Marvel Snap: The best variants from the Rise of the Phoenix season

Other Phoenix host variants

Jean Grey and the Phoenix Five, while sounding like a fantastic rockabilly band name, are not actually the only hosts of the Phoenix Five. In fact there have been over 45 different hosts in Marvel history.

Falcon
Artist: David Nakayama

This one’s a weird choice to be honest. 45 Marvel characters have been a Phoenix host and none of them were Falcon. Plus, Falcon wouldn’t be a great choice to mix with the Phoenix Force card as moving him about kinda does nothing for you so I don’t really get why they’re combined. Is it just because birds?

The art is pretty dope though and I love the cowl.

Iron Fist
Artist: Daniel Warren Johnson

Another one that’s never been a host but I guess I can kinda see it. There was Fongji, a previous inhabitant of the mythical city of K’un-Lun, who was a former Iron Fist, who was also a host of the Phoenix Force, but ol’ Danny Rand never handled the bird powers. Luke Cage did, but Luke Cage doesn’t have a variant.

Also, I don’t really like this art, to be honest. Punching birds at someone just sounds like a Street Fighter move. Or Smash Brothers. “Falcon Punch!”

Shang-Chi
Artist: Eduardo Miller

Okay, this is a fun one. When the Phoenix Force was trying to choose a host once, it made several of Marvel’s heroes fight to prove who was worthy. It summoned powerhouses like Captain America, Black Panther, and, um, Howard the Duck.

When Shang-Chi fought Captain America, Captain America realized that Shang-Chi’s will and strength of heart made him the perfect host and he forfeited. Unfortunately, that backfired horribly as surrender was against the rules, and out of spite the Phoenix disqualified Shang-Chi and forced Captain America to move forward in the tournament. Oops.

Captain America
Artist: Eduardo Miller

Speak of the devil. Here’s the guy responsible for Shang-Chi NOT being the current host of the Phoenix Force, all because he was too scared to get his butt handed to him by Shang-Chi.

It’s weird though, while this was the costume Captain America got from the Phoenix it looked a lot better in this comic. This looks like some sort of Rob Liefeld monstrosity. If you know you know.

Black Panther
Artist: Ken Lashley

Speaking of costumes, I don’t get this one. Black Panther had a very different costume from the Phoenix Force. It had no cowl and instead, he wore a crown of flames. It looked awesome. But something about this bothers me, I think most of the costume looks cool, love the gloves, but those weird horizontal lines everywhere make him look like the Flash villain “The Top” and that’s not a look anyone wants.

Anyway, that’s all the variants we know about for now. Hoping to see more including the inevitable Emma Frost variant. Here’s to tomorrow!