REVIEW: 'Phoenix' #13 - Jean Grey’s Most Impossible Choice

Jean Grey has lived a confusing life—some might even say multiple lives. She’s traveled through space and time, been cloned, and existed beyond the bounds of reality. But somehow, nothing ever seems more complicated for her than family. In Phoenix #13, we find Jean defending her recently rediscovered sister, Sara, from her quasi-son, Cable. It’s a tense and emotional standoff made even more complicated by the fact that no one involved has the full picture or perspective on events.

At the center of it all is Cable, who has returned from the future to stop what he believes is the destruction of the universe. His claim? That Sara is the cause of it. He calls her an imposter and is determined to convince Jean that the woman she thinks is her sister isn’t real. But Jean has felt Sara. Empathy is an essential part of her power set, and when she says she believes in someone, it's not just sentiment; it’s instinct. Even so, Cable refuses to back down. Realizing he can’t beat Phoenix in combat, and in a desperate move to distance her from Sara, he pulls Jean into the future to prove his point.

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What she sees there is haunting. The future is lifeless and empty, a desolate landscape littered with corpses. But in this apocalypse, Cable finally has the chance to speak to Jean without interference. He delivers a brutal truth: Jean didn’t just find Sara—she created her. Not the Sara who was once born to her parents, but a new being brought into existence by the Phoenix Force when Jean last connected with the cosmos. According to Cable, this version of Sara is a cosmic anomaly, and destroying her may be the only way to restore balance to the universe.

This revelation forces Jean into one of the most painful decisions of her life. Sara is someone she just got back, someone she held in her arms. But she now represents a threat to everything Jean has ever fought to protect. The emotional weight is immense. As the Phoenix, Jean is the custodian of cosmic balance. As a human being, she’s a sister desperate not to lose someone she loves. But love might not be enough this time.

The tension doesn’t end there. Sara and her allies are on the trail of Phoenix and Cable, and they aren’t alone. Their actions have attracted the attention of the In-Betweener, a powerful cosmic entity with its own agenda. It appears it has decided to intervene in affairs, which means Jean may lose control over how this crisis is resolved—and what that resolution costs.

This issue hit harder than expected. Phillips skillfully puts Jean in a battle that can't be won with psychic might and flames. Instead, it’s an emotional and spiritual test, one that pushes her to the edge as both a woman and a cosmic force. Early on, Jean remarked that she was still trying to find a balance between her two identities. This chapter proves just how difficult that balance is to maintain—and how high the stakes are when she falters.

Phoenix #13 is intense, layered, and deeply human, even as it operates on a cosmic scale. With the arc building toward a dramatic resolution, I’m both anxious and excited to see what happens next for our cosmic guardian.

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About Phoenix #13

Release Date: July 23, 2025

Written by: Stephanie Phillips

Art by: Roi Mercado

Cover by: Lucas Werneck

Page Count: 26

Synopsis: TIMESLIDING IN…TO PUT A STOP TO THE PHOENIX! Jean Grey's beloved, long-dead sister Sara is…alive and well among the stars?! On a mysterious planet called Greyhaven, the Grey sisters have had an impossible reunion… But while Jean is overjoyed, other forces at work in the universe are less than thrilled - especially the psychically-attuned ones: like the telepathic, time-traveling soldier known as CABLE. After all, what's an X-Men family reunion without at least one time-displaced stepchild?!