Secret Avengers #26: Review

Protector was contacted by the Kree Supreme Intelligence in Avengers #25 before the space team left on their mission. He was told then to intercept and contain the Phoenix Force, even if it meant killing the Avengers. (Though it didn't specify what he was to do with the Force, and that was the Avengers mission anyway.) Av#26(most of)-27, which chronologically follow this 3-parter, show that the Supremor's plan was separate from that of the mysterious Minister here. I don't think Ms Marvel was given any instructions. Next issue will show that the Minister does indeed have control of the population of Hala, including the Supremor and Protector and the semi-Kree Ms Marvel. (But the Supremor presumably issued his command to Protector before being taken over.) We will find that there is a mental emission urging them all to seek the ascension, which is presumably how Ms Marvel and Protector know about it.

The Kree omniwave communications device dates back to Avengers #93 in the Kree/Skrull War The original Captain Marvel was a Kree soldier Mar-Vell sent to study Earth (after the Fantastic Four drew the attention of the alien race in FF#64-65). He soon defected and became an Earth hero. He died in the 1st Marvel Graphic Novel (by Jim Starlin), of cancer caused earlier by a fight with Nitro in #34 of his own series. Several others have used the name since then, including his son Genis-Vell. Captain Marvel's costume here looks like the one he wore up to his death, but in the green and white colours of his original Kree military uniform. Ms Marvel is partially Kree due to the Kree Psyche-Magnetron which gave her powers in CM#18. Noh-Varr is actually a Kree, but from an alternate timeline. He 1st appeared as Marvel Boy in the limited series of that name, but he has since taken the title Protector as one of the Avengers.

The M'Kraan Crystal and its link to the White Hot Room have a complicated history. The Crystal 1st appeared in UXM#107-108 as a source of immense power. During the Age of Apocalypse alternate timeline, in Gambit & the X-Ternals, we learned that any piece of the Crystal was as good as the whole thing. And that its heart was a Nexus Of All Realities. Thus various people used Crystal shards to escape to the main reality at the end of AoA. The place that was probably the White Hot Room was 1st seen in Classic X-Men #43, except it wasn't white or hot or even a room. It was where Jean Grey went after she died in UXM#137. But by the time CXM#43 was published post-XFa#1 we already knew it was the Phoenix Force not the real Jean Grey. However Jean Grey herself did get hold of the Phoenix Force later, and after she died for real in (New) X-Men #150 she went to a place called the White Hot Room. During the sequel in NXM#151-154 she met lots of other Phoenix's there. Supposedly she also learned then that the Room was inside the M'Kraan Crystal, but I can't find this reference, or remember the link made anywhere else before this issue. The only previous hint as far as I know was in UXM#108 where the X-Men found a white city at the heart of the Crystal. Some say that Phoenix-Jean felt a special connection to it, but I can't read the issue that way. The 1st time the place was actually shown to be white may have been when Rachel Summers, another Phoenix-person, went there in UXM#462 during House of M. But the terms 'hot' and 'room' still seem to be unsubstantiated.

These next 3 issues leave the Secret Avengers group to follow a special space team of Avengers in tie-ins to Avengers vs X-Men. Beast, Captain Britain and Valkyrie are carryovers from the real group, plus War Machine who stopped being a member after #21. But Ms Marvel, Protector, Thor and Vision are just here for the duration. This issue has no title. But judging by next issue it should be Operation Phoenix part 1. In the Dark Phoenix saga that Beast remembers the Phoenix Force didn't possess Jean Grey, it in fact turned itself into a copy to replace her (in Uncanny X-Men #101). But the inherent Jean-ness of the copy did surface to commit suicide in UXM#137, as Beast recalls. But the X-Men thought it was the real Jean Grey at the time. (The real Jean Grey returned later in the issues leading in to X-Factor (1986) #1, and things got even more complicated.) Beast used his mnemonic scrambler in UXM#136 to weaken the Phoenix. This is the 1st time we've been told it also gave Beast data about the Force.