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The whole idea of turning Phoenix into a villain sprang from her getting more and more "screen time", effectively turning the X-Men into fifth wheels in their own book. I complained about it. The editors complained about it. Shooter complained about it. But Chris kept turning up the Phoenix power, even in scenes I specifically drew hoping he would not be able to.

Finally it was Steven Grant who said "Why not just make her a villain?" Chris embraced this idea instantly. I can still remember the call when he told me what we were now going to do. I was resistant at first, but soon saw that any kind of status quo being restored to UNCANNY X-MEN would mean sacrificing Jean. And, there were plenty of ways she could be "redemed" later, if need be. I suggested Mastermind as the engine by which the "evilization" could be accomplished.

So Chris started setting up the Phoenix as an evil entity, held in check by Jean's humanity, until Mastermind corrupted Jean, and unleashed the true face of the Phoenix.

But then Shooter decided Phoenix had to die. We had told him about the destruction of the "asparagus people", and he had okayed it (he now claims he was not paying attention -- excellent doing of your fucking job there, big guy!), but when the pages came in he said no, no, no, she's a killer, she must be punished.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, "punished" meant taken to a prison asteroid and horribly tortured for all eternity. To that I said "No way!" (in somewhat more colorful language), "I'd sooner kill her!" So the ending of 137 was redone, and Phoenix died.

And that's when the trouble really started. Because Chris could not let it go. "Why did Phoenix have to die, but Galactus doesn't?" he demanded. I pointed to the Watcher's famous speech about Galactus not being evil, while Phoenix, we had established, was. So Chris started his unending campaign to make Phoenix "good" and human nature "evil". This gave us the unapproved appearance of the FF in X-MEN, so Lilandra can read the riot act to Reed. (This also gave us Shooter once more at his most hypocritical: "Thou shalt not use other office's characters without permission!" But they used the FF without permission! "Tough. Write a story about it.")