As Jean Grey, as Dark Phoenix, makes her way back to
earth, Lilandra holds an emergency meeting with her council. They summarize her
terrible deeds from last issue and ultimately decide that Phoenix must be
eliminated, for the good of the universe! Meanwhile, the President of the
United States contacts Avengers Mansion, finding only Jarvis there. He wants
the Avengers to deal with the energy signature that was registered approaching
earth and Jarvis wonders where Beast could have gone to, having been the one
assigned to monitor duty. Of course, we know that Beast came to help the X-Men,
where we find him in the process of whipping up a mnemonic scrambler that he
hopes will prevent Jean from using her powers. Storm tries to comfort Cyclops,
who knows he has to stay in control, lest the gravity of everything that may
soon happen overwhelm him!
Meanwhile, Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler work
out in the Danger Room, at a loss for what else to do. We then cut to
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where Dark Phoenix lands outside the home where
she grew up, not knowing quite why she came here. She enters in the dead of
night and is soon found by her parents and older sister, who are surprised to
see her there. Jean is unable to block out their thoughts, and she can feel
their fear of her, buried under their worry. Overwhelmed with their thoughts, and
warring with herself, Dark Phoenix lashes out, turning a plant into crystal and
threatening to do the same to her family. Her father rejects her and casts her
out, while Jean continues her internal struggle.
She then notices a pea-soup fog outside and flies out,
knowing the X-Men must be near. Nightcrawler then suddenly teleports on top of
her, jamming Beast’s device onto her head, causing her pain as well as limiting
her powers. The X-Men try to restrain her, but she quickly deals with both
Colossus and Storm while Beast notes how Jean is quickly starting to burn out
his scrambler. Wolverine tackles the momentarily off-balance Dark Phoenix,
intent to finish the job, once and for all! The real Jean regains control for
moment and pleads with Wolverine to kill her before she can continue to hurt
anyone else. Wolverine is unable to go through with it and Dark Phoenix regains
control, shorting out the device and telekinetically freezing the X-Men!
Dark Phoenix starts to torture them when Cyclops shows
up, not even attempting to fight, and simply talks, in order to get through to
Jean. He knows that the real Jean is still in there and that the real reason
she hasn’t been able to kill them is because her love for them all still
remains. Jean continues to struggle within herself and briefly peeks through
again, Scott’s words reaching her. She then suddenly gets mind-blasted by
Professor X, having just arrived with Angel. Dark Phoenix and Professor X then
engage in an epic mental battle, fought on all planes of existence! Energy
lights up the sky, when suddenly Jean collapses, Xavier having managed to
successfully seal away Dark Phoenix once again! He admits he would have lost,
but Jean was fighting with him, helping him from within herself. Scott mentally
proposes to Jean, overjoyed that everything seems to be okay, and she accepts!
Jean’s father demands an explanation, but just before Xavier can give it, he
and the X-Men all suddenly disappear, whisked away to parts unknown! To be
concluded!