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About The Phoenix Force Let’s talk about Marvel’s cosmic hot mess — the Phoenix Force . She’s fiery, she’s needy, and she’s got a kill count that would make Galactus raise an eyebrow. If you’ve been anywhere near the X-Men corner of the Marvel universe, you’ve probably bumped into this flamebird of chaos disguised as cosmic enlightenment . From blowing up planets to gaslighting Jean Grey into space goddess mode, the Phoenix Force has done it all—usually in a blaze of melodrama and flaming feathers. So buckle up, mutants and misfits. We’re going deep into Marvel’s most unstable relationship. What the Hell Is  the Phoenix Force? In the simplest terms: the Phoenix Force is what happens when you give emotional baggage god-tier power. It’s the literal embodiment of life, death, and rebirth —the entire Marvel Universe's cosmic reset button with a flair for drama and a tendency to ghost its hosts (or worse). It’s ancient. It’s terrifying. And for some reason, it really likes redheads. Powers: Cosmic Fire With a Side of Reality-Warping The Phoenix Force doesn’t play. Here’s the shopping list of what it brings to the table: Set-your-soul-on-fire cosmic flames Resurrection, of anyone  it damn well pleases Telepathy and telekinesis that puts Xavier to shame Time and space manipulation (because why not?) And the pièce de résistance: blowing up entire star systems because someone hurt its feelings Basically, the Phoenix Force is a walking Tumblr quote about rebirth—with planet-ending consequences. Enter Firehair: The First Mutant to Get Burned Before Jean, before Rachel, before the X-Men were even a glimmer in Stan Lee’s brain, there was Firehair . She’s the OG host from 1,000,000 B.C. - yep, Jason Aaron’s prehistoric fever dream Avengers run. She’s a red-headed mutant psychic who bonded with the Phoenix and decided being a cosmic god sounded better than hunting mastodons. First Phoenix host. First burn. The Phoenix Force: Firehair Jean Grey: The Poster Girl for Cosmic Codependency We all know her. We all mourned her. Some of us shipped her with Wolverine (no judgment). Jean Grey is the classic Phoenix host , and the one who set the standard for dying, resurrecting, losing control, and dramatically screaming in space. The Phoenix saves her life in Uncanny X-Men #101 , hijacks her identity, and turns her into a god-tier telepath with no chill . Fast-forward to The Dark Phoenix Saga  and Jean’s blasting entire planets into dust while wearing S&M space couture. She eventually sacrifices herself on the Moon ( Uncanny X-Men #137 ) because being this iconic is exhausting. Plot twist: It wasn’t really  Jean. Just a Phoenix clone while the real Jean was napping in a cocoon. Comics, baby. The Phoenix Force: Jean Grey Rachel Summers: The Phoenix on a Redemption Arc Jean’s alt-future daughter from the Days of Future Past  timeline picked up the Phoenix mantle and actually kept her damn composure  for more than five minutes. Rachel bonds with the Phoenix and doesn’t go full apocalypse. She joins Excalibur , dabbles in multiversal shenanigans, and basically proves you can  host a firebird without genociding an entire solar system. Progress. The Phoenix Force: Rachel Summers The White Hot Room: Phoenix’s Weird Spa Retreat Where do Phoenix hosts go when they’re dead, sleeping, or soul-searching? The White Hot Room . Think of it as a cosmic sensory deprivation tank where fiery avatars go to sort out their feelings. Jean hangs out here a lot. Like, a lot a lot. RELATED: 22 Obscure X-Men Toys from the 90s - And Who They Were! The Phoenix Force: The White Hot Room Phoenix: Endsong & Warsong (a.k.a. The Emo Years) Endsong (2005) : The Phoenix comes crawling back like a toxic ex and resurrects Jean Grey without asking. Jean flames out again but not before reminding everyone she’s still the queen of emotional damage. Warsong (2006) : The Stepford Cuckoos - yes, the mini-Emma Frost hive mind - turn out to be secretly designed to host the Phoenix. Because of course they were. These minis are weird, wild, and full of flaming feathers and tragic stares. Peak Phoenix content. The Phoenix Force: Endsong & Warsong Avengers vs. X-Men: Power Sharing Gone Wrong The Phoenix comes back to Earth in AvX , but this time it doesn’t go for Jean. Instead, it gets broken up like a cosmic horcrux and spreads across five hosts : Cyclops (obviously) Emma Frost Namor Colossus Magik Together they become the Phoenix Five —a short-lived, firebird-fueled Justice League that goes full tyrant faster than you can say "planetary infrastructure." Cyclops kills Professor X while going Dark Phoenix again. Oops. Eventually, Hope Summers and Scarlet Witch tag-team it back into the ether. The Phoenix Force: Avengers vs X-Men Phoenix Resurrection: Jean Says “Nah” In Phoenix Resurrection  (2017), the Phoenix tries to resurrect Jean for the 74th time, but this time she’s not interested. She shuts the door on that cosmic co-dependent mess and walks off into X-Men Red  as her own woman. No flamebird needed. Cue applause. The Phoenix Force: Phoenix Resurrection (2017) Enter the Phoenix (2021): A New Era, A New Host In Jason Aaron’s Avengers , the Phoenix decides it’s time for a new direction. So naturally, it hosts a brutal tournament  where a bunch of heroes battle for the right to wield its power. The winner? Echo (Maya Lopez) - a deaf, Native American street-level badass with zero cosmic baggage. And just like that, the Phoenix gets a fresh start—and some much-needed therapy. The Phoenix Force: Enter the Phoenix (2021) Notable Phoenix Hosts (Ranked by Drama Level) Host Drama Level Notes Jean Grey 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 The OG. Has died like three times. Rachel Summers 🔥🔥 Surprisingly stable. Must get it from her dad. Cyclops 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Power corrupts. So does unresolved daddy issues. Emma Frost 🔥🔥🔥 High heels, higher body count. Namor 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Floods Wakanda. Absolutely no chill. Echo 🔥🔥 Low drama. High potential. The Phoenix is in good hands. Stepford Cuckoos 🔥🔥🔥 Emotionally repressed diamonds. It’s complicated. So, Why Does the Phoenix Force Matter? The Phoenix is Marvel’s ultimate metaphor: what happens when your power exceeds your ability to handle it . It’s grief, rage, hope, love, death, and rebirth all crammed into one cosmic force that likes to set things on fire. It’s been Jean’s burden, Rachel’s legacy, Cyclops’s downfall, and Echo’s new start. Whether it's burning galaxies or healing broken souls, the Phoenix is always evolving - and always dramatic as hell. Final Thoughts The Phoenix Force isn’t just another Marvel McGuffin - it’s a flaming, godlike manifestation of our worst (and best) impulses. It's as likely to save the world as it is to incinerate it. And honestly? We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Saga of the Swamp Thing Vol. 2 Written by Alan Moore Art by Stephen Bissette and John Totleben Published by Vertigo/DC Comics. Saga of the Swamp Thing Vol. 2 - Synopsis What Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, and John Totleben accomplished during their time on the comic book series Swamp Thing shouldn't be underestimated in the history of comics and, specifically, the history of horror comics. The modern comics landscape has been changed by the Vertigo line of books--an imprint that traces its roots back to this version of Swamp Thing. By taking a horror character fully entrenched in a superhero world (as silly as that might seem), this creative team put a new face on horror comics and on horror in general. Swamp Thing: Love and Death is the second collection of the team's work on the series, presented here in full color. Don't let the mediocre Swamp Thing movies fool you, this book is filled with sophisticated suspense and terror. Saga of the Swamp Thing Vol. 2 Review This continues my gradual trek through what has long been considered the crowning achievement of Alan Moore - at least when you chuck Watchmen and V for Vendetta - to the side. In the first volume of Saga of the Swamp Thing we were introduced to a Swamp Thing that had assimilated the consciousness of Alec Holland and struggled to come to terms with everyone it knew, including Abby, treating it as Alec Holland. Through a myriad of mis-adventures, which included having to deal with Abby's feelings and the return of DC Comics bastard-extraordinaire Anton Arcane, the first volume closed out with Swamp Thing starting to accept who and what it is. Which leads straight into the events of Saga of the Swamp Thing volume 2 - where Swamp Thing journeys beyond and relives Alec Holland's past and the pain of dying - to helping Alec Holland move on to the afterlife. It's this level of acceptance which helps Swamp Thing understand more about his place in the grander scheme of things and how he can contribute to being the guardian of the green and being a friend to Abby, Alec Holland's old flame. But, for me, this second volume doesn't quite hit its stride until Arcane returns to corrupt Abby's husband and slowly kill Abby, causing Swamp Thing to vanquish Arcane, and journey to hell, heaven or whatever you religious types want to call it - to rescue Abby's soul and reunite it with her body. Where this high stakes rescue attempt is aided by useless demon, Etrigan (who you Sandman fans will remember), who is somehow useful in a warning Swamp Thing about the dangers of hell but doing the bare-arse-minimum to help him kind of way. The now vanquished Arcane is seen during their travels throughout Hell, where he looks like something out of a Lovecraftian novel, but is quickly dispatched. Before Swampy and Arcane rescue Abby's soul and they, and by "they" I mean he (Swamp Thing) is able to return to the real world and implant Abby's soul back into her body. It's incredibly amusing to see Etrigan get shafted yet again and, this sequence of events, quite literally leans into Alan Moore's early days of 2000 AD writing where he executed the symbiosis of sarcastic humour and slapstick amongst terror, horror and science fiction - quite expertly. Saga of the Swamp Thing Vol. 2 - Page 14 As this is going on, a chance meeting between Abby and the caretakers of the House of Mystery  and House of Secrets , Cain and Abel, take place. Where Abby learns certain truths about her existence and Swamp Thing, truths she can't use because they are bounded to the House of Secrets. When Abel tries to sneak Abby out with secrets that can help her, he is killed by Cain who tells Abby not to worry as he'll come back alive soon. Before Cain, Abel's corpse, the houses and the Dreaming itself fade out of memory - leaving her even more confused than before. This is a scene that is both morbidly creepy and biblically terrifying. Once Abby is reunited with her body, there's a dramatic shift in the tone of the Saga of the Swamp Thing as Abby - who I'm still convinced if she's sane or not - begins to explore her own feelings for this Swamp Thing. Not Alec Holland, but this Swamp Thing, and what he risked to find her in the underworld. This is where Stephen Bisette's artwork is incredibly vital in communicating the exploration of love between the two and how Swamp Thing helps Abby understand how he sees the environment around him, what the green means to him and how they could potentially make love and be together. Bisette's artwork exchanges the earlier horror tones in volume 2 for this LSD-laced manifestation of fauna and kaleidoscopic colours which splash into one another. The result being as abstract as it is the absolute incarnation of beauty. Lots of optimism for Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume 3 but I know it won't last because nothing good lasts in DC Comics. I'm giving this a 10/10.

Phantom on the Scan's Connection to Bunn's Other Works There’s a particular flavour to a Cullen Bunn horror comic book. You don’t just read it. You inhale it like toxic smoke, and then you spend the next few days coughing up fragments of your own sanity. Phantom on the Scan fits right into that dirty, delicious mold. But more than that? It’s basically the keystone in Cullen Bunn’s unofficial horror-verse — that sprawling, gooey web of terror he’s been weaving across publishers like AfterShock, Boom! Studios, Image , and Dark Horse . Phantom on the Scan  is a psychic horror gut punch, where every telepath is a walking time bomb waiting to detonate in blood and madness. Matthew Jordan, a man haunted by the accidental death of a child, discovers he's just one in a grim lineup of broken psychics - all victims of shady experiments from Cortez Laboratories. Their powers are killing them slowly, but something far worse is stalking them fast: a parasitic predator born from their collective trauma, feeding on their minds and leaving behind psychic carnage. As the survivors scramble for answers, they peel back the corporate rot only to realise they were never patients - they were fuel. Cortez engineered their suffering to create this unstoppable psychic vampire, and now there’s no running, no hiding, no salvation. Matthew makes a desperate stand to cage the nightmare, but in true Cullen Bunn fashion, there’s no clean victory here. Trauma doesn’t die. It festers, it feeds, and it waits - gnawing at the walls of your mind long after the last page turns. This isn’t just another spooky story. This is Bunn doing what Bunn does best: pulling apart the meat and bones of human fear and reassembling it into something that stares you down from the corner of your room at 3AM. Let’s connect the dots between Phantom on the Scan and Cullen Bunn’s other works. Phantom on the Scan - Front Cover Cullen Bunn’s Signature Moves (a.k.a. His Serial Kill List of Horror Tropes) Before we play Six Degrees of Psychic Horror, let’s lay the groundwork. Every Cullen Bunn horror comic shares the same blood type: • Power comes with teeth, and it always bites you back. • No clean heroes. Everybody is either complicit or doomed. • Trauma isn’t subtext - it’s the damn monster. • Endings leave you hollow, like something crawled out through your ribs. • Science isn’t salvation - it’s the spark that burns it all down. Phantom on the Scan isn’t an exception. It’s the rule on steroids. The Empty Man - The Big Brother of Psychic Apocalypse The Empty Man  is a full-blown apocalypse wrapped in plague-ridden paranoia, where the infection isn’t just in your blood - it’s burrowed straight into your thoughts. Victims spiral from hallucinations to violent madness before the void cracks them wide open, leaving behind nothing but meat puppets for the abyss. But behind this so-called "virus" is something far more sinister: an ancient, cosmic predator gnawing at the seams of reality. Cults rise like rot from a corpse, worshipping The Empty Man with blood sacrifices and whispered gospel, eager to spread the sickness to every corner of humanity. As ex-agent Jensen and her partner Langford investigate a missing girl tied to the plague, they tumble headfirst into a maelstrom of cultist madness and creeping cosmic horror. Melissa, the missing girl, isn’t lost - she’s the living mouthpiece for The Empty Man ’s arrival. No matter how hard they fight, the deeper truth gnashes at their sanity: belief itself is the contagion, and the more they try to stop it, the faster it spreads. By the final, brutal crescendo, the world is swallowed whole, cults feast on despair, and the Empty Man emerges as a god of thought-plague, devouring everything in its wake. Sound familiar? Because the predator in Phantom on the Scan is the spiritual sibling of The Empty Man plague. They both feed off human weakness and paranoia like they’re snacking at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Cortez Labs and the original psychic experiments? Basically, a science-backed version of the cult from The Empty Man - both unleash a psychic time bomb and hope nobody notices the ticking. If The Empty Man is a cosmic horror shotgun blast, Phantom on the Scan is the surgical drill going straight for the frontal lobe. Harrow County - The Rural Gothic Cousin Harrow County is a Southern Gothic symphony of blood and bone, where young Emmy Crawford discovers she’s not just a farm girl - she’s the living legacy of Hester Beck, the town witch burned alive generations earlier. The land whispers to her, the haints crawl from the shadows craving her command, and her own town folk, rattled by their sins, tighten their nooses in fear. As Emmy wrestles with the monstrous inheritance festering in her veins, she’s forced to choose between becoming the witch they fear or forging her own path through the muck of old curses and restless dead. Her nightmare gets an upgrade when her venomous sister Kammi enters the fray, eager to seize Harrow County ’s haunted throne. What follows is a brutal, magic-soaked power struggle of siblings, haint armies, and townsfolk choking on their buried crimes. Emmy fights not just for survival but for the soul of Harrow County itself, sacrificing everything to break the bloody cycle. But in true Bunn fashion, the land never forgets, and even with Emmy’s sacrifice, Harrow’s horrors continue to fester beneath the surface - patient, hungry, and eternal. But peel back the Southern Gothic skin, and you’ve got the same Phantom on the Scan skeleton: • A protagonist bound to supernatural horror by blood and legacy. • Powers they didn’t ask for. • A constant tug-of-war between control and corruption. Matthew Jordan and Emmy from Harrow County are kindred spirits. Both inherit monstrous power. Both are forced to wrestle with it. And both stories remind you that power, no matter how “natural,” comes steeped in old sins. Swap the Harrow County cornfields for collapsing city streets, and you’ve got Phantom on the Scan in a different zip code. Regression - Bunn’s Dirtiest, Most Personal Horror Regression is Cullen Bunn at his most unhinged, a maggot-crawling descent into rot and ruin. Poor Adrian just wanted to silence the screaming visions gnawing at his sanity - but digging into past-life regression cracked open something ancient and vile. Turns out, his former self was Gregory Sutter: an occult sadist neck-deep in cult madness, murder, and worm-riddled theology. Now, Adrian’s trapped in a waking nightmare, blacking out while Sutter’s hunger hijacks his body, and a death cult sharpens its knives, eager to crown their maggot prince once more. As Adrian spirals, the line between man and monster liquefies. He fights the rot clawing through his mind, but every step forward is a tumble deeper into the cult’s writhing embrace. Sanity curdles, flesh rebels, and by the time Adrian realises he’s not the victim - he’s the vessel - it’s already too late. Regression is a symphony of decay, a filthy hymn to body horror, identity collapse, and the grim inevitability of being devoured by your own worst self. Sound familiar again? Phantom on the Scan is Regression ’s psychic twin - both stories trap their leads in a hall of mirrors filled with screaming faces from their past. Both feature protagonists who think they’re hunting answers but discover they’re just running in circles inside their own damn head. And both give you that creeping itch like something’s burrowed under your skin. Regression is a downward spiral, Phantom on the Scan is a psychic self-detonation. Bone Parish - Crime Noir with a Side of Necromancy Bone Parish turns New Orleans into a necromantic playground, where the hottest drug on the street is Ash - a powdered cocktail of human remains that lets users mainline the memories and skills of the dead. The "Winters" family sits on this grim empire, running Ash like a family-run cartel, but every high comes with a horrifying price: the dead don’t like being used. Rival gangs close in, corporate sharks smell blood in the water, and the family’s own greed feeds a rising tide of supernatural backlash. As the Ash trade spirals out of control, the Winters dynasty fractures from within. Betrayals, supernatural possessions, and cartel warfare pile up like bodies in an unmarked grave. What started as control over death becomes a curse they can’t escape, as the ghosts in the powder fight to reclaim the living. By the final page, the empire is buried under its own sins, and Ash lingers in the air like a malignant fog - hungry for the next soul foolish enough to inhale it. It’s Bunn’s supernatural cartel saga, where snorting the dead gets you high and haunted in equal measure. What ties it to Phantom on the Scan is the parasitic nature of power: • In Bone Parish , you burn through souls for power. • In Phantom on the Scan , you burn through your own soul just to survive. • Both comic books love showing you the slow rot that comes with addiction to supernatural force. The predator in Phantom on the Scan is basically the cosmic version of a cartel kingpin - consuming anyone foolish enough to feed it. Swap the back-alley deals for psychic nosebleeds, and you’ve got a match. The Unsound - Madness in a Box The Unsound drags you kicking and screaming into Saint Cascia Psychiatric Hospital, where fresh-faced nurse Ashli Granger quickly realises her new job is less healthcare and more hell-portal concierge. The patients riot in orchestrated chaos, the staff wear eerie masks like they’re part of some twisted masquerade, and the walls themselves seem to pulse with malevolent intent. As Ashli is swallowed by the asylum’s labyrinthine guts, reality fractures - blending industrial nightmare with body horror, where sanity isn’t just fragile, it’s practically extinct. As Ashli plunges deeper, she discovers a blood-soaked legacy that binds her to the madness of Saint Cascia itself. This isn’t random chaos - it’s her inheritance, a destiny wrapped in shrieking insanity. Cullen Bunn and Jack T. Cole conjure a relentless fever dream of dread, with no heroes, no salvation, just a suffocating descent into existential terror. By the final page, you’re left hollowed out, twitching, and unsure if the real asylum was in the comic - or your own mind all along. Phantom on the Scan has that same intimate, locked-room panic. Both comic books trap their characters inside the architecture of their own minds - where every exit is another doorway to something worse. The Unsound is your mind on hellfire. Phantom on the Scan is your mind on collapse. What Phantom on the Scan Proves About Bunn’s Horror Brain If you stack these comic books side by side, Phantom on the Scan feels like Bunn cracking his knuckles and saying: “Let’s do them all at once.” • Hive mind body horror from The Empty Man ? Check. • Inherited doom from Harrow County ? Check. • Hallucinatory descent from Regression ? Check. • Soul-eating addiction from Bone Parish ? Check. • Madness as architecture from The Unsound ? Check. It’s a greatest hits album, but played at ear-bleeding volume. More importantly, Phantom on the Scan feels like a culmination of his career-long obsession with this one central theme: The real horror isn’t out there. It’s what’s already inside you - waiting to hatch. Final Shot: If Cullen Bunn Ever Did a Crossover Event… Imagine this: • The predator from Phantom on the Scan locked in psychic combat with The Empty Man plague. • Emmy from Harrow County stepping into Matthew’s shoes, armed with rural witchcraft. • The drug lords of Bone Parish trying to smuggle psychic essence like contraband. • The asylum from The Unsound as the battleground. It’d be a bloodbath of existential horror. And we’d buy the oversized hardcover in a heartbeat. Bottom Line? Phantom on the Scan isn’t just Cullen Bunn doing what he does best. It’s him taking all the twisted lessons from his other horrors and splicing them into a psychic Frankenstein’s monster of paranoia, gore, and existential dread. If you love Bunn’s horror work, Phantom on the Scan isn’t optional reading. It’s the mainline injection.