Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/The Phoenix Appreciation

[Gray Lensman]

Perhaps, Bendis felt that Jeen being kidnapped by the Shi'ar and put on trial for planetary genocide (again ) was "spotlight" enough for the time being?

Oddly enough, I think I know more about what Scott likes and doesn't from the first issue of his solo series than I know about Jean from 41 issues of a team book with her as the central character. Jean doesn't need the spotlight so much as she needs the right kind of spotlight. Heck, I'm sure Scott and now Bobby have developed more in ANXM than the main character, and that's kind of sad when you stop and think about it.

[ZNOP]

Oddly enough, I think I know more about what Scott likes and doesn't from the first issue of his solo series than I know about Jean from 41 issues of a team book with her as the central character.

You do have a point there.

Jean doesn't need the spotlight so much as she needs the right kind of spotlight. Heck, I'm sure Scott and now Bobby have developed more in ANXM than the main character, and that's kind of sad when you stop and think about it.

Bendis could separate Jeen from the others for awhile being that unlike her teammates -- Jeen doesn't have a secondary form (so to speak) making it relevantly easy for her to attend any public school and make new (more) friends.

[PwrdOn]

Oddly enough, I think I know more about what Scott likes and doesn't from the first issue of his solo series than I know about Jean from 41 issues of a team book with her as the central character. Jean doesn't need the spotlight so much as she needs the right kind of spotlight. Heck, I'm sure Scott and now Bobby have developed more in ANXM than the main character, and that's kind of sad when you stop and think about it.

If anything Jean has backslid during Bendis' run, as of now she's somehow still inexperienced and incompetent using her powers, has no real friends having pushed everyone away, has a cynical and pessimistic world view especially toward her own future. She had plenty of feats of course, but who cares?

[cwatz]

This is ultimately why Bendis' run was a failure, after all this time we still don't really know Jean any better than we did when she first showed up. Jean's usually depicted as a fairly down to earth person but she actually became less and less so as this series went on.

The second part is somewhat true. I don't think it was abandoned as much as the situations the O5 were constantly in didn't allow it to come to the forefront.

Also while we don't know Jean in terms of hobbies or interests or things of that nature, there was a lot of her in regards to "how" a person will act.
As a few examples, you've seen the joking around with friends, that extremely gentile/caring side like at the start of ultimate, the passion for life like with Wanda, the temper no bullshit mode like with Gladiator. Not to say any of that is groundbreaking or anything, but you get a feel for who Jean is, just not what Jean likes. That doesn't even touch on the lessons learned, frame of mind, all that stuff.

There are other things like the power abuse which is notable, unlike her, and "new", but is likely all just part of her growing. Not unlike the temper or no-bullshit mode, she can be rather strong-willed or "my way" when she deems it justified. Part of that lesson was learned controlling Warren, now its a matter of being generally invasive, or exploring those trickier, cloudy areas like with Bobby where it could be argued as a positive.

It's silly that we're even still talking about this. Secret Wars is supposed to have a million different alternate universes or something like that and Jean doesn't have a decent role in any of them, and she got the Phoenix stolen from her yet again. When are we going to get a Jean Grey story worth talking about?

Though I'm doubtful, I still hold out hope for SW considering those covers. Seems strange for her to be so sidelined during it given the profile and her sales success. Of course its extremely possible they dont care, or they didn't want to "spoil" weather the O5 went home or not, or they combined her and Scotts purpose into SW into one to cut down on cast.

But yes, it sucks very much.

If anything Jean has backslid during Bendis' run, as of now she's somehow still inexperienced and incompetent using her powers, has no real friends having pushed everyone away, has a cynical and pessimistic world view especially toward her own future. She had plenty of feats of course, but who cares?

Backsliding is an inevitably when you are bringing them in young. Its both extremely frustrating to see an "inferior" character, and to watch them potentially watch them learn the same stuff all over again. However it also opens up more character growth angles, rather than "completing" development, like some might say for neutered Logan.

[Narasinha]

has no real friends having pushed everyone away,

Not sure we are reading the same books. Jeen more or less made friend with anyone she met in the books. Bendis showed her having empathy and wrote her as caring for anyone, whatever friends or strangers.

Just to take a few recent examples, she immediately "bonded" with Miles. She made friends right away with the UU X-Men, she defused the situation with the Utopien and befriended them. Even some of the Cuckoos like her. In the original comics, and even in many recent comics, such situations nearly always degenerate immediately into conflict and fighting. In fact, when they met the UU X-Men or the Utopien, I was kinda expecting it to end-up in conflict which didn't happened because it's Jeen who was taking the lead (In the original comics, Jean wasn't about conflict but other characters were taking the lead and the situations were degenerating before she could do anything).

And yes, that's a part of what some readers don't like: They feel that she is "having it" too easly. That people are just "falling for her". That's why they grasp at stuff like the mind reading to say that she is an awful character and that everyone (in-book) should hate her. But Bendis depicts her as intuitively doing the right things to befriend the people she meet. That's just part of her personality: People she meet are not "falling for her" for no reasons but because of who she is.

It doesn't matter if some readers don't like how she is. What matter is that she behaves in the "right way" for the person she interacts with. Like in Bobby's case: Some readers will feel she did the right things. Other will be offended by it. People are individual, they have different sensitivity, they react differently to the same situation, they have different needs. One way of behaving will work with some people and not with others. And it is the same for the comic's characters: They also are all different and will react differently. The only thing that matter is that Bendis showed that how Jeen handled things with Bobby was the right way _for Bobby_. It was positive for Bobby, he was relieved about it and he didn't holded it against Jeen. In fact, Bobby seems to be a lot more closer, a lot more intimate with her now (Bobby always was more distant, had less complicity with her, especialy in the original comics, than, let says, Warren or even Hank).

[ZNOP]

If anything Jean has backslid during Bendis' run, as of now she's somehow still inexperienced and incompetent using her powers, has no real friends having pushed everyone away, --

Me thinks your reaching here.

-- has a cynical and pessimistic world view especially toward her own future.

You'd be cynical and pessimistic too after learning that your future self suffered a lethal dose of solar radiation, got cloned twice, ate a star (destroying a solar system), committed suicide (only to be reborn), dies a couple more times -- then on top of all that -- you discover that you have a son and daughter (via your clones) with the person you knew you'd eventually marry -- who in turn cheats on you and shags on your grave moments after your interred yet again.

She had plenty of feats of course, but who cares?

I care

[Narasinha]

There are other things like the power abuse which is notable, unlike her, and "new", but is likely all just part of her growing.

Yes. And she only did it 1 or 2 times, at the begining, when she just got her telepathy. The rest isn't any different than what all other telepath do regularly. Inculding adult Jean. There is plenty of "I just picked it from your mind", "I couldn't help but catch a glimpse at what you were thinking",... in the books all over their publication history. It never made any fuss and it still doesn't do any fuss except in the case of Jeen. If the various authors wanted those scenes to have another meaning than just casual relationship between the characters, they would show it in the scenes themselves: The characters would be angry, offended, indignant about it. If they aren't then it mean that there is nothing special about it and it's just how things work in their world.

Bendis, and he is not the first author to do it, use the telepathy of some characters as a writing tool or plot device. It's often a way to make a joke. Or show intimacy between the characters. Or trim down a conversation to just a few lines. That's why there is little or no reaction to it from the characters: it's only a writing tool and not something that is supposed to be meaningful in the story itself. But some readers will focus on the technicality itself and ignore the context and the story itself. They will say it's horrible behaviour, ignoring that it's not what the scene/story is depicting.

[juan678]

filminmotion

[nx01a]

I love how Jean showed up Emma telepathically in NXM #121 and was just generally awesome.

[DDD]

More like rubbed it in.

[nx01a]

More like rubbed it in.

Emma needs to be knocked down a peg every once in a while. Such has been their relationship since the beginning. Emma refuses to learn.

[Gray Lensman]

Yes. And she only did it 1 or 2 times, at the begining, when she just got her telepathy. The rest isn't any different than what all other telepath do regularly. Inculding adult Jean. There is plenty of "I just picked it from your mind", "I couldn't help but catch a glimpse at what you were thinking",... in the books all over their publication history. It never made any fuss and it still doesn't do any fuss except in the case of Jeen. If the various authors wanted those scenes to have another meaning than just casual relationship between the characters, they would show it in the scenes themselves: The characters would be angry, offended, indignant about it. If they aren't then it mean that there is nothing special about it and it's just how things work in their world.

Bendis, and he is not the first author to do it, use the telepathy of some characters as a writing tool or plot device. It's often a way to make a joke. Or show intimacy between the characters. Or trim down a conversation to just a few lines. That's why there is little or no reaction to it from the characters: it's only a writing tool and not something that is supposed to be meaningful in the story itself. But some readers will focus on the technicality itself and ignore the context and the story itself. They will say it's horrible behaviour, ignoring that it's not what the scene/story is depicting.

Jean's misuse of telepathy in the series is really limited to two people. The lesser is the heavy reading of Scott (you don't get the full scoop on his entire solo series with an oops), the greater is putting Warren through the puppet routine (which she hasn't done again since getting a much deserved smackdown over it). Almost every other instance (even a lot of the Scott stuff) is just picking up surface thoughts, and that's something most telepaths can't fully avoid - they just learn to deal with it and to keep quiet about it most of the time.

I would like to see her learn new tricks with her powers, and have to use them to win the day rather than the constant rehash of overpowering things again and again. The first is interesting, the second gets boring fast.

[dragonmp93]

More like rubbed it in.

And given that this happened several times and keeps happening, so Emma ended up with Inferiority Superiority Complex towards Jean.

[ariwl1]

I would like to see her learn new tricks with her powers, and have to use them to win the day rather than the constant rehash of overpowering things again and again. The first is interesting, the second gets boring fast.

Interesting thing is how, according to Emma, Jean's telekinesis is her real interesting power. I think she believes that since Charles is not around to influence Jean she'll come into her own with her telepathy like she was meant to in her own time. But her telekinesis is apparently more notable for the potential she can achieve with it as well as how dangerous it is.

And given that this happened several times and keeps happening, so Emma ended up with Inferiority Superiority Complex towards Jean.

The Jean/Emma dynamic was interesting in Morrison's run because, as much of tiresome bitch as Emma could be, you can't deny she has a lot going for her, even over most of her fellow X-Men. But with Jean she found the one person around she couldn't feel innately superior to, regardless of whether or not Jean was actually "better" than her. That's why I loved the relationship. Emma's usually sarcastic retorts and judgments didn't work on Jean, so she was forced to actually deal with her.

[juan678]

art by Magickmarker