Hi everyone, and happy new year!
It's beautiful to see your reactions to Young Jean because it mirrors mine as a kid back in 1981.
I'm french and I grew up reading Spécial Strange where every two months you could read 2 Uncanny X-Men and 1 Spider-Man Team-up with french covers!
Attachment 75755
Attachment 75756
This is the Jean I grew up with, beautiful isn't she?
I think the moment you discover a character defines the way you see him, you discovered Jean by Young Jean and I discovered her as Phoenix in the Byrne episodes and all the other Jean compare to her. I remember I disliked Jean in X-Factor first feeling her disminished (It took me a while to understand that Phoenix was very specific)!
Now we have the actual Jean, a newly resurrected Jean in a troubled world.
And X-Men Red was a great way to reintroduce her to us! I like this idea of a free Jean, free from the Phoenix, free from always having to restrein herself, and finally free to acknowledge her own power and place in the Marvel universe. It's been a loooong way!
I like that Jean Grey is taking a more pro-active part and I hope that Cyclops's resurrection doesn't make her take a backseat, I'm not even sure Jean and Scott should be on the same team! They're at a time where they both should define themselves individually (just like Cyclops was in Whedon's run), it doesn't mean their love shouldn't rekindle but I think we should see it be rebuild raher than offered us as a given.
I like how she used Cassandra Nova to make a statement in front of all the superheroes community. She used the manipulator Cassandra (I like how Taylor wrote her, so clever!) to show the Avengers that she could have killed her but chose another way, the healing way. And made the Avengers stand by the X-Men in front of the United Nations effectively officialy ending years of distrust and sometimes open warfare between the two teams. For her first story arc since her resurrection!
Of course she will eventually make mistakes, and she shouldn't be perfect, but I hope she will take the place of the major player she always should have been.