Jean ranked #15 on CBR's top heroes this year. Respectable, but I think down from last year's placement.
Jean ranked #15 on CBR's top heroes this year. Respectable, but I think down from last year's placement.
"We come into this world alone and we leave the same way. The time we spent in between - time spent alive, sharing, learning together... is all that makes life worth living." - Jean Grey
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This she's never the POV character often times in team books, more importantly many writers don't think of her so she plays the peripheral the problem is she ends up not very active and comes off passive and menial. A stark contrast imo of how Jean should be written, more specifically I agree she should have a presence, when that's absence so is her character voice.
Disagree if this is the criteria for what's a Mary Sue a case could be made for most the X-men. Nova didn't bend over Jean simply had a "better plan", no different than how she was defeated in NXM.
Honestly, it's a label thrust at anyone a reader doesn't like, around 09' it was at it;s high on these boards. Jean has never been a Mary Sue as she has never received consistent enough focus or direction. Outside of forging relationships over years she's the exact opposite of the definition of a Mary Sue. She isn't nor ever have been an author insert character, and a writer being a fan doesn't mean a character is a Mary Sue.
The biggest problems with HOX/POX and Jean is Hickman could have EASILY done better, that series is an assortment of characters moments getting to shine. Show off their badassery and many without even lifting a finger, it frustrating further because of how many characters he used those series to re-establish, yet his Jean is and continues to be overtly passive in ways Jean has not been since at least the 60's. There's no fire or edge, with his Jean you push her and she tips over instead of unleashing a furnace of her fury. What she did was indeed impressive the execution was atrocious, you put ANY other telepath or senior X-men in that spot and guarantee they would have had something with a little more meat. She was helpless, hapless, and borderline pathetic, which is a shame she was sending her thoughts millions of miles which is impressive however how it was written, was not!!
Just recently she's done so twice, in X-men Red Taylor had her submerge herself 2000 feet to talk with Namor using only TK as her life support system. Same when Nova had her minions attack Searebro, Jean was able to hold a massive tower in place while keeping herself, Gentle, and Storm protected.
Last edited by Celestialbodies; 11-01-2019 at 08:17 AM.
Maybe Jean edited her own memories or maybe Xavier did. She’s been mentally upset to the point where some suspect XMen Red Jean was killed to be replaced by a clone with edited memories. The same can be said of other XMen.
We know many of the villains have had their memories edited.
Last edited by WallStreeter; 11-01-2019 at 08:44 AM.
That's an interesting take, but the whole point of her return, Phoenix Resurrection, and X-men Red was the literal opposite of all of this. This was Jean taking back her life on her own terms untied to any other thing or force. The X-men Red established Jean at her strongest unrestricted no longer holding back and fully reveling in her power. This regression didn't start til Hickman, directly following Red she didn't have the best showings but she had presence, Hickman for whatever has decided to go this route. Unfortunately its a mentality shared by many writers and across forms of media, Jean is always cast as the young inexperienced ingenue when she's been a competent hero for decades.
So what do we expect out of Jean in X-force #1? I don't have unrealistic expectations and this is a big cast, but I am hoping that she has something to do. I believe she will put on a cerebro helmet at some point. I hope we get to see Jean interacting with both Sage and Beast in this issue.
In a book like this you expect the action players like Wolverine, Kid Omega, and Domino to dominate but I am hoping that the intelligence players get room to shine. Percy has indicated they will sometimes see action too.
I mean, issue 3's cover is entirely dedicated to Jean and even the conceptual ones were. So I don't think that she, at the least, is going to take a backseat. And similarly Beast is supposed to be one of the co-leaders alongside Wolverine.
X-Force is an intelligence agency first and foremost, so the intelligence players are just as important if not moreso, and ultimately - even if Sage is involved - Jean is one of the two telepaths that are on the playing field, and the strongest of them in fact. Not only that, but Percy has Jean showing up in Wolverine too: she's going to be important. Just how important remains to be seen, however.
Also? I still don't think that I like Jean's farewell to the Phoenix in Phoenix Resurrection anymore. At the beginning it was great and I still think that it was written well, but then, I don't think that it matches up to how Jean has been written in the past. I can absolutely understand her wanting to live her own life with her own emotions, pain and what have you, the ability to make her own mistakes, and all that she was asking the Phoenix to do... but I don't think that she needed to "break up" with the Phoenix to do so, and to be frank I don't think that she would have actually wanted to. Jean has been okay with the Phoenix and what it represents, what it did, since the 1980s. She came to terms with Dark Phoenix when she had to face off against the D'Bari in the 90s. Under Claremont, Morrison, Pak, and Kelly she embraced the Phoenix.
And then Morrison had it become like a natural part of her mutation. It was the natural next step of things, the connection to the Phoenix, and I like the idea that she subconsciously taps into it when she accesses the upper registrar of her powers. Because Jean is literally a part of the Phoenix and vice versa, I feel like the Force is almost like a secondary limb for her, and that without it Jean could, should, and would feel almost... incomplete in a way. As if something important is missing from her personage. And if her being too powerful is a question, then make the Phoenix Force something that Jean only taps into when absolutely necessary like a powerup; I like comparing it to the Avatar State from Avatar: The Last Airbender, or going Super Saiyan, Digivolving, etc. Making the Phoenix usable is not hard.
"We come into this world alone and we leave the same way. The time we spent in between - time spent alive, sharing, learning together... is all that makes life worth living." - Jean Grey
Lol yellow power siggy.
I'm surely in the minority here, but I like this yellow power signature. It's less girly than pink, and it goes so well with her green/yellow suits scheme colors.