The Phoenix Five, Explained for Collectors
The Phoenix Five are Cyclops, Emma Frost, Namor, Colossus and Magik, five X-Men who each took a fifth of the Phoenix Force during Marvel's 2012 Avengers vs X-Men event. VeVe has released them as a figure series, which makes it one of the few X-Men lines built around a single storyline rather than a character roster.
Most X-Men collectibles are character pieces. You buy Wolverine because he is Wolverine, and the version you get is whichever costume the artist liked. The Phoenix Five are different. They only exist because of one specific storyline, they only look like that for a few months of publishing history, and you cannot really explain the figures without explaining the comic. That is unusual, and it is the reason this series is more interesting than another round of costume variants.
What the Phoenix Force actually is
Before 2012, you need 1976.
In Uncanny X-Men #101, cover-dated October 1976, Jean Grey came out of a crashed shuttle transformed. Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum called her Phoenix, and for a few years she was the most powerful member of the team. Then came the Dark Phoenix Saga, and in X-Men #137, cover-dated September 1980, Claremont and John Byrne killed her off on the moon. It remains one of the most discussed issues Marvel has ever published, and it set the rule that everything afterwards works from: the Phoenix Force gives you cosmic power, and then it takes something from you.
That rule is the entire premise of the Phoenix Five. Everyone reading in 2012 knew exactly how this was going to end, because they had watched it happen to Jean.
If you want the deeper comics background, the comics section covers the issues that matter for collectors.
Avengers vs X-Men, 2012
The setup is simple enough. The Phoenix Force is heading for Earth, apparently to bond with Hope Summers. The Avengers want to stop it. Cyclops and the X-Men want to let it happen, because mutants are close to extinct and the Phoenix might fix that. Neither side is wrong, which is what made the event work.
The turn comes partway through. Iron Man builds a weapon to destroy the Phoenix Force and hits it with everything he has. It does not destroy it. It shatters it into five pieces, and those pieces bond to the five X-Men standing closest: Cyclops, Emma Frost, Namor, Colossus and Magik.
For a stretch of the story, they are effectively gods. They end droughts, stop wars and rebuild cities. They also start losing themselves one at a time, in the order you would expect if you have read 1980.
Cyclops
Scott Summers is the reason the whole thing happens. He spent the lead-up insisting the Phoenix was mutantkind’s salvation, and then he got a fifth of it and was proved right for about five minutes.
Cyclops is the anchor of the set and the one figure that carries the most narrative weight. He is also the character the event permanently changed. Post-2012 Scott is a different man, and collectors who followed the books know exactly which side of that line a given piece sits on.
Emma Frost
The White Queen, telepath, and the most interesting read in the group. Emma’s arc through the event is about what the power does to somebody who already enjoys control, and the answer is not flattering.
Visually she is the strongest contrast in the set: white costume against the Phoenix’s gold and red flame effects. If you are only buying one for display reasons, this is the one that photographs best in AR.
Namor
The Sub-Mariner has been around since 1939, which makes him older than the X-Men, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. He was never really a team player, and giving him a fifth of a cosmic force went about as well as everybody expected.
Namor’s role in the event is the loudest. His attack on Wakanda is the moment the story stops being a debate and becomes a war, and his figure is the one that carries that energy.
Colossus
Piotr Rasputin is the gentle one, which is what makes his version of this arc hurt. He takes the power partly out of duty and partly because he is already carrying the Juggernaut burden from earlier in the story, and the combination is too much.
Metal skin plus Phoenix flame is a fantastic design problem and the figure solves it well. Chrome and fire are two finishes that should fight each other and somehow do not.
Magik
Illyana Rasputina, Colossus’s sister, sorceress, and the character with the highest chaos ceiling in the group. Magik was already operating with Limbo magic before the Phoenix arrived, and stacking cosmic power on top of that produced the most unhinged version of anyone in the set.
She is also the one newer collectors tend to know least, and I would argue she is the best single piece in the series. The design has the most going on.
Collecting the Phoenix Five as a set
A few practical thoughts.
This is a set that only makes sense complete. Individually, a Phoenix Five figure is a slightly odd version of a character you probably already own in a normal costume. Together, they are a recognisable moment in Marvel history and they read as one display. If you are going to start, plan on finishing.
Understand rarity tiers before you begin rather than halfway through. Editions run from Common up through the scarcer tiers, and matching the tier across five pieces is a different project than simply owning five pieces. The rarity tiers guide explains how that works, and the glossary covers the terms if series and edition language is new to you.
Watch the drop calendar rather than assuming everything is available at once. Series pieces surface on their own schedule, and the broader Marvel franchise page gives a sense of the release rhythm around X-Men material.
One more thing worth knowing: Jean Grey is not in the Phoenix Five. The story is built around her absence, and people new to the event are often surprised by that. If you are building a wider X-Men display, a Phoenix Five row plus the characters who were not part of it - Wolverine in particular, who spends the event firmly on the other side - tells the story better than the five on their own.
Browse the characters page if you want to see what else from the X-Men side has appeared.
Collecting the Phoenix Five
If the Phoenix Five appeals to you, start with whichever of the five you actually care about rather than trying to buy in order. Set collecting goes better when the first piece is one you would have wanted anyway. New collectors get US$10 in free credit with no card required, which covers getting an account running and seeing how a figure looks in AR before you commit to a full set. It is on the free credit page, and how to start has the setup steps.