Rachel, the Young Phoenix

The Marvel superhero team the "X-Men" has been through countless changes of character and plot, and terabytes worth of storyline. The first X-Men appeared in the early 60s, a group of super-powered mutants consisting of five guys and one girl, Jean Grey, who had enhanced telekinetic and telepathic powers, and of course, flame-red hair, the standard sign for power in fiction. Her character was re-modeled later on and re-named "Phoenix," with a "resurrection" storyline and upgraded superpowers. With this power she saved the Universe at least once. Later she was involved in a kinky scenario with an evil mutant illusionist and she went over to the black lingerie Dark Side. This induced Jean Grey to be possessed by a consuming entity known as the "Phoenix Force" which caused her to destroy and consume a star and its planet with sentient civilized beings living on it. This was the "Dark Phoenix" who was very bad and had to be destroyed in an apocalyptic battle.

OK with this so far? Jean Grey had been cloned a few times and shows up as her clone in some X-men stories. Every so often there was a storyline resurrecting Jean Grey but she never came back as a permanent character that I remember. But in one line, Scott her mutant teammate and lover and Jean (or her clone) went forward in time and produced a daughter, Rachel, who grew up in a time warp and had similar powers to Jean's. Rachel returned to her own time period and attempted to be a teenage superhero without the dark side. I'm not sure what happened to Rachel the young Phoenix and I haven't explored the endless complications of the X-Men in many years. But she had a good red and gold costume and was able to manifest the fiery bird sign of the Phoenix Force. Whew I think I'm done now. 

This fan art character piece was commissioned for a fanzine run by one of my mutant friends who loved Marvel Comics. I sometimes wonder what ever happened to her. So far the Almighty Intervub has yielded little or no information about her. I am paying more attention to comics and sequential art these days. 

Original art is ink on illustration board, 8" x 11", December 1985.