is considerably toned down this issue, with Kevin West presenting a much less pervy interpretation of the hero.  West’s female characters do have a certain charm to them, evoking an early John Byrne look with some ‘90s influences, so I can’t say he’s a bad choice for the book.  West’s real weakness this issue seems to be civilian male figures, and there’s a dearth of those after Rose ditches the detective in the opening pages.  West spends most of the issue drawing a pretty girl and monsters, and it seems to suit his talents.

That doesn’t mean that the hints of cheesecake are totally gone however.  Rose, in her superheroine form, is essentially a nude female figure, so it’s not surprising that some artists can’t restrain themselves.

It’s actually not that bad of a joke, since this is the “back” cover, but I can’t imagine Marvel publishing something like this today without at least three days of internet backlash.

Speaking of that female faux-Phoenix form…it’s not hard to guess why she’s going to be called Foxfire, I just think it’s odd that she hasn’t picked up the name yet.  This is her big debut issue, after all.  Something of significance should’ve happened here.  Ultimately it’s a quick read, one that awkwardly co-exists with the allegedly important Phoenix miniseries, and doesn’t give the hero much to do outside of wandering around and passing out.  That’s a weak debut for anyone; I’m glad Marvel/Malibu rethought the “Bad Girl” angle, but it doesn’t seem as if anything’s replacing it.

THE PHOENIX RESURRECTION: AFTERMATH #1 – January 1996

Credits:  Ian Edginton & Dan Abnett (writers), Pino Rinaldi, Jeff Lafferty, John Cleary, & John Royle (pencilers), Phillip Moy, Jeff Whiting, Dennis Jensen, Leonard Kirk, Steve Moncuse, Bob Almond, & Tom Wegrzyn (inkers), Vickie Williams (letters), Mike Tuccinard & Malibu (colors)

Summary:  Rose awakes inside a hospital and soon realizes she’s traveled decades into the future.  Her room is attacked by a Progeny alien.  Rose stops the assault and is reunited with her father, who she learns is a robot “dragoon” created by Hawke, a leader in the Progeny resistance.  Hawke explains that she was created with spliced DNA from “Ultra genetic material” and “the morphogenic DNA of captured Progeny warriors.”  She was sent as an infant to the twentieth century, with robots as her guardians.  On the fated day the Phoenix appeared, Hawke knew her powers would be triggered.  Upset with this revelation, she leaves the hospital and wanders through the streets.  She meets a community of survivors and is greeted by their leader, Mother Courage.  Courage gives Rose an emblem to remember her by, shortly before the Progeny attack again.  She mimics the Progeny’s powers and defends the camp.  Rose returns to her father and apologizes, then offers to join the rebellion.  She joins a group of Ultras in attacking the Progeny’s orbital armada, but soon discovers that the Progeny are only following their instinct to survive.  Reluctantly, she follows Hawke’s plan and decimates the space station.  Later, she questions if she can find a home in the future.

Continuity Notes:  

• The Progeny, according to a footnote, first appeared in Malibu’s Exiles #4, collecting flora and fauna and studying Ultra DNA.
• Rose’s powers enable her to automatically speak alien languages.
• Using information she’s gleaned, Rose reveals that a member of the resistance, Amber Hunt, is a traitor.  Amber Hunt is an Exiles member who has been possessed by a seemingly cosmic entity called, well, The Entity over the course of the previous decades.  The Entity is responsible for her changing sides.
• The Progeny are killed in the end with a synthesized form of the theta virus, the virus that created the Ultras.  Their  living mothership seems to have a connection to the one seen in the previous issues of Phoenix Resurrection.

I Love the ‘90s:  Rose was sent as infant to the late 1970s so that she would come into contact with the Phoenix as a seventeen-year-old in 1996.

“Huh?” Moments:  The script refers to the Progeny’s death ray as red, but it’s colored neon green throughout the issue.  Also, the claim that this story is only set fifty years in the future is absurd, given that the planet is unrecognizable and English has mutated into a new form.

Review:  This is the starring debut of Rose Autumn, soon to be known as Foxfire.  The early marketing for this series heavily implied that Rose was the newest Phoenix avatar, linking Malibu’s Ultraverse even closer to the Marvel Universe.  I’ve discovered now that this was…less than honest.  I always thought it odd that Marvel practically ignored any of these attempts to integrate Marvel and Malibu, with the only mention of Firefox coming in the two-page Malibu hype pieces that briefly ran in Marvel’s books.  The Bullpen Bulletins didn’t care.  The actual X-books never mentioned this character.  Yet, it certainly looked as if Foxfire was the brand-new Phoenix!  That had to be a big deal!  

Rose’s origin is revealed this issue, and we discover that Rose merely has the ability to mimic the powers of those close to her.  She can easily take the form of the cyber-roach aliens seen this issue, just as she transformed into a very Phoenix-y avatar of light in her previous appearance.  That doesn’t mean she is the Phoenix, though.  Phoenix had a role in her origin, but the series itself has no ties to X-continuity.  Rose’s first solo story does incorporate ideas similar to the ones seen in ‘90s X-titles, however.  The anti-Progeny rebels are almost identical to the forgettable grunts Cable assembled in the future as the Clan Chosen, and the mysterious Mother Courage bears a striking similarity to Mother Askani of the Askani Clan.  What’s next?  The Burglars Guild and Murderers Guild, hiding out in the remains of future New Orleans?

The story itself is fairly standard dystopian, post-alien invasion sci-fi.  Rose comes across as a decent protagonist, when compared to the usual portrayal of teenage girls in superhero comics, and after the first couple of pages the cheesecake is mercifully toned down.  (Rose fights her opening fight scene in a hospital gown, so you can imagine how that goes.)  Everything that surrounds Rose, however, is either predictably cliché or just too dumb to be taken seriously.  All of the robot dad stuff is laughable, and there’s really nothing here to set this dystopian future apart from any of the million others.  There are also far too many characters and plot elements that add up to nothing, such as the introduction of “Earth Forces President” Glorianna Mundi, and all of the Amber Hunt/Entity material.  If you’re invested in existing Malibu continuity, maybe there’s something there, but I don’t think it stands up on its own.  The ending is surprisingly dark, with Rose making a connection with the aliens just as she’s given the order to exterminate them.  She questions how she can now live with “the blood of millions on my hands,” which is an unexpectedly deep hook for a ‘90s book starring a teen girl hero.  (The idea of a heroine living with an alien genocide on her conscious is another link to the Phoenix, of course.)

Like the previous Phoenix books, this is a jam issue, and it’s the worst one yet.  The art ranges from a passable Tom Grummett impression to a bad McFarlane impression to a sad Liefeld impression, and then the faux-graffiti art kicks in.  Do you remember books like Creed, which tried to incorporate then-trendy graffiti styles into comics?  This issue abruptly turns into one of them, with Rose morphing into a misshapen freak with gigantic forehead, sloping brow, and disturbingly wide eyes.  The actual texture of the inks is kind of nice, almost evoking Richard Corben’s work, but the abrupt change in character models is ridiculous.  I have no idea what anyone was thinking, releasing three biweekly, double-sized jam comics in a row, but the results are predictably chaotic.