Jean Grey: Marvel Girl, Phoenix Appreciation 2018

[jollygoldfish]

I just read both Extermination and the Astonishing Annual. I really enjoyed Extermination. The art was stellar. Everyone looked amazing including Jeen and her hipster hair. I liked the pacing. There's a sense of urgency to the story that I haven't felt in an X-Men book in a while.

I can't say that I enjoyed the Astonishing Annual. It was really dark. And the worst part is it taints the stories that come after it. How much of the O5's personality did Xavier change? I don't understand at all what Rosenberg was trying to accomplish with this. It's so different in tone to his last issues of Astonishing which were a lot of fun and so different from PR which started out entertainingly freaky, then got a bit slow but ended hopeful. This whole issue felt like a mindf*ck. And though I thought he got Jean's voice, he made her completely helpless from Xavier's manipulations which was really frustrating. It would be too much for me to hope that Rosenberg is playing the long game and eventually we'll get to a point later on where this makes sense. Before reading this issue, I was excited about Uncanny X-Men in his hands. The optimist in me is hoping that this was just Rosenberg cleaning up after Soule and Uncanny won't be anything like this Annual. But I'm still not sure what chocolate in the chocolate box we'll get...

KT answered a couple questions about Jean a few days ago.

https://1979semifinalist.tumblr.com/...-men-and-afaik
https://1979semifinalist.tumblr.com/...my-favs-and-im

sucks that people have been bombarding/attacking her. Its possibly for a person to change their opinion. I used to hate Gambit and now I quite enjoy him (and with Rogue and thats a pairing I always hated). People need to just give her a chance

Sounds like PR to me. She doesn't say she likes Jean at all. She says "she enjoys writing her". It's like how "I'm sorry I made you feel that way" is totally not "I'm sorry" but is actually a really condescending method of appeasement.

[Wiccan]

Sounds like PR to me. She doesn't say she likes Jean at all. She says "she enjoys writing her". It's like how "I'm sorry I made you feel that way" is totally not "I'm sorry" but is actually a really condescending method of appeasement.

I don't think she likes Jean, but I don't think she really hates her either, she's just meh about her...

[Harpsikord]

I don't think she likes Jean, but I don't think she really hates her either, she's just meh about her...

Note what she says about Medusa and Dazzler - she didn't like them before she wrote them, and she even DISLIKED Dazzler, but by the time she was done on A-Force, they were two of her favorite characters because she enjoyed writing them so much, and the whole first arc of her A-Force was about Dazzler.

Jean is probably gonna be the same.

[HandofPrometheus]

Is Cable basically Jean's son? I know about Maddie and whatever but since her and Jean share the same genetic material isn't Cable technically Jean's child so to speak?

[Havok83]

Is Cable basically Jean's son? I know about Maddie and whatever but since her and Jean share the same genetic material isn't Cable technically Jean's child so to speak?

No, that would make Jean, Cable's aunt. She is his mother bc she raised him

[Harpsikord]

Is Cable basically Jean's son? I know about Maddie and whatever but since her and Jean share the same genetic material isn't Cable technically Jean's child so to speak?

In all ways that it matters, yes he is. Since Maddie was Jean's clone they share DNA and Jean and Scott have co-parented him since he was about six months old. She is his mom.

[ThePhoenix]

Jean is so beautiful in Extermination. Loved her reactions there. Really hope we see angry Jean with the Phoenix raptor.

[Havok83]

Jean is so beautiful in Extermination. Loved her reactions there. Really hope we see angry Jean with the Phoenix raptor.

While Ive loved Asrar's art, I think Larraz just may be the definitive Jean artist post-Resurrection

[jollygoldfish]

Note what she says about Medusa and Dazzler - she didn't like them before she wrote them, and she even DISLIKED Dazzler, but by the time she was done on A-Force, they were two of her favorite characters because she enjoyed writing them so much, and the whole first arc of her A-Force was about Dazzler.

Jean is probably gonna be the same.

She never said that "she enjoyed writing" Dazzler or Medusa. She just explicitly said she disliked them before but they were now her favorites. If someone adds a lot of words to what should be a simple and clear answer, they're trying to give you a BS workaround.

IMO that whole bit about Dazzler and Medusa was to say "I could end up liking Jean but I don't at the moment."

Is Cable basically Jean's son? I know about Maddie and whatever but since her and Jean share the same genetic material isn't Cable technically Jean's child so to speak?

He's her son because she raised him in the future. Future Rachel went back in time and used the power of the Phoenix to take Jean's and Scott's minds through time and space into new bodies in the futures so they could raise Cable.

[ClanAskani]

In all ways that it matters, yes he is. Since Maddie was Jean's clone they share DNA and Jean and Scott have co-parented him since he was about six months old. She is his mom.

Lobdell used the phrase in his forward for the old AoC&P trade that Jean was Nathan's mother in every way that truly matters.

[ariwl1]

So after reading the annual, the theory that X forced the personality change between PR and X-Men Red by brainwashing Jean does a massive disservice to both characters. Are we really back to the Xavier so ruthlessly psychotic that the X-Men kicked him out of his home? Are we really back to Jean being significantly weaker than Xavier? Because there's around 15 years of evidence to say otherwise.

Honestly, the annual just pisses me off.

I've been thinking about this and trying to come up with an explanation that won't make me gag. The best I've been able to do is not that X outright brainwashed them, but that he did something similar to what Jean did at the end of Morrison's Here Comes Tomorrow (or my interpretation of it).

I've always believed that Jean pushed Scott to get past his grief over her dieing so it wouldn't derail his life and he could get back to leading the X-Men when they needed him. Xavier claimed outright that the 04 were having a pity party over what their lives have turned into, and in the end did something similar so the 04 would get back to doing X-work.

The issue is written in a way that makes me think it takes place not long after Jean was resurrected because even though they were all there for it they act like they haven't gotten any quality time in. This means Jean herself would be still dealing with being alive again, learning everything the X-Men went through, and grieving over Scott (and the rest of her family) being dead.

So X saw all that and decided to expedite the mourning process...Best I could do.

[MechaJeanix]

I just wanted to add a quick note about KT since I mentioned earlier that she wasn't a big fan of Jean. I never intended on people to go to her tumblr and start asking a bunch of Jean questions or to give her heck over it. We all have our favorite characters. We like what we like and for various reasons. It is ok if she is not the biggest Jean fan and harassing her will definitely not help your cause.

I'm not sure what to think of Matt Rosenberg but yet on twitter I'm very polite and often 'like' his posts. You get more flies with honey!

[Conor]

I've been thinking about this and trying to come up with an explanation that won't make me gag. The best I've been able to do is not that X outright brainwashed them, but that he did something similar to what Jean did at the end of Morrison's Here Comes Tomorrow (or my interpretation of it).

I've always believed that Jean pushed Scott to get past his grief over her dieing so it wouldn't derail his life and he could get back to leading the X-Men when they needed him. Xavier claimed outright that the 04 were having a pity party over what their lives have turned into, and in the end did something similar so the 04 would get back to doing X-work.

The issue is written in a way that makes me think it takes place not long after Jean was resurrected because even though they were all there for it they act like they haven't gotten any quality time in. This means Jean herself would be still dealing with being alive again, learning everything the X-Men went through, and grieving over Scott (and the rest of her family) being dead.

So X saw all that and decided to expedite the mourning process...Best I could do.

This is exactly how I rationalised the conclusion of the AX annual as well. Rather than outright brainwashing, he gave Jean and the rest of the O4 a “psychic nudge”, like psionically inserting a small suggestion to their way of thinking. Like Jean as the WPoTC wished for Scott to move on with Emma and return to leading the X-Men and heading the school, X didn’t want Jean to dwell on the past or waste a large chunk of her regifted life mourning Scott’s death, hence that little psychic push to remind her and the other O4 members of all the good they’ve achieved over the years, spurring them to remain on the heroic path, rather than becoming bogged down emotionally and psychologically by all they’ve lost/missed out on over the years.

[Wiccan]

No one's harassing her. Why are people here saying that? I asked her one of those(if Jean has grown on her) and after that someone else went and talked about how they didn't liked Jean at first but started to relate to her as an adult. That's all. I haven't seen any other posts about Jean on her tumblr. The ones where she said she didn't really like Jean were from ages ago.

[Revenant]

I'm quite mad about the annual, it was boring and pretty useless. Just like PR.

But Extermination was so damn good.

Is Cable basically Jean's son? I know about Maddie and whatever but since her and Jean share the same genetic material isn't Cable technically Jean's child so to speak?

Genetically talking, Jean would be Cable's aunt, because Madeleine is basically Jean's twin (their ADN is almost the same, but they are not identical). But Jean raised Nathan as Redd so she's his mother.