Post by Stepford Cuckoos on Nov 28, 2014 20:00:23 GMT -5
Bio is from Comic Vine. This is the team bio. The bios for each of the surviving Cuckoos can be found by clicking each girl's name
Celeste
Irma/Mindee
Phoebe
As of this moment in the game, the girls still have a portion of the Phoenix inside them, but Emma "iced" it off in each of them so none of them can access the power.
Team Name
Stepford Cuckoos
Publisher
Marvel
First Appearance
New X-Men #118 - Germ Free Generation Part One
Appears in
1209 issues
Disbanded In
Aliases
Emma's Girls
Five-in-One
Four-in-One
Phoenixes
Stepford Sisters
Thousand-In-One
Three-in-One
Weapon XIV
Powers
Psychic Gestalt
The Stepford Cuckoos are powerful telepaths, who can combine their telepathic abilities to create an even more powerful hive-mind. Their telepathic powers include broadcasting and receiving thoughts, mind control, planting illusions, blasts of pure psionic energy, seeing through another person's eyes, and also are so powerful that they are one of the few people able to operate Cerebra. The Stepford Cuckoos are considered to be near Omega-level mutants, though they have never been classified as such, and since the deaths of their two sisters, have reduced in power.
In X-Men: Phoenix Warsong, they were the avatars of the Phoenix. During possession, they displayed new powers related to the Phoenix, such as Phoenix-granted telekinesis and fire generation. It is unlikely that they still possess these abilities, however, especially after their captured Phoenix fragments left them abruptly during the Nation X storyline. It should be noted that avatars of the Phoenix are normally only Omega-level mutants and that the Phoenix in question was merely a shard of the full Phoenix Force. Regardless of this, they are uniquely powerful telepaths and essential to the X-Men. Often, they maintain telepathic communication for the teams via Cerebra when Emma is occupied with other missions.
The Cuckoos have also inherited the ability to turn into organic diamond like their mother, Emma Frost. However, unlike Emma, their diamond forms are flawless and cannot be shattered. All three can either turn an internal organ into perfect diamond while staying organic on the outside like they did with their hearts to imprison and capture the errant Phoenix shard during events of Warsong or fully become diamond to protect themselves during an ambush by demons in Limbo. During this event, the sisters had to communicate orally in order to agree on a plan to psychically influence the group of new mutants with bravery. To do this they had to become become organic again, sharing the same restrictions Emma has in her Diamond form.
Alternate versions of the Cuckoos have also demonstrated the power of precognition. This may or may not be true for the Earth-616 Cuckoos.
Origin
Celeste, Esme, Mindee (Irma), Sophie and Phoebe are daughters of Emma Frost, cloned from Emma's ova cells while she lay in a coma after her Hellions were killed. Aged by a bubble that bent space and time, the Cuckoos joined the X-Men. It was eventually discovered that there were actually a thousand more clones of Emma Frost who had been created by the Weapon Plus program. They were collectively known as "Weapon XIV". These surplus clones were destroyed by the Phoenix Force while it possessed the body of Celeste.
Creation
The Stepford Cuckoos were created by Grant Morrison and Ethan Van Sciver. They first appeared in New X-Men #118. Originally Grant Morrison intended the first letter of each of the girls name to spell S-P-I-C-E, but as he never finished naming the girl, the last
was named Mindee. This was later corrected by Matt Fraction, who attributed the name Irma to Mindee.
Major Story Arcs
Riot at Xavier's
During the student riot on opening day headed by Quentin Quire - a student, powerful telepath, and the Cuckoos' chief rival who had an unrequited love for Sophie - Emma offhandedly chastised the girls for hiding during the riot rather than assisting to end it, as she felt true heroes should. Inspired by Emma's words, Sophie used Kick to increase the Cuckoos' abilities and used Cerebra to stop Quentin. Although Quentin was defeated, the overexertion and her sister Esme's unknown telepathic suggestion resulted in Sophie's death.
The remaining Cuckoos were later awarded for their bravery and outstanding use of telepathy in line with the ideals of the Institute. After Sophie's untimely death, they began calling themselves the Four-In-One. The Cuckoos blamed Emma Frost for Sophie's death, and separated themselves from her. This hurt her greatly. The Stepford Cuckoos then telepathically communicated with Jean Grey while at a gathering, not only to test the new limits on their reduced powers, but also to tell her about Emma's telepathic affair with Scott. Jean furiously confronted Emma and trampled through Emma's mind, humiliating her. Emma managed to barely hold out against this attack in her diamond form until Scott willingly showed Jean that nothing had happened. Emma was later discovered in her diamond form, shattered in pieces, having been shot by a diamond bullet while in her diamond body, which had one flaw. To help find the murderer, Sage and Bishop came to investigate. They found that Angel Salvador killed Emma, but was being mind-controlled by Esme, who was working for Xorn (Magneto). Deciding to flee, Esme told the other Cuckoos that she desired individuality and that Emma Frost did not care about them, but instead only wanted to make them like her. Bishop and Sage confronted Esme as she was leaving. Esme telepathically defeated both of them and joined Xorn/Magneto.
Sophie's death
Xorn, believing himself to be Magneto, began destroying New York, planning to reverse the magnetic poles and leading a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants with Esme as a member. Esme believed that Xorn/Magneto reciprocated her feelings of love, but he rejected her. During the chaos, the X-Men joined together to stop him, and Celeste, Phoebe and Mindee used their telepathy to safely guide civilians to safety.
Hurt by his rejection and concerned for Xorn/Magneto's sanity, Esme and the others turned against him. Esme used her telepathy to destroy Xorn's mind. This caused him to lash out and kill her by magnetically ripping out her earrings and forcing them into her brain. Esme died in Emma Frost's arms, with Emma saying, "...you turned into such a wonderful little femme fatale in the end, didn't you? I’m ever so proud of all my girls but you ... I think I’m most especially proud of you, dear." Despite this, Esme's last words to Emma were "...Nothing like you...".
With Esme's death, the girls resolved their differences with Emma and called themselves the Three-in-One.
The three remaining Stepford Cuckoos were members of the Corsairs, until they disbanded following M-Day. The Stepford Cuckoos were instrumental to defeating Blob, whose few vulnerabilities included telepathy. They were also seen going to the dance with Hellion. The three survived the depowering caused by Decimation, and remained as students at the school.
The Phoenix Endsong
Quentin Quire awoke from his psionic stasis when the Phoenix manifested itself on Earth again and revived the recently deceased Jean Grey. Realizing that the Phoenix could revive Sophie, he unearthed her body and confronted the Phoenix, stating that he would give it whatever it wanted. The Phoenix Force revived Sophie, who took one look at Quentin as he professed his love to her, and responded, "Eww." Sophie then reverted to a corpse again, preferring death to being with Quentin. The other Cuckoos assisted the X-Men as they fought the Phoenix Force by using Cerebra to contact all of the X-Men and collecting them to channel positive thoughts and love to Jean Grey. Jean Grey was then able to wrest control from the Phoenix Force and spiritually move onward to the White Hot Room, dying again. Quentin realized that Sophie would never love him and returned to a deep sleep. Meanwhile, a shard of the Phoenix communicated with one of the Cuckoos, who responded "Oh, of course. What took you so long?"
Phoenix Warsong
In the follow-up series, X-Men: Phoenix Warsong, the Cuckoos origin was revealed, and the Cuckoos, having been contacted by the Phoenix, began manifesting new powers such as telekinesis and the ability to generate fire. The three Cuckoos each handled the Phoenix's influence differently. Celeste feared the power of the Phoenix, remembering how it drove Jean Grey insane, while Phoebe embraced its destructive powers. They went to different staff separately to try to work out their feelings and their growing identities, free of their sisters. However, before the X-Men could effectively intervene, the Phoenix took over and the Cuckoos returned to The World, the headquarters of the Weapons Plus program. Meanwhile, Esme and Sophie mysteriously revived, albeit in decaying forms, and spoke of collecting information and realizing their true mission.
The X-Men followed the Cuckoos and learned that as creations of The World, the Cuckoos have implanted nano-technology that caused them to unknowingly transmit any and all information they encountered back to The World. Thus, Esme and Sophie did not actually return to life, but were rather piloted by their nano-technological systems. In addition, Emma learnt that the Cuckoos were truly her daughters, having been cloned from her eggs, which were harvested by Dr. Sublime while she was in a coma following a Sentinel attack years before. Sublime cloned a thousand Cuckoos, in tanks hooked up to machinery. The original five were released to infiltrate the school and transmit information. Their origins were never questioned due to a strong telepathic block placed in everyone's minds which would cause their thoughts to redirect whenever they questioned where the Cuckoos came from.
Weapon XIV
Dr. Sublime intended the remaining Cuckoos to return and join their "sisters". The true purpose of the Thousand-In-One (called Weapon XIV) was to combine their minds into one immense psychic weapon and telepathically kill every mutant on the planet. By assimilating the original Cuckoos into the one, Sublime would be able to control the power of the Phoenix through his control of the Thousand-In-One. It was then revealed that every Cuckoo could also turn into a diamond form, but unlike Emma, their diamond forms were flawless. He could then use the Thousand to split the Phoenix between all of them and trap it within their diamond bodies, thus giving him further control. Mindee willingly chose to re-assimilate, but Phoebe attempted to fight her way out. The X-Men attempted to destroy Sublime. When the X-Men severed Sublime's control of the Thousand and deactivated all the Cuckoos' nano-technology (including the original three), each individual clone awoke with their own consciousness and reached out to their sisters and mother.
It was revealed that Celeste was chosen as the primary host for the Phoenix because it heard Celeste "call" to her, as Celeste longed to feel, to live, and to burn with life. Emma reached out to a fearful Celeste and told her that her methods of teaching - trying to make the girls cold and emotionless as a means of protecting them - was flawed and that she hoped the girls would live with passion. She then gave Celeste the confidence to do "what was right" with the Phoenix Force and for her sisters.
However, to Emma's horror, the Phoenix used Celeste to destroy every "sister" of the Weapon XIV and the revived Sophie and Esme in order to end their threat against mutant-kind. The only ones spared were Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe. During the aftermath, Celeste begged the Phoenix to leave her as what it had forced her to do was too much. The Phoenix decided it wanted to stay with Celeste, so to stop it, Celeste divided her into three, and each remaining Cuckoo turned her heart into flawless organic diamond. Doing so trapped the Phoenix within them so that it could no longer wreak havoc. Unfortunately, this also caused the Cuckoos to lose their emotions forever. Thus, the Cuckoos - especially Celeste, who longed to truly live, grow, and love - sacrificed their ability to ever do so for the sake of maintaining peace. In truth, the Phoenix they encountered was merely a shard of the true Phoenix, having been shattered into billions of pieces at the end of X-Men: Phoenix Endsong. Despite this, that shard remained divided in three and sealed within Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe.
These events devastated Emma, whose thousands of cloned daughters had each just begun to reach out for her with their minds when the Phoenix chose to destroy them. Emma then vowed that the Phoenix would have to contend with her if it ever returned, be it cosmic entity or in the form of Jean Grey.
Quest for Magik
The Cuckoos helped Elixir to master biological manipulation by taking all biological and medical information from Beast's head and duplicating it in Elixir's mind. Along with the other students, they were captured by Belasco and sent to Limbo as he searched for Illyana Rasputin. There they, had helmets forced onto their heads which blocked their telepathy. X-23 and Prodigy managed to remove them, allowing them to help defeat Belasco. In doing so, they learned that Belasco loved Illyana, but was only able to revive her soulless body, Darkchild, her soul lost and unreachable. After the defeat of Belasco by Pixie and Darkchild, the Cuckoos and the other students returned to the Institute, which reverted as if nothing had occurred.
Messiah Complex
The Cuckoos helped the X-Men to find a baby mutant, the first post-Decimation mutant child born. Using the newly fixed Cerebra, the three help them also helped to find the Marauders.
Old Ghosts and Secret Invasion
Afterwards, the Cuckoos and their fellow classmates rejoined the X-Men in San Francisco. The girls later helped keep the new X-Force a secret by erasing Elixir's memories at his own request. They remained loyal to Cyclops kept their own silence on the subject of X-Force.
During the Skrull's invasion on Earth, the Cuckoos helped defend San Francisco from the Skrulls. When the Skrulls created a psychic blockade, it rendered every telepath useless and attempting to use their powers hurt them psychically. They soon channeled their powers to Emma Frost with the help of Cerebra, in the hopes that Frost would find and destroy the psychic blockade. Emma's psyche was temporarily disconnected from her body as she fought off the psychic Skrulls. The Cuckoos followed Cyclops' orders and used their telepathy to keep Emma's autonomic functions going, thereby animating her empty body. Emma finally destroyed the blockade, allowing the girls to use their telepathy again.
Nation X
When Scalphunter sent a group of Predator X to Utopia, the X-Men were forced to battle the mutant-eating creatures. The Cuckoos served as a means of telepathic communication for the team, but during the battle, the Phoenix fragments that were contained inside their diamond hearts left them. It mysteriously returned to space, leaving the girls unconscious.
Once the Stepford Cuckoos woke up from their comma, they began scanning for the Phoenix. Since they couldn't find any trace of the psychic entity, they asked Rogue to take some of their power so they could try passive scanning, as Mindee believed that since the Phoenix could bend active psychic probes the same way a black hole does with light. They explained to Rogue that she wouldn't just get the power, she'd get the perspective as well, the perspective of triangulating on peoples mind. When Rogue finished with the Cuckoos powers, they said that the silence of little or no telepathy could be deafening. They also told Scott that they didn't find anything on Cerebra. He then asked her if they had gotten a trace of the Phoenix when it left them, and they replied that it got further and further away without actually moving.
Avengers vs X-Men
The Cuckoos were relocated from Utopia after the Phoenix-crazed Scott and Emma began acting out. The Cuckoos, along with the other transfers, attended the Jean Grey School, where they monitored the final battle - nearly all of the X-Men and Avengers versus Dark Phoenix (Scott Summers) - via Cerebra and were telepathically present when Charles Xavier was killed. The three Cuckoos informed Kitty Pryde, the Headmistress of JGS at the time, and all four women comforted each other.
New Charles Xavier School for Mutants
Scott Summers, now a mutant renegade, and his team of Uncanny X-Men (currently consisting of Emma Frost, Magik, Magneto, Kitty Pryde, and Dazzler) teleported to the Jean Grey School to announce the opening of his own new school: the New Charles Xavier School for Mutants. He extended an invitation to any students who wished to join. After a brief confrontation with a powerless Emma Frost, the Cuckoos agreed to attend, as did the time-displaced Warren Worthington III.
--Karen
Celeste
Irma/Mindee
Phoebe
As of this moment in the game, the girls still have a portion of the Phoenix inside them, but Emma "iced" it off in each of them so none of them can access the power.
Team Name
Stepford Cuckoos
Publisher
Marvel
First Appearance
New X-Men #118 - Germ Free Generation Part One
Appears in
1209 issues
Disbanded In
Aliases
Emma's Girls
Five-in-One
Four-in-One
Phoenixes
Stepford Sisters
Thousand-In-One
Three-in-One
Weapon XIV
Powers
Psychic Gestalt
The Stepford Cuckoos are powerful telepaths, who can combine their telepathic abilities to create an even more powerful hive-mind. Their telepathic powers include broadcasting and receiving thoughts, mind control, planting illusions, blasts of pure psionic energy, seeing through another person's eyes, and also are so powerful that they are one of the few people able to operate Cerebra. The Stepford Cuckoos are considered to be near Omega-level mutants, though they have never been classified as such, and since the deaths of their two sisters, have reduced in power.
In X-Men: Phoenix Warsong, they were the avatars of the Phoenix. During possession, they displayed new powers related to the Phoenix, such as Phoenix-granted telekinesis and fire generation. It is unlikely that they still possess these abilities, however, especially after their captured Phoenix fragments left them abruptly during the Nation X storyline. It should be noted that avatars of the Phoenix are normally only Omega-level mutants and that the Phoenix in question was merely a shard of the full Phoenix Force. Regardless of this, they are uniquely powerful telepaths and essential to the X-Men. Often, they maintain telepathic communication for the teams via Cerebra when Emma is occupied with other missions.
The Cuckoos have also inherited the ability to turn into organic diamond like their mother, Emma Frost. However, unlike Emma, their diamond forms are flawless and cannot be shattered. All three can either turn an internal organ into perfect diamond while staying organic on the outside like they did with their hearts to imprison and capture the errant Phoenix shard during events of Warsong or fully become diamond to protect themselves during an ambush by demons in Limbo. During this event, the sisters had to communicate orally in order to agree on a plan to psychically influence the group of new mutants with bravery. To do this they had to become become organic again, sharing the same restrictions Emma has in her Diamond form.
Alternate versions of the Cuckoos have also demonstrated the power of precognition. This may or may not be true for the Earth-616 Cuckoos.
Origin
Celeste, Esme, Mindee (Irma), Sophie and Phoebe are daughters of Emma Frost, cloned from Emma's ova cells while she lay in a coma after her Hellions were killed. Aged by a bubble that bent space and time, the Cuckoos joined the X-Men. It was eventually discovered that there were actually a thousand more clones of Emma Frost who had been created by the Weapon Plus program. They were collectively known as "Weapon XIV". These surplus clones were destroyed by the Phoenix Force while it possessed the body of Celeste.
Creation
The Stepford Cuckoos were created by Grant Morrison and Ethan Van Sciver. They first appeared in New X-Men #118. Originally Grant Morrison intended the first letter of each of the girls name to spell S-P-I-C-E, but as he never finished naming the girl, the last
was named Mindee. This was later corrected by Matt Fraction, who attributed the name Irma to Mindee.
Major Story Arcs
Riot at Xavier's
During the student riot on opening day headed by Quentin Quire - a student, powerful telepath, and the Cuckoos' chief rival who had an unrequited love for Sophie - Emma offhandedly chastised the girls for hiding during the riot rather than assisting to end it, as she felt true heroes should. Inspired by Emma's words, Sophie used Kick to increase the Cuckoos' abilities and used Cerebra to stop Quentin. Although Quentin was defeated, the overexertion and her sister Esme's unknown telepathic suggestion resulted in Sophie's death.
The remaining Cuckoos were later awarded for their bravery and outstanding use of telepathy in line with the ideals of the Institute. After Sophie's untimely death, they began calling themselves the Four-In-One. The Cuckoos blamed Emma Frost for Sophie's death, and separated themselves from her. This hurt her greatly. The Stepford Cuckoos then telepathically communicated with Jean Grey while at a gathering, not only to test the new limits on their reduced powers, but also to tell her about Emma's telepathic affair with Scott. Jean furiously confronted Emma and trampled through Emma's mind, humiliating her. Emma managed to barely hold out against this attack in her diamond form until Scott willingly showed Jean that nothing had happened. Emma was later discovered in her diamond form, shattered in pieces, having been shot by a diamond bullet while in her diamond body, which had one flaw. To help find the murderer, Sage and Bishop came to investigate. They found that Angel Salvador killed Emma, but was being mind-controlled by Esme, who was working for Xorn (Magneto). Deciding to flee, Esme told the other Cuckoos that she desired individuality and that Emma Frost did not care about them, but instead only wanted to make them like her. Bishop and Sage confronted Esme as she was leaving. Esme telepathically defeated both of them and joined Xorn/Magneto.
Sophie's death
Xorn, believing himself to be Magneto, began destroying New York, planning to reverse the magnetic poles and leading a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants with Esme as a member. Esme believed that Xorn/Magneto reciprocated her feelings of love, but he rejected her. During the chaos, the X-Men joined together to stop him, and Celeste, Phoebe and Mindee used their telepathy to safely guide civilians to safety.
Hurt by his rejection and concerned for Xorn/Magneto's sanity, Esme and the others turned against him. Esme used her telepathy to destroy Xorn's mind. This caused him to lash out and kill her by magnetically ripping out her earrings and forcing them into her brain. Esme died in Emma Frost's arms, with Emma saying, "...you turned into such a wonderful little femme fatale in the end, didn't you? I’m ever so proud of all my girls but you ... I think I’m most especially proud of you, dear." Despite this, Esme's last words to Emma were "...Nothing like you...".
With Esme's death, the girls resolved their differences with Emma and called themselves the Three-in-One.
The three remaining Stepford Cuckoos were members of the Corsairs, until they disbanded following M-Day. The Stepford Cuckoos were instrumental to defeating Blob, whose few vulnerabilities included telepathy. They were also seen going to the dance with Hellion. The three survived the depowering caused by Decimation, and remained as students at the school.
The Phoenix Endsong
Quentin Quire awoke from his psionic stasis when the Phoenix manifested itself on Earth again and revived the recently deceased Jean Grey. Realizing that the Phoenix could revive Sophie, he unearthed her body and confronted the Phoenix, stating that he would give it whatever it wanted. The Phoenix Force revived Sophie, who took one look at Quentin as he professed his love to her, and responded, "Eww." Sophie then reverted to a corpse again, preferring death to being with Quentin. The other Cuckoos assisted the X-Men as they fought the Phoenix Force by using Cerebra to contact all of the X-Men and collecting them to channel positive thoughts and love to Jean Grey. Jean Grey was then able to wrest control from the Phoenix Force and spiritually move onward to the White Hot Room, dying again. Quentin realized that Sophie would never love him and returned to a deep sleep. Meanwhile, a shard of the Phoenix communicated with one of the Cuckoos, who responded "Oh, of course. What took you so long?"
Phoenix Warsong
In the follow-up series, X-Men: Phoenix Warsong, the Cuckoos origin was revealed, and the Cuckoos, having been contacted by the Phoenix, began manifesting new powers such as telekinesis and the ability to generate fire. The three Cuckoos each handled the Phoenix's influence differently. Celeste feared the power of the Phoenix, remembering how it drove Jean Grey insane, while Phoebe embraced its destructive powers. They went to different staff separately to try to work out their feelings and their growing identities, free of their sisters. However, before the X-Men could effectively intervene, the Phoenix took over and the Cuckoos returned to The World, the headquarters of the Weapons Plus program. Meanwhile, Esme and Sophie mysteriously revived, albeit in decaying forms, and spoke of collecting information and realizing their true mission.
The X-Men followed the Cuckoos and learned that as creations of The World, the Cuckoos have implanted nano-technology that caused them to unknowingly transmit any and all information they encountered back to The World. Thus, Esme and Sophie did not actually return to life, but were rather piloted by their nano-technological systems. In addition, Emma learnt that the Cuckoos were truly her daughters, having been cloned from her eggs, which were harvested by Dr. Sublime while she was in a coma following a Sentinel attack years before. Sublime cloned a thousand Cuckoos, in tanks hooked up to machinery. The original five were released to infiltrate the school and transmit information. Their origins were never questioned due to a strong telepathic block placed in everyone's minds which would cause their thoughts to redirect whenever they questioned where the Cuckoos came from.
Weapon XIV
Dr. Sublime intended the remaining Cuckoos to return and join their "sisters". The true purpose of the Thousand-In-One (called Weapon XIV) was to combine their minds into one immense psychic weapon and telepathically kill every mutant on the planet. By assimilating the original Cuckoos into the one, Sublime would be able to control the power of the Phoenix through his control of the Thousand-In-One. It was then revealed that every Cuckoo could also turn into a diamond form, but unlike Emma, their diamond forms were flawless. He could then use the Thousand to split the Phoenix between all of them and trap it within their diamond bodies, thus giving him further control. Mindee willingly chose to re-assimilate, but Phoebe attempted to fight her way out. The X-Men attempted to destroy Sublime. When the X-Men severed Sublime's control of the Thousand and deactivated all the Cuckoos' nano-technology (including the original three), each individual clone awoke with their own consciousness and reached out to their sisters and mother.
It was revealed that Celeste was chosen as the primary host for the Phoenix because it heard Celeste "call" to her, as Celeste longed to feel, to live, and to burn with life. Emma reached out to a fearful Celeste and told her that her methods of teaching - trying to make the girls cold and emotionless as a means of protecting them - was flawed and that she hoped the girls would live with passion. She then gave Celeste the confidence to do "what was right" with the Phoenix Force and for her sisters.
However, to Emma's horror, the Phoenix used Celeste to destroy every "sister" of the Weapon XIV and the revived Sophie and Esme in order to end their threat against mutant-kind. The only ones spared were Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe. During the aftermath, Celeste begged the Phoenix to leave her as what it had forced her to do was too much. The Phoenix decided it wanted to stay with Celeste, so to stop it, Celeste divided her into three, and each remaining Cuckoo turned her heart into flawless organic diamond. Doing so trapped the Phoenix within them so that it could no longer wreak havoc. Unfortunately, this also caused the Cuckoos to lose their emotions forever. Thus, the Cuckoos - especially Celeste, who longed to truly live, grow, and love - sacrificed their ability to ever do so for the sake of maintaining peace. In truth, the Phoenix they encountered was merely a shard of the true Phoenix, having been shattered into billions of pieces at the end of X-Men: Phoenix Endsong. Despite this, that shard remained divided in three and sealed within Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe.
These events devastated Emma, whose thousands of cloned daughters had each just begun to reach out for her with their minds when the Phoenix chose to destroy them. Emma then vowed that the Phoenix would have to contend with her if it ever returned, be it cosmic entity or in the form of Jean Grey.
Quest for Magik
The Cuckoos helped Elixir to master biological manipulation by taking all biological and medical information from Beast's head and duplicating it in Elixir's mind. Along with the other students, they were captured by Belasco and sent to Limbo as he searched for Illyana Rasputin. There they, had helmets forced onto their heads which blocked their telepathy. X-23 and Prodigy managed to remove them, allowing them to help defeat Belasco. In doing so, they learned that Belasco loved Illyana, but was only able to revive her soulless body, Darkchild, her soul lost and unreachable. After the defeat of Belasco by Pixie and Darkchild, the Cuckoos and the other students returned to the Institute, which reverted as if nothing had occurred.
Messiah Complex
The Cuckoos helped the X-Men to find a baby mutant, the first post-Decimation mutant child born. Using the newly fixed Cerebra, the three help them also helped to find the Marauders.
Old Ghosts and Secret Invasion
Afterwards, the Cuckoos and their fellow classmates rejoined the X-Men in San Francisco. The girls later helped keep the new X-Force a secret by erasing Elixir's memories at his own request. They remained loyal to Cyclops kept their own silence on the subject of X-Force.
During the Skrull's invasion on Earth, the Cuckoos helped defend San Francisco from the Skrulls. When the Skrulls created a psychic blockade, it rendered every telepath useless and attempting to use their powers hurt them psychically. They soon channeled their powers to Emma Frost with the help of Cerebra, in the hopes that Frost would find and destroy the psychic blockade. Emma's psyche was temporarily disconnected from her body as she fought off the psychic Skrulls. The Cuckoos followed Cyclops' orders and used their telepathy to keep Emma's autonomic functions going, thereby animating her empty body. Emma finally destroyed the blockade, allowing the girls to use their telepathy again.
Nation X
When Scalphunter sent a group of Predator X to Utopia, the X-Men were forced to battle the mutant-eating creatures. The Cuckoos served as a means of telepathic communication for the team, but during the battle, the Phoenix fragments that were contained inside their diamond hearts left them. It mysteriously returned to space, leaving the girls unconscious.
Once the Stepford Cuckoos woke up from their comma, they began scanning for the Phoenix. Since they couldn't find any trace of the psychic entity, they asked Rogue to take some of their power so they could try passive scanning, as Mindee believed that since the Phoenix could bend active psychic probes the same way a black hole does with light. They explained to Rogue that she wouldn't just get the power, she'd get the perspective as well, the perspective of triangulating on peoples mind. When Rogue finished with the Cuckoos powers, they said that the silence of little or no telepathy could be deafening. They also told Scott that they didn't find anything on Cerebra. He then asked her if they had gotten a trace of the Phoenix when it left them, and they replied that it got further and further away without actually moving.
Avengers vs X-Men
The Cuckoos were relocated from Utopia after the Phoenix-crazed Scott and Emma began acting out. The Cuckoos, along with the other transfers, attended the Jean Grey School, where they monitored the final battle - nearly all of the X-Men and Avengers versus Dark Phoenix (Scott Summers) - via Cerebra and were telepathically present when Charles Xavier was killed. The three Cuckoos informed Kitty Pryde, the Headmistress of JGS at the time, and all four women comforted each other.
New Charles Xavier School for Mutants
Scott Summers, now a mutant renegade, and his team of Uncanny X-Men (currently consisting of Emma Frost, Magik, Magneto, Kitty Pryde, and Dazzler) teleported to the Jean Grey School to announce the opening of his own new school: the New Charles Xavier School for Mutants. He extended an invitation to any students who wished to join. After a brief confrontation with a powerless Emma Frost, the Cuckoos agreed to attend, as did the time-displaced Warren Worthington III.
--Karen
