History
Lilandra is a woman who is very interested in the powers of the powerful fire-god known as the Phoenix. She became part of an organization called the Church of Shi’ar Enlightenment, and eventually became its leader. She strongly believes the Phoenix will use its powers to help mankind. The Church’s main adversaries were for a time Sebastian Shaw and his Hellfire Club, who wanted to use the Phoenix powers for evil.[citation needed]
But when the Hellfire Club got shut down thanks to the X-Men, Lilandra discovered the Phoenix God apparently resides within the body of Jean Grey, a member of that team. She get a dinner date with their leader Professor Charles Xavier, to negotiate funding. While talking about the Shi'ar, she mentions the Phoenix, prompting Xavier to freeze her body and loop the last ten minutes of their conversation. He was suspicious, as he heard from the Hellfire Club, the Phoenix was a being of destruction. To prove him wrong, she showed and told Xavier the "truth" about the Phoenix and convinced him to perform tests on Jean to satisfy her believes. Jean herself also agreed to do it, and in return Xavier was given money to fund the X-Men and their school. As a gesture of goodwill, Lilandra had a new Blackbird built and delivered to the school.[citation needed]
Jean however disliked the experiments and for a short time went insane, attacking Lilandra. Xavier stopped Jean and Lilandra decided to postpone further experimenting, but upon seeing Jean’s immense increased powers became more convinced the Phoenix was inside her. However, her assistant Gerald convinced Lilandra that Jean's abilities were natural, and her apparent channeling of the Phoenix was due to her parents' earlier involvement in the Shi'ar Church. Disappointed, she went back to the Church’s headquarters and stopped the testing. However, what she didn't know was that Gerald was a member of the new Hellfire Club.[citation needed]
However, Lilandra kept seeing Professor X and revealed to him that she was attracted to him.[citation needed]
Xavier would soon call Lilandra for help when the Phoenix had fully merged with Jean and reversed time, to explain what had happened.[citation needed]