Emerging dramatically from the water in the pages of X-Men #101, Jean Grey (-ish) proclaimed “Now and forever, I am Phoenix!”
She was half right, anyway. The Phoenix Force, the Marvel universe’s all-consuming embodiment of life incarnate, has spent the better part of the last 50 years jumping from host to host like a cosmic ringworm on the rebound after ending a long relationship. Emma Frost was a Phoenix host. So were the Stepford Cuckoos. Cyclops, Colossus – heck, Namor got to host a piece of the Phoenix Force. Not even the cool Namor from the MCU, the comic book one who looks like a Hugo Weaving character that combs his hair with a glue stick. The Phoenix Force isn’t exactly discerning about where it hangs its hat.
And that could, potentially, be a great thing. The MCU is inching closer to bringing mutants into the spotlight, and Marvel’s favorite actively-on-fire space bird can’t be far behind. Which familiar faces could it cozy on up to? The options are limitless. Let’s speculate wildly.
Peter Parker
Every once in a while, Spider-Man writers like to take the whole “with great power” concept and see how far they can push it. The friendly neighborhood intellectual property has had Hulk powers, Ghost Rider powers, symbiote powers, Captain Universe powers, and the incredible ability to have way too many arms.
So it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for that masked menace to wind up with a pile of Phoenix Force in his lap. There’s an alright story to be told there – the hero whose whole deal is centered around the deaths of the people he loves, suddenly given power over life and death. So much power. So much responsibility. Speaking of:
Aunt May
There are a few ineffable and unavoidable truths in the universe, and one is that Peter Parker must suffer. It’s why the MCU picked Tom Holland as its wall crawler – he’s a man who knows how to weep. When those big, British, Bratz doll eyes start welling up, you know for danged sure that things are serious, and also that it’s roughly the end of the movie’s second act.
And in a post-No Way Home world, there’s not much that would dampen those chestnut browns faster than seeing Aunt May again. Bringing people back from dramatic deaths is sort of the Phoenix’s oeuvre, and you know May would spend her tenure as an undead space god chastising her nephew for his part in the proceedings. With the rest of the world having forgotten who he is, Pete’s dangerously low on people who chew him out, another cornerstone of the Spider-Man mythos.
Tony Stark
Okay, but this is seriously the last example picked specifically to make Peter Parker cry a lot.
If the MCU wants to make the Phoenix’s debut into an event on the same scale as Infinity War, they’re going to need to take some big swings, and they don’t come much bigger than bringing back Iron Man. The Phoenix Force wants to resurrect a host? Maybe a host that’s already had cosmic power pumped through his body once or twice? Maybe even a host that’s gotten a touch more amenable to contract negotiations ever since Dolittle hit the pavement face-first, and who might not say no to a very limited series return in exchange for an EP credit?
Just saying. It’s a stretch, but we can dream.
Wanda Maximoff
If the MCU is looking for a Jean Grey stand-in, they’d have a hard time finding a better fit than Wanda Maximoff. Borderline all-powerful, telekinetic, reality-rending, and with deep roots in mutant history, she’s a shoo-in for the part of hero turned monster. Add to that an excuse to resurrect the character following Multiverse of Madness and another shot at controlling life and death, and the whole thing feels like a natural fit.
Guys, Wanda could bring her kids back. She could listen to that ice cream song again. What we’re saying is, she could finally pay for her crimes.
Carol Danvers
Carol Danvers has a long and storied comic book history of getting her life kicked in by X-Men characters. She had her powers permanently siphoned by Rogue, only to get newer, weirder ones after a series of horrible experiments performed by the Brood. A copy of her personality was killed by Magneto. She joined Alpha Flight. The indignities wouldn’t stop. It only makes sense for the MCU to keep that ball rolling.
In earnest, a story about Captain Marvel taking on the Phoenix Force is a story worth telling. The universe is a big place, and it has to be frustrating that she can’t fix everything. What would happen if she could? What would the universe look like if she had powers that made her current abilities look like Nerf darts? What, we ask you, if her yellow CGI glowy bits became orange CGI glowy bits? It makes you think.
Doctor Strange
There aren’t a lot of MCU characters who futz with powers with which man was not meant to meddle at the same level as Doctor Strange. In his defense, the consequences of his hubris to date include owning a really nice house, controlling reality, and occasionally growing a spare eyeball. “Find a stone that harnesses the very essence of time? Wear it as a necklace,” that’s Strange’s motto.
So it’s hard to imagine that the sometimes-Sorcerer Supreme would see the fiery winged manifestation of life in the universe headed toward Earth and not, for example, try to keep it in a terrarium and feed it bugs. Sure, there’d be a monologue about the dangers of what he’s trying to control, but those speeches happen all the time. They’ve never stopped the good Doctor yet.
Namor
“Why would a water guy want to turn into a fire bird guy?” Why would a water guy have little wings on his feet? When it comes to Namor, you’re either on board with the dumbness or you’re not.
It was 2012 when the Namor of the comic books first got a taste of the Phoenix Force. It wasn’t a wild ride – he lost his new powers inside of four issues – but you know what it was? Precedent-setting. There’s precedent for Namor getting the Phoenix Force, and that’s reason enough to give the character the same treatment in the MCU. If nothing else, it’d give him something to do besides having unrequited creep crushes and complaining about all the awesome free plastic that we keep donating to his people.
Deadpool
This is not a good idea.
That said, Marvel has built a whole wing of its business on making sure that Deadpool gets to write his name on every corner of their universe. In the last few years, he’s worn the Venom, Phage, Lasher, Riot, and Agony symbiotes, joined every major super team, shared a body with Howard the Duck, wielded the power of Captain Universe to defeat Thanos, and killed Tom Sawyer. That’s all just off the top of my head.
So statistically, if someone says “will Deadpool do blah blah blah,” the smart money is always on “yeah, probably.” Whatever, Ryan Reynolds will make it work.
Jean Grey
There’s nothing wrong with admitting that you got something right the first time, and Jean Grey is a story that Marvel got right. The original Phoenix comics are a classic of comic book storytelling. That’s not news. It somehow managed to weave a narrative that stretches from street-level crime to planetary genocide and never feel weird. Well, not “never.” There were a lot of corsets.
The Dark Phoenix Saga is royalty within the medium, and it’s a story that would be worth putting in the universe-building leg work for. Introducing a new Jean Grey and telling her story the right way would be a slow burner, but it’d be one that the studio would do well to pursue. Just picture it: It’d be like the old days, when MCU phases built to a crescendo instead of a shrug. A galaxy-spanning epic with its roots in human drama. It’s the best possible option, save one.
Happy Hogan
Could it happen? Yes. Should it happen? Yes. Will it happen? Not if we don’t start bombarding Kevin Feige’s personal inbox it won’t.
The thing is, Happy Hogan is an unextraordinary everyman in a world built on making the everyman extraordinary. Torturing guys like that by giving them godlike abilities is a time-honored tradition in science fiction. It’s what Star Trek fans call “most of what happened to Miles O’Brien,” and it’s just undeniably watchable.
More than that, though, isn’t it Happy’s turn? The guy was Stark-adjacent since it was still okay to show up for work dressed like Vincent Vega, and he never once got to fire off a repulsor or take May Parker out for a night on the town in the Hulkbuster armor. After all these years, doesn’t Jon Favreau deserve a day or two hanging from a harness in front of a green screen with CGI glow sticks for eyes?