Jean & Scott- The Phoenix & Cyclops Appreciation 2019

[Glio]

Claremont has always been upset with Scott / Jean. I do not know if you read Exterminated, but the story that tells about Scott and Maddie is basically how he would have liked to finish the story of both.

He wanted a happy ending for Scott and Maddie but the realities of the editorial took it away.

[phoenixzero23]

If Claremont had everything like he wanted, Jean and Scott would have vanished from the x-men ages ago or would fill very little roles. He complains all the time but its good these characters aren't on his hands any longer.

[Retcon]

So he would have had Scott retire and have a family with Maddie? So the consolation prize was she looks exactly like Jean? Right.....

[phoenixzero23]

So he would have had Scott retire and have a family with Maddie? So the consolation prize was she looks exactly like Jean? Right.....

Maddie was a Jean replacement from the start.
If Jean hadn't died on the dark phoenix saga, maddie wouldn't exist.


Aldo the point is that that retirement wasn't something good. because neither of them would be as popular or relevant as they are today

[Retcon]

Are the events in The Exterminated Canon? This seems like it was all in Cable’s imagination. If Scott and Maddy were this happy then he would have never left her.

[Havok83]

Are the events in The Exterminated Canon? This seems like it was all in Cable’s imagination. If Scott and Maddy were this happy then he would have never left her.

Why would Cable be imagining that? Kid Cable doesnt even know Maddie and has less of a connection to her than his older self. Its supposed to be canon but Scott and Maddy werent that happy. Even Claremont was writing them as having problems before X-Factor #1

[Glio]

In Exterminated they are at first with Scott sleeping on the couch and both of them crying, it does not seem like a particularly strong relationship.

And yes, as I understand from interviews Claremont wanted Scott retiring with the family to symbolize that he was the first X-Men graduate. Although he recently said that Scott would eventually come back with the X-Men and that for Maddie it would have been like the wives whose husbands serve in the military during seasons away from home.

[phoenixzero23]

I don't like to criticize maddie or her relationship with scott.

the way i see it, Claremont really intended for it to be something genuine, is just that after Jean's return maddie's character and her relationship was deconstructed. That's ugly, almost as ugly as what morrison did and what will probably happen with scemma one day.

i believe they worked until Jean came back. Then it started a ugly but somewhat logical revision to maddie/scott and maddie as a character. it change from something mature and natural to Scott being so in love with Jean to the point were he was easily manipulated to fall for a look a like.

i really didn't like what happened to maddie or her relationship with scott.

[phoenixzero23]

In a way, when marvel screwed maddie was when they just gave up on respecting relationships or any character integrity. Something really tragic that has followed to this day, making everybody suffer. specially regarding relationships after butchering two marriages i really don't have any faith in marvel and i doubt they really care anymore about these relationships that fans love so much.


i'm waiting to see what will happen to scemma on rosenbergs run but i doubt marvel still cares about it (or jott for that matter, all that drama for nothing). I don't think scemma will be treated as badly as what happened to maddie or jean but it still doesn't look for it. knowing marvel they will butcher it to prop up whatever relationship comes next for scott. reduce it to a mistake, just as they have done with the others.

[JeisonWolf]

In a way, when marvel screwed maddie was when they just gave up on respecting relationships or any character integrity. Something really tragic that has followed to this day, making everybody suffer. specially regarding relationships after butchering two marriages i really don't have any faith in marvel and i doubt they really care anymore about these relationships that fans love so much.


i'm waiting to see what will happen to scemma on rosenbergs run but i doubt marvel still cares about it (or jott for that matter, all that drama for nothing). I don't think scemma will be treated as badly as what happened to maddie or jean but it still doesn't look for it. knowing marvel they will butcher it to prop up whatever relationship comes next for scott. reduce it to a mistake, just as they have done with the others.

I'm not sure about this, I see many people think that Scemma is in a better place than Jott at the moment and the truth is that I don't see why. Jott had love triangles, Scema too. Scemma had Emma fooling Scott with Namor, Scott attacking Emma to get her power and finally Scott who even if he continued to work with Emma he never forgave her, maybe she still loved him but as for Scott I'm not so sure. Jott has had the love triangles of Logan and Emma but even the infidelities have not become more than "just" a couple of kisses or telekinetic sex (where Emma used Jean's form) so I don't think Jott is so bad, it is simply that people like to exaggerate both those who say that Jean was a bad wife and those who say that Scott was the bad guy and Jean was the perfect wife.

By the way I've also seen that many believe that Jean constantly cheated on Scott (thanks fox) using comic scenes where Jean cheats on Scott but most of them are What if? and non-canonical stories, not 616 Jean.

[lancer]

How many WHAT IFS or non canon examples are there? Maybe I'm just blanking, but I don't recall any WHAT IF examples. Maybe one sort of although we don't get many details. The issue of what if Jean and Scott didn't get married. There were 3 stories and Jean winds up with Wolverine in 1 of them. We don't get context, though, as in if she cheated. Mind you, I read so many X related issues. Maybe I'm just not remembering others.

Non canon, I always see Grifter and Wildcats sited. Grifter clearly says Jean was not kissing him back. That's not cheating in my book. Obviously, the example that can't be denied is Claremont's X MEN FOREVER.

Just trying to think of other examples. I'm talking cheating here. Not an alternate reality, like AOA, where Jean is with someone else.

[FUBAR007]

Are the events in The Exterminated Canon? This seems like it was all in Cable’s imagination. If Scott and Maddy were this happy then he would have never left her.

It's canon, but a minor retcon. Specifically, a case of Claremont retconning his own stories.

The story in question is set before X-Factor #1, roughly around the same time as Uncanny X-Men #201. The timeline doesn't line up, though, because Corsair and the Starjammers had left for space with Lilandra and Xavier before Nathan was born. And, Scott and Madelyne didn't return to Alaska until after Scott lost his duel with Storm for leadership of the X-Men.

As for Cable, historically, he had no memory of Madelyne from his childhood and considered Jean (as Redd Dayspring) to be his mother. (If I thought contemporary Marvel gave a crap about continuity and was capable of long-term plotting, I'd take this retcon as a hint that Kid Cable isn't a younger version of 616 Cable, but rather from an alternate timeline.)

[JeisonWolf]

How many WHAT IFS or non canon examples are there? Maybe I'm just blanking, but I don't recall any WHAT IF examples. Maybe one sort of although we don't get many details. The issue of what if Jean and Scott didn't get married. There were 3 stories and Jean winds up with Wolverine in 1 of them. We don't get context, though, as in if she cheated. Mind you, I read so many X related issues. Maybe I'm just not remembering others.

Non canon, I always see Grifter and Wildcats sited. Grifter clearly says Jean was not kissing him back. That's not cheating in my book. Obviously, the example that can't be denied is Claremont's X MEN FOREVER.

Just trying to think of other examples. I'm talking cheating here. Not an alternate reality, like AOA, where Jean is with someone else.

This first is one of the images most used by those who either want Jogan or those who want to say that Jean was constantly unfaithful. I mean, they usually use a lot that image when Scott discovers Jean cheating on him with Logan.

Also they usually use a lot the cover of New X-men 1.
stories where Jean cheats on Scott that I remember? X-men Forever (honestly the worst for my taste, Jean treated Scott as trash just for the end of it all to come back to him ... I really would rather have him stay with Lorna in this story.) Is that story where the X -men are gangsters or something, once again Jean cheated on Scott with Logan. Also that story where Jean leaves Scott for Logan and then she's always arguing with Logan and his life ends up being a **** (it's said that it was really Maddy but I'm not sure) even if it's not really cheating or at least many here they don't consider it as such, there is a What if Phoenix where Phoenix survives, she marries Scott and they have Rachel, then she discovers that Jean (the real Jean) is alive and Phoenix ends up killing her, that way she keeps her family even though she didn't it intentionally, despite this and although this story revolves around Jean-Phoenix/Scott in the second issue Wolverine approaches Jean-Phoenix and they end up kissing, personally this bothers me, as I said the story turns around Jean-Phoenix and Scott, saying how much she loves him but the first time she's kissing Wolverine again, it's as if they tell us that this can't be avoided ... anyway, Phoenix erases Wolverine's memory but Scott and Xavie saw everything, so Phoenix decides to flee, in the end she reconciles with Scott but she leave anyway because the power and the dangerous that she had become.
I know there are more stories where Jean cheats Scott or chooses Wolverine over Scott. But as it is obvious I am not very interested in looking for them so I don't know what they are, I know that too and thanks to some writers many have the idea that Jean prefers Logan and this is used a lot by haters for example What if AvX, it has no logic at all this story but in the end Jean saves Logan and they start a life together since the beginning of time ... pff lol

[Gray Lensman]

In a way, when marvel screwed maddie was when they just gave up on respecting relationships or any character integrity. Something really tragic that has followed to this day, making everybody suffer. specially regarding relationships after butchering two marriages i really don't have any faith in marvel and i doubt they really care anymore about these relationships that fans love so much.


i'm waiting to see what will happen to scemma on rosenbergs run but i doubt marvel still cares about it (or jott for that matter, all that drama for nothing). I don't think scemma will be treated as badly as what happened to maddie or jean but it still doesn't look for it. knowing marvel they will butcher it to prop up whatever relationship comes next for scott. reduce it to a mistake, just as they have done with the others.

The easiest way to keep Scemma down is to just remember who the characters are - while they were together (largely due to outside circumstances) Scott became more of an antihero - which is about as dark as he should be capable of going without some kind of outside influence. But after the split it is becoming more and more apparent that Scott is moving back to his more natural (and more heroic) state. I think part of why he is so down on himself is that he made those moral sacrifices to ensure there would be mutants to condemn him rather than be seen as a more pure hero by a soon to be extinct people - but with what X-Man pulled Scott has the worst of both worlds. Seen as a villain not by a thriving mutant population, but a soon to be extinct one.

Which brings us to Emma, who was an antihero when she was with Scott, but her more natural state is more of an anti villain (the pure evil would be moustache twirling if she was a man version has been retconned a long time ago). Just who they typically are should be enough to keep them apart without anything else.


Now, if Marvel really wanted to keep Scott and Jean apart more long term, I think the best solution is for them each to be dating someone else who doesn't provide a pile of issues (like Bishop hunting down Jean's son across the timeline to kill his adopted daughter) and hasn't been part of a serious triangle with the other two before. And specifically in Jean's case, for her to actually like the person Scott is with. Jean's good nature would be enough in that case - even of she is somewhat envious (like Scott would be in return) but she isn't the type of person to force her way into a relationship between two people she considers friends.

[FUBAR007]

This first is one of the images most used by those who either want Jogan or those who want to say that Jean was constantly unfaithful. I mean, they usually use a lot that image when Scott discovers Jean cheating on him with Logan.

This is from What If? vol. 2 #60 by Kurt Busiek and Ron Randall. It was released a month after Scott and Jean's wedding in 1994. The theme of the issue was how badly things turned out in other timelines where Scott and Jean didn't get together the way they did in 616. This particular story, for example, ends with Dark Phoenix destroying the universe because, unlike Scott in 616, Logan couldn't talk her down.

Any Jott haters or Jogan shippers using this image to promote their point of view are really missing the point of the story it's from.

stories where Jean cheats on Scott that I remember? X-men Forever (honestly the worst for my taste, Jean treated Scott as trash just for the end of it all to come back to him ... I really would rather have him stay with Lorna in this story.)

That was Claremont playing out a variation of what he'd intended for Scott, Jean, and Logan had he never left the franchise in 1991. In his opinion, Scott had to lose Jean to Logan as poetic justice for walking out on Madelyne.

Also, Scott was never with Lorna in X-Men Forever. She was with Havok, and it's implied that they're married.

Is that story where the X -men are gangsters or something, once again Jean cheated on Scott with Logan.

You might be thinking of X-Men Noir. I've never read those stories so I can't say for sure.

Also that story where Jean leaves Scott for Logan and then she's always arguing with Logan and his life ends up being a **** (it's said that it was really Maddy but I'm not sure) even if it's not really cheating or at least many here they don't consider it as such,

That was in the Earth X timeline.

there is a What if Phoenix where Phoenix survives, she marries Scott and they have Rachel, then she discovers that Jean (the real Jean) is alive and Phoenix ends up killing her, that way she keeps her family even though she didn't it intentionally, despite this and although this story revolves around Jean-Phoenix/Scott in the second issue Wolverine approaches Jean-Phoenix and they end up kissing, personally this bothers me, as I said the story turns around Jean-Phoenix and Scott, saying how much she loves him but the first time she's kissing Wolverine again, it's as if they tell us that this can't be avoided ... anyway, Phoenix erases Wolverine's memory but Scott and Xavie saw everything, so Phoenix decides to flee, in the end she reconciles with Scott but she leave anyway because the power and the dangerous that she had become.

What If? vol. 2 #32 and #33 by George Caragonne and Rod Ramos. These came out in late 1991 and were a sequel to Phoenix: The Untold Story which showed Claremont's original ending to the Dark Phoenix Saga.