Thor’s first encounter with the new Dark Phoenix puts a horrifying twist on his relationship with the Phoenix Force.
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Avengers #51, on sale from Marvel now!
Thor has always had a complicated relationship with his parents but after the reveal that the Phoenix Force was his true birth mother, his life has been turned upside down. When the Multiversal Masters of Evil invade Asgard, he gets a gruesome surprise when he sees that his relationship with the Phoenix Force could be significantly worse.
Avengers #51 (by Jason Aaron, Juan Frigeri, David Curiel, VC’s Cory Petit and Carlos Lao) reveals that the Multiversal Masters of Evil have begun their assault on the Avengers when King Killmonger, Dark Phoenix and Berserker Wolverine invade Asgard. While King Killmonger had his hands busy dealing with Iron Man and the Deathloks, the Dark Phoenix faced off against Thor and the Phoenix Force’s newest host Echo. For a moment, the heroes had the upper hand, even managing to force the corrupted Phoenix to reveal her true bird-like humanoid appearance. She turned the fight around by summoning her second Berserker, an enslaved Thor. Throughout the battle, tensions between Thor and Echo rise to the point that Thor attacks her at the same time as he attacked the Dark Phoenix and prevents Iron Man from insinuating she was an Avenger. Clearly, their mother-son relationship was already rocky but the arrival of the Berserker revealed that a far worse version of their relationship could be possible.
When Echo attempted to free the Berserker Wolverine from the Dark Phoenix’s control, she revealed that she carved out the souls of all her Berserkers, replacing them with scorch-marks so they would follow her every command. As she summoned her pet Thor, the Dark Phoenix called Thor the “son of the Thunderbird, implying that she had also given birth to a version of the God of Thunder. Therefore, her enslavement put a horrifying twist to the connection between the Phoenix Force and Thor, basically enslaving her son and forcing him to work as her multiversal hunting dog. The Berserker Thor carries a Mjolnir that’s seemingly oozing with volcanic energy then the Dark Phoenix cheekily comments that its possible for the Thunderer and the Phoenix to be one happy family but only if one rules over the other.
The Phoenix Force of Earth-616 and the Dark Phoenix’s quest function as direct opposites of each other. When the Phoenix came to Earth and took control of Firehair, she saw the destruction she could cause if she lost control so she created the Stone Age Avengers, which led to her falling in love and the birth of Thor. Meanwhile, the Dark Phoenix saw the destruction she could cause and reveled in it, leading to her enslaving her son then killing an immeasurable amount of Thors and Odins across the megaverse. Ironically, both of their quests brought both of the Phoenixes to Asgard with their sons at their side, one Thor not wanting to accept his parentage and the other incapable of disobeying it.
Given the complicated history between the Phoenix Force, Thor and the Avengers, it’s only natural that he would have a hard time accepting her as his birth mother. But seeing the horrifying relationship between the Dark Phoenix and Berserker Thor could be the exact type of shock that he needs to accept the Phoenix Force into his life and the Avengers.
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