Jean Grey (2nd series) #3

Somewhere between life and death, Jean Grey believes she has finally found the reason everything has gone wrong: her clone Madelyne Pryor. Every time she deals with her, everything goes to hell. Dressed as the Goblin Queen, Madelyne mocks that, surely, that doesn’t surprise her.

Suddenly, all of Jean’s memories seem to be snapshots and she has the feeling of being in a desert, in chains. This awakes other memories of being chained, but then Jean realizes those are Madelyne’s memories. Her memories shackling Jean for a change, Madelyne chuckles. Seems only right, considering how long Jean’s memories shackled her.

Can’t she feel it? Jean demands. They are not alone— Is Madelyne--? No, is the reply. Jean is cracking up fine without her help.

She’s going to read Jean’s mind, Jean hears someone say and realizes it is Hope Summers. While only Jean and Madelyne seem to be real, she can see Hope and Exodus, as if on screen. She hears Hope say that her mind is on fire. It’s burning so hot! Beyond hot! Hope realizes where they are, though she doesn’t know what it means: What’s the “White Hot Room?”

Unseen and unheard by them, Jean exclaims that she doesn’t know what’s happening. It isn’t fair! Madelyne laughs. Jean thought she’d fight fair? That she’d forget what Jean took from her… that she’d forgive the disaster they called Inferno… or does she need to remind Jean?

Mr. Sinister wanted an offspring of Scott’s and Jean’s lineage and used Jean’s cells to grow a clone – Madelyne. Awakened by the Phoenix Force, Madelyne emerged an empty vessel, an innocent pawn. She married Scott, had a child, Nathan Christopher, and was abandoned by Scott when he learned Jean still lived.

Jean protests that isn’t true! Scott went looking for Madelyne. He was told she was dead!

Madelyne continues that, in her pain, she sought power where she could find it. She consorted with demons, N’astirh, chief architect of the Inferno, and his techno-organic rival S’ym. She became part of N’astirh’s planned demon invasion. She was used by them all and ignored by Jean, until she forced the knowledge upon her.

Jean points out that they were told Maddie and Christopher were dead, but Scott kept looking. He found the baby cryogenically frozen in a secret creche beneath the orphanage where Scott had been raised. They warmed the baby up but then were attacked by Nanny and the Orphan-Maker. They took the fight outside. In the meantime, demons slipped inside and abducted Christopher. Distracted by the battle, Scott and Jean missed the demons and what they carried.

But what if the baby had cried out and Jean had heard his psychic scream?

New timeline:
Marvel Girl hears the baby’s scream and alerts Cyclops, who blasts the demon Crotus. Jean catches the falling baby and assures him he is safe.

Elsewhere, an impatient Gobin Queen demands of the demon N’astirh where her son is. A demon enters to inform them that Crotus was killed trying to get the baby. Furious, Madelyne kills the emissary.

N’astirh considers this a minor setback and tells her to learn what she must, while she takes care of the details.

He leaves and, a moment later, she is surprised by Mr. Sinister, who announces that she may call him father.

Very soon, she is in chains while he soliloquizes. When he calls her “daughter,” she calls him crazy. She has normal parents. He challenges her to give her one memory of her past. She flounders, then recalls the childhood death of her best friend Annie. He reveals that this is Jean Grey’s memory. She remembers flying, fire and destruction, dying on the moon. Sinister reveals that she awoke in a tube the moment of Jean Grey’s death. The memory of the Phoenix fire is real. As her clone, she may share Jean’s link with the Phoenix. When Madelyne demands why she was created, he reveals he needed the offspring of Jean and Scott’s DNA.

Madelyne slumps, dejected. N’astirh (who is watching from the shadows) notes this and figures she may need reinforcements.

He and S’ym attack Sinister together. At that moment, Madelyne ‘s power overloads the power-dampening chains and she breaks free and orders them to stop. Sinister is hers. Addressing him as “daddy dearest,” she claims he has given her the truth about herself. She understands what she is. Not a mutant like Jean Grey, but still Phoenix-driven, and she has made a deal with demons. She has power of her own, which she demonstrates by killing Mr. Sinister.

N’astirh suggests they should go now to get her son. His sacrifice will ensure his rule, and hers by his side. By his side? she replies, displeased. She kills him, announcing she has something better in mind. S’ym leers that it is easy to see that he as the techno-organic demon makes the better consort.

However, she has other ideas. Madelyne grabs him by the throat and allows him to infect her with the TO virus, then uses her own power to drain him of his life energy. Now she is thrice powered: by the Phoenix, by demon magic and the TO virus. She may be no real person, no longer human at all, but it seems she is something more. She now is truly the Goblin Queen and her reign is about to begin!

In the meantime, Cyclops, Marvel Girl and baby Christopher are flying toward Manhattan. Cyclops notes the Manhattan Skyline is different and asks Jean to contact Ship. She informs him there is interference. She cannot get through.

They pass the Empire State Building, which has become taller and a demonish nightmare. Jean wonders aloud. She notices winged beings looking like that also were the ones that tried to kidnap Christopher. They look like demons. And that’s crazy, right? In Illyana’s Limbo, maybe, but not here on Earth. What’s going on?

As he steers them past a demonically transformed Statue of Liberty and monsters swimming in the water, Cyclops decides they’ll figure it out once they’ve gotten Christopher to safety on Ship.

They finally see Ship, untransformed, and land on deck. As they get out of their vessel, Cyclops asks if Ship knows what is going on. A voice from above tells them: Manhattan has been transformed and invaded by demons. It is Madelyne, now a techno-organic transformed horror with red, spiky skin. She tells them their teammates are there and will soon be dead. As will they. She demands her son Nathan. Cyclops stammers that they thought she was dead. There was DNA evidence…

She interrupts that DNA is what Mr. Sinister is all about: her creator made it easy for them to believe. He tried to kill her and destroy all evidence that Nathan existed.

He knows, Cyclops admits. He thought he was going mad, that he’d hallucinated their son. But then he found his favorite rattle behind a radiator. He consulted a psychic—

Jean interrupts and simply asks why. Madelyne tells her that Scott rejected her love because of Jean. All she has left are hate and rage. She reveals that she is Jean’s clone and shares some of her memories of Annie’s death. Of Jean’s death on the moon - of her dying or radiation poisoning and rejecting the Phoenix. That was when it found Madelyne. She vows that all of them will die, then blasts Scott. His dying words are for Jean to save the baby.

Jean lifts him away telekinetically and asks why. Christopher is innocent. Madelyne snaps, his name is Nathan! She made him and can use him as she chooses. His death will open a portal from Limbo to Earth. She will rule it all…

Jean tries to protect the baby but her telekinetic shield is weakening against Madelyne‘s onslaught. Jean orders Ship to take the baby and hide him. The Ship opens an aperture which Jean puts the baby into.

The Phoenix speaks to Jean, telling her it brought Madelyne to life. It can bring Jean back to life if she accepts its light and its darkness. Jean retorts that darkness and death follow in its wake. She won’t be used, like Madelyne! The Phoenix tells her to die then. As ever, the choice is hers.

Madelyne breaks through Jean’s shields. She begins to drain Jean’s life energy, but Jean can telekinetically push her away. Madelyne tells her to live then and see the consequences of her choices.

She infects the Ship with her TO virus and it breaks apart. Madelyne describes how she controls the atoms that make up this Ship. They flow out in a molecule-thin wave, infecting every machine, every organic being in its path. Even Jean. Sweeping ever outward, infecting everything. There is more than one way to rule a world…

Enough! Jean shouts and rejects this world. Beaten, she complains that she accepted the Phoenix power, she sent it to others, she rejected it. Every choice means death and destruction. What else should she have done? Why ask them? She is the one who created this mess! another Jean Grey, one of many, asks angrily.