Madwoman in Genosha

This was the culmination of my work on Jean Grey and Wanda Maximoff. The ultimate end to that cycle of ideas, papers, and chapter portions. Through all of the work on my PhD, I found a lot of love for characters in DC and Marvel that I hadn't had much interest in before. Spending so much time with Phoenix, Batwoman (the original), Scarlett Witch, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy endeared them and their stories to me in a way I don't have with other characters. As of the publishing of this post, I haven't seen any of the Disney+ Wanda and Vision show yet and this love for the character is part of it. I'm always worried they are going to find another way to do this character wrong. It's also why, in my opinion, no matter how often they try to do The Dark Phoenix Saga in film, it always turns out trash. They just don't understand the actual under pinnings of that story.

Madwoman in Genosha: The Fear of Female Sexuality, Power, and Autonomy in The Dark Phoenix Saga, Avengers Disassembled, and House of M 

— By Dr. Joseph Willis

In their book, Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar bring to light the Angel/Monster, or Madonna/Whore, trope within 19th century literature. Though beyond just 19th century literature, this trope, as a way of seeing women and attempting to understand their sexual identities, is ingrained in cultural history as well as in literature and media well beyond the 19th century. This trope works to constrain women, forcing them into harsh binaries, and demanding they submit control of their sexual identities to patriarchal power structures. As mutants and heroes turned villains, turned heroes again, Jean Grey (Phoenix) and Wanda Maximoff (Scarlett Witch) function not only as examples of the Angle/Monster trope and the way it functions in superhero narratives, but also as a way to see how this trope functions in narratives to perpetrate the patriarchal idea that female sexual identity needs to be constrained and controlled. Without this control, these women need to be subjugated or destroyed to assuage the anxiety and fears of the patriarchal system.

Within patriarchal power structures and superhero comics, the presumed dominant position identify women and female characters, “with the ‘eternal types’ they have themselves invented”. The dominant position has come to expect the angelic or monstrous woman. This is not because women in the real world can actually fit into such simple binaries, but because the dominant position insists that it is the way it has always been. The angelic woman is submissive, silent, and constrained. To defy any of these assertions or requirements marks the woman as monstrous or evil. Where the angelic woman is lauded and praised, the monstrous woman is reviled, hated, and punished.

Monstrous women tend to take on very specific forms, they are, “Emblems of filthy materiality, committed only to their own private ends, these women are accidents of nature, deformities meant to repel, but in their very freakishness they possess unhealthy energies, powerful and dangerous arts.” As mutants, Jean and Wanda are born almost exact definitions of monstrous women. Within the mythology of the Marvel Universe, mutants are often labeled as filthy, freaks, or accidents of nature. They are born with unnatural powers. Mutants though are not powered in the cradle, their powers manifest themselves as part of puberty. For Jean and Wanda, going through puberty isn’t just about maturing sexually but also developing unimagined power. This fact ties sexual development to the metaphor of developing powers. And like the expectations and constraints placed on the development of female sexuality by patriarchal structures, Jean and Wanda’s powers also need to be constrained and controlled. Unchecked female power and sexuality is what separates angelic women from their monstrous counterparts.

In the famous stories The Dark Phoenix Saga and Avengers Disassembled, Jean and Wanda transform from their constrained roles as angelic women into monstrous women by letting their sexuality, or power, become unchecked. As Gilbert and Guber point out, “The monster may not only be concealed behind the angel, she may actually turn out to reside with (or in the lower half of) the angel.” Female sexuality, unchecked, is perceived by patriarchal power as unhealthy or unnatural. And so, by extension, it is also dangerous.

This perception also plays out in 19th century gynecological texts and the way female specific diseases like hysteria and nymphomania were discussed, diagnosed, and treated. The term nymphomania itself, “resonates with a sense of the insatiable sexuality of women, devouring, depraved, diseased. It conjures up an aggressively sexual female who both terrifies and titillates men.” Within patriarchal power structures, female sexuality must be constantly available to men, but only when men approach or require it. Otherwise, female sexuality must be contained and constrained. This control often takes the shape of expected gender roles, cultural restrictions, or the direct intercession of male power and authority. Cultural expectations of female sexuality dictate that women are “supposed to be…sexually passive (although not passionless), awaiting the awakening of desire in response to the approaches of men.”

Initially, both Jean and Wanda adhere to cultural expectations of gender and sexuality. They are, for the most part, submissive and maternal. Jean is the obedient daughter figure to Professor X’s father figure, and she is committed and supportive in her role as girlfriend to the X-Men’s leader, Cyclops. Though starting out as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Wanda eventually reforms and becomes a member of the Avengers. Wanda meets, falls in love with, and marries her android teammate, The Vision. She sought out a life of acceptable domesticity. And even though her husband was an android, through the deus ex machina of mutants and magic she was able to briefly become a mother.

As angelic as Jean and Wanda may be, as their power grows, the dangers their powers represent if uncontrolled become more present. For Jean in particular, as her phoenix powers begin to grow, she begins to describe the use of those powers in a more physical aspect. As her powers flair she notes that, “My mind burning - so many memories - sensations.”, or, “My power, it’s hitting me like a drug, I’ve never felt such ecstasy.” and “if anything, they make me feel good.” For Jean, pushing and testing the limits of her power is like discovering new sexual freedom or a new sexual identity. Throughout the Dark Phoenix Saga, Jean is shown vacillating between her constrained, angelic position, and the possibilities offered by an uncontrolled sexuality. While searching for the mutant Dazzler, Jean uses her psychic powers to scan the thoughts of the patrons at a seedy disco club. She notes that, “Some of the images I’m receiving are so vile…part of me almost finds those thoughts attractive.” As Jean’s power grows, so does her sexual identity, eventually to the point that it can not be controlled. It is at that point, that Jean becomes a monstrous woman. Unable to be constrained by the authoritative male figures in her life, and obsessed with “only her own private ends.” Jean transforms first to the dominatrix like Black Queen and then to Dark Phoenix. In both forms, Jean turns against her fellow X-Men rebelling against her mentor Professor X and partner Cyclops. 

While Jean’s uncontrolled power and sexuality comes through growing and experiencing  new powers, Wanda’s transformation into a monstrous woman comes through the unhealthy energies and dangerous arts that define her powers. During Avengers Disassembled, with a number of their teammates injured or dead (including Wanda’s husband The Vision) the assembled Avengers learn from Doctor Strange that their unknown enemy is the once angelic Wanda. As explanation, Strange informs the heroes, “As a mutant, she was born with her powers of magic…it wasn’t earned through spirituality. It was given to her without understanding of its consequence.” Wanda’s powers, her ability to rewrite reality, are unnatural, uncontrolled, and since she had stopped going to Doctor Strange for training, unchecked by male power or authority. These are, “powers she did not earn nor can she control, powers she never fully understood.” Because of her unchecked and uncontrolled power, her unchecked sexuality, Wanda has transformed into a monstrous woman. The same way that Jean defies the maternal and patriarchal order of family, Wanda too turns against Captain America as the leader of the Avengers and goes as far as killing her husband, an ultimate revolt against patriarchal authority, “You killed The Vision Wanda! Your own husband!”

As a monstrous woman, Wanda is only concerned with her own desires. In this case, to once again have children. Once again, Doctor Strange as the voice of patriarchal authority: “She says to herself: ‘I deserve happiness. I want to bring something into this world that is good. That I can love.’ And she gives birth to children even though she can’t. She played mommy to make herself feel like someone she thinks is normal.” By selfishly trying to pretend at the angelic and normal form of mother, Wanda creates fake, unnatural children with her unnatural powers. An act that leads to death and destruction. Her own selfish desires kills her husband.

Jean too is driven by her own selfishness, but in her case the drive for a stronger sexual gratification and need. She constantly looks for new and greater feelings of satisfaction. Jean tells Cyclops that his love matters, but “I hunger Scott for a joy, a rapture, beyond all comprehension. That need is a part of me…it consumes me.” Jean must continually be satiated. Once she has experienced the cosmic orgasm, she must have it again. “She craves that ultimate sensation and she will pay any price to achieve it once more.”

Once becoming monstrous women, both Jean and Wanda’s powers and sexuality is out of the scope of male authority or control. Once male authority can not control a woman’s power and sexuality, it becomes dangerous and is marked as unnatural or a disease, something in need of a cure. “The concept of nymphomania constructs a female sexuality that is totally out of control, both literally and figuratively…out of the control of their husbands, fathers, and doctors; and out of the control of the natural laws that supposedly determined women’s passive response to male desire.” Unchecked, Jean and Wanda destroy, or consume everything around them. Their powers and sexuality are ravenous and all consuming. Even as Jean flies into space as Dark Phoenix she notes that, “I’m ravenous…I need sustenance.” And in achieving that sustenance, not only does she destroy a star, “Dark Phoenix thrills to the absolute power that is hers. She is in ecstasy.” Her power burns out a sun and destroys an inhabited world.

In diagnosing and evaluating the symptoms and effects of nymphomania, many doctors claimed that the women they were treating were, “in a condition of ungovernable sexual excitement.” and that their sexual drive, “burned with such intensity that it very nearly wrecked the physical well being” For Jean and Wanda, their powers and desires are ungovernable, and that ungovernability will lead to the wrecking and destroying of not only patriarchal power, but life itself. Jean's excitement destroys a sun and inhabited planet, while Wanda kills a number of Avengers and in the House of M crossover, she completely rewrites reality and eventually decimates the world’s mutant population.

Wether a monstrous mutant or a victorian woman branded a nymphomaniac, their uncontrolled, rebellious nature is a source of dread and anxiety for the patriarchal power structure. To assuage that dread, the narrative must absorb punish, silence, or destroy these women in some way. As Gilbert and Guber point out, “Life of feminine submission…is a life of silence…while a life of female rebellion…is a life that must be silenced.” In western literary traditions, rebellious, nonconforming women are ultimately silenced in one of two ways. In the British tradition, the woman is silence through marriage and domesticity. In the American tradition, silence is achieved through suicide.

After the events of Avengers Disassembled, Wanda is trapped in her own attic on the former mutant island, Genosha. Though her powers and attempts at recreating her children are stymied by Professor X’s psychic powers. He readily points out, “We can’t keep drugging her and psychically putting her to sleep.” For Wanda, the temptation to be rebellious, to return to her defiant and uncontrolled ways are too strong, and she must be silenced. She does, momentarily, play with the idea of suicide. “Am I a coward, for not wanting to kill myself? Even though I know I should?” Wanda laments.

Jean, however, has no such fear and follows the tradition of monstrous literary American women before her. Like Wanda, Jean is unable to fully turn away from her uncontrolled and rebellious search for larger and greater sexual gratification. Even having accepted a marriage proposal from Cyclops and once again under Professor X’s psychic tutelage and control, she informs Cyclops that, “It felt good! I don’t want that feeling ever again. And yet I do!” Once she has experienced sexual liberation and a cosmic orgasm, Jean realizes that there is no denying that road. “Jean to Phoenix to Dark Phoenix, a progression as inevitable as death.” Like Kate Chopin’s Edna, or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Zenobia, Jean is willing to silence herself and return to an angelic identity through suicide. Her decision is, as Gilbert and Guber assert, “her commitment to the angelic tranquility of death”. Jean says, “It’s better this way. Quick. Clean. Final.” as she assures Cyclops and the reader before stepping in front of an energy bolt and being incinerated. 

Though this is how Jean’s end played out in the final published version of The Dark Phoenix Saga, it wasn’t the original version that writer Chris Claremont had in mind. His original vision for the final of The Dark Phoenix Saga mirrored the fates of nymphomaniacs and eventually Wanda Maximoff.

In treating hysteria or nymphomania, 19th century physicians first had to find a root and cause for the various “symptoms” they observed. The most pervasive theories of the time asserted that female diseases and issues all stemmed from the female reproductive organs. This lead to a belief that removal of those organs, or loosely related parts of the female anatomy, would cure diseases like nymphomania. Women diagnosed with extreme cases of nymphomania, or women who were incapable of turning away from their “unnatural and uncouth, passions and desires.” would frequently undergo oophorectomy (the removal of ovaries) or excision of the clitoris or labia. Literally, these women were separated from what was perceived as the source of their sexuality and uniquely female power. For both Wanda and Jean, a more fitting punishment for their rebellions and uncontrolled sexuality and power than death, is to be separated from their power, to have it ripped out of them.

As the alternate reality created by Wanda in House of M begins to collapse and the assembled Avengers and X-Men stand on the brink of victory, Wanda performs her most destructive act, and in a sacrificial way rips her power away from herself. Reasserting the fact that she is unnatural and that her powers are unhealthy she screams at the assembled heroes, “We’re freaks!! Mutants!!” and then using her powers one more time she whispers, “No more mutants.” With that phrase, not only does Wanda return the world to its normal state and depowers the majority of mutants, she also silences herself. She masochistically rips out all of the parts of herself that were unhealthy, unnatural, and uncontrollable leaving herself a powerless amnesiac.

Four years after the publication of The Dark Phoenix Saga Marvel Comics released a special oversized comic titled, Phoenix: The Untold Story. Not only did this issue include interviews and discussions with the creators and editorial staff behind The Dark Phoenix Saga, but it also contained the original ending that had been planed for the story. In this version, Jean doesn't commit suicide, but is essentially lobotomized and rendered powerless. Jean submits to an alien device that proceeds to, excise those parts of her brain which relate to her mutant abilities.” Like Wanda depowering herself, or the supposed nymphomaniacs submitting to the surgeons blade, Jean lays down to have her powers, her uncontrolled sexuality, cut away. “When every aspect, every pathway of the fantastic neural network that comprises Jean’s psionic talent has been charted - down to the sub-atomic levels - the psychic surgery begins. One by one - an atom here, a strand of molecules there -  those pathways are burned away.” To be controlled, to be brought back in line with the angelic expectations or the dominant position, Jean has her powers and sexuality normalized through surgery.

At no time is it assumed that the writers and artists of these comics and narratives were drawing specific parallels to, or promoting, the diagnoses of nymphomania or the treatments used by 19th century doctors. However, cultural structures, expectations, and definitions that dictate femaleness and how female sexuality should be perceived are systems that still function and maintain patriarchal control of female power and sexuality. These constant affirmations and repetitions of patriarchal authority work to assuage the fears and anxiety that subversive, rebellious, or uncontrolled women cause these power structures. These narratives work as warnings that without this control and constraint, female power and sexuality could at any moment consume us all and destroy the world and culture we inhabit.