Now I know it’s not a coincidence they decided to bring Jean back just in time for the Dark Phoenix film, and indeed the completed reacquisition of the X-Men franchise to Marvel Studios from Fox.
In fact she’s not the only one who’s been resurrected recently. Scott, Logan and Chuckie all seemingly snuffed it within the last five years, and all of them have bounced back already. I mean their graves have barely had enough time to grow weeds on them, but at least Jean has an excuse, she’s the bloody Phoenix! It’s her thing!
The ret-conning within the X-Men comics has been pretty rife of late, and I know Hickman’s about to come in an do it again (I pray for the better) but for once it’d be nice to see something have some longevity.
Anyway.
Rant over.
Back to Jean.
That’s right the bitch is back again! But in theory it could be the last time (obvs spoilers ahead).
There is a bit too much of an attempt in this comic to try and include as many current X-Men teams/ characters as possible but it really doesn’t need it. I find Shadowcat’s current leadership lacking a little excitement, and the focus is all wrong concerning the secondary characters. Yes Kitty is field leader, but surely as her best mate, Storm should have had more of a presence in this. Hank and Bobby too. I mean they were there and Hank always does a good job of coming up with the theories and all that jazz, but it did feel like the characters that actually knew Jean and knew her well took a back seat.
Again, anyway!
When it came to Jean and her story though it was full of lovely little easter eggs. Names of some pretty epic Phoenix story tellers like Claremont who wrote the Dark Phoenix Saga, and Byrne the artist, are all dropped in very subtly and did bring a little smile to my face.
The final result of the story was actually pretty unexpected for me, but it was a really heartwarming goodbye. Turns out the Phoenix itself has reawakened Jean, and is ‘incubating’ her, toying with memories and trying to manipulate Jean into needing Phoenix to make the takeover of its host complete. But as we all know, even without Phoenix Jean is the feistiest redhead we’ve ever met and doesn’t take to it, of course with a little help from the X-Men.
Obviously it’s a bit of a shock when Jean does fully regenerate to find that not only Scott is dead, but also the entirety of the Grey lineage, other than Rachel her daughter. (This happened way back in 2006 in Uncanny X-Men: End of Greys another which I may have to review because it’s bloody brilliant, Rachel Grey at her best!) And yet she still managed to resist Phoenix’s pull.
Thirty nine years after Jean and Phoenix joined, when Jean cried out for help and Phoenix answered, they both finally realise they don’t need one another, or rather Jean does. And it’s really emotional. It’s like watching an infini-couple break up, realising that they need to move on with their own lives and what’s keeping them together is actually just making them both miserable.
Phoenix being fleshed out as a character again, much like in Endsong, makes you feel sorry for both it and Jean, and in one of the final panels Jean holds a tiny little fiery bird in her hand which looks up at her with the saddest puppy dog eyes and says goodbye. And Jean says goodbye. And cries. And I almost cried. No you’re crying…
All the fighting and the fluff that filled the first few issues very quickly feels unnecessary, that last issue was all I needed to read because this story isn’t about Jean and the X-Men at all, it’s all about Jean and Phoenix, and it’s a really lovely goodbye story.
What I’m really excited for now which I’ve already seen a bit of in X-Men Red is Jean being able to really cut loose and be completely herself, not having to keep some control for fear of a big fiery bird flaming up and gobbling up the whole universe.
My favourite psychic bitch is back and I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Hopefully not die anyway.
#harrisonthehand