A classic X-Men veteran has just realized exactly what demonic force Maya Lopez is up against, and it is one that he battled long before it ever tormented the Phoenix.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Phoenix Song: Echo #3, available now from Marvel.
Maya Lopez hasn’t had an easy time adjusting to becoming the latest human host of the cosmic Phoenix Force. Apart from the impossible power she is now struggling to contain, the ancient entity known as the Adversary has returned to try and claim it for himself. Maya might be the one dealing with the Adversary head on, but there is another Marvel hero who is even more shocked that the villain has made a comeback. As far as Forge knew, defeating the Adversary twice should have been enough to keep it down for good.
The Adversary has led Maya Lopez on a race back in time as it hunts her ancestral line throughout the ages. All the while in the present, the X-Men veteran Forge has taken it upon himself to track Maya down in a bid to strip her of the Phoenix Force and prevent the eventual destruction it will wreak. While it hasn’t been difficult for Forge to follow the Phoenix’s trail, what it has led him to is nothing like what he had expected. Upon reaching the place where Maya first jumped through time, Forge immediately recognizes the energy left behind as that of the Adversary. Readers may have already known about the villain’s return, but Forge’s reaction to the news has just made it clear how much of a problem that really is.
As Forge recounts in the pages of Phoenix Song: Echo #3 by Rebecca Roanhorse, Luca Maresca, Kyle Charles, Carlos Lopez, Bryan Valenza, and VC’s Ariana Maher, the Adversary was once his own greatest nemesis. When the Adversary was first introduced back in 1984’s Uncanny X-Men #188 by Chris Claremont and John Romita Jr., it was as the enemy of the Cheyenne shaman Naze. Naze would have gone on to train Forge in the mystic arts if not for the latter’s decision to leave for the military instead. Years after this, a routine mission with the X-Men would see Forge reconnect with Naze to combat a Dire Wraith invasion. Unfortunately, Naze would be killed in the fray and replaced by a duplicate, giving the Adversary the opening it needed to pose as the shaman on Earth. Through this method, the Adversary manipulated Storm into doing its bidding, and in the process forced Forge to face his mystic origins. It was only by the sacrifice of the X-Men and Madelyne Pryor that Forge was able to defeat the Adversary, and while they would all make miraculous recoveries, the impact left by that moment was unforgettable.
When the Adversary returned almost a decade after its initial defeat, Forge was forced to again reclaim the mystic heritage he had denied for so long in order to seal the demon away. Battling the Adversary also made Forge confront his own painful history, from his personal defeats to the decisions he came to regret in his later years. Thankfully this all culminated in the Adversary being banished once more in the pages of 1996’s X-Factor #121 by Howard Mackie and Steve Epting. Now that the demon has returned, however, it has been made painfully obvious that none of Forge’s previous attempts to contain it were ever bound to last no matter what he had to go through to achieve them. Even worse, Maya Lopez has no idea what it is that she is up against on top of having little to no real understanding of the Phoenix Force she is currently wielding.
Forge already knows better than anyone else in the Marvel Universe just what the Adversary is capable of on its own, so there is truly no telling what it could do if it were to get ahold of the Phoenix for itself. Even if Maya Lopez is able to defeat the Adversary for the time being, it will only rear its head again in the future to torment her all over again. That is, assuming she is still host to the Phoenix Force when that time comes. With any luck, Forge will be able to show her how to seal the Adversary away before that happens if she can’t find a way to put the demon down for good with her newfound cosmic powers.
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