Why I think Jean Grey is cool/underrated

[Confuzzled]

lol, I forgot about Hope! Why would Marvel bring Jean back? Rachel, Hope, Jeen, they all served some function that kept Jean out.

Many factors and timing. Hope never took off like they wanted to, Rachel is a legacy character and Marvel kinda sucks at developing their significance in universe (unless they are groundbreaking in some way like Miles Morales and Kamala Khan or just pushed consistently like Carol Danvers). Jeen was meant to be temporary but outstayed her welcome.

Then both Scott and Logan ended up being dead in the same time period. Something had to be done to fill in their vacuum as Storm and Kitty weren't cutting it by themselves (less a problem of the characters themselves but the way they were handled). Finally, there was the looming Dark Phoenix movie (at the time planned to be released in early November of last year).

All in all, different aspects that created the perfect storm for Jean's return.

[Hizashi]

Well i felt the book was mediocre too in regards to its plot (though seeing Cassandra Nova get owned was satisfying bcos in case you ain’t guess, not a Morisson era fan at all) but i meant in regards to its characterization and take upon Jean as a person.

Nova getting owned was definitely what I was anticipating the most - but the book failed that too. Jean outsmarted Nova at every turn, she barely broke a sweat - why was Nova the underdog? I have other issues with Red, but that might be better suited for another thread.

My first X-Men comic story was the conclusion of the X-Men’s conflict with the Neo, which I think was the time Claremont returned during Revolution. I only got it because it was the 100th issue of the UK X-Men reprint mag and helpfully it came with a big ass summary of everything for the past 100 issues. And all that stuff, AoA, Onslaught, Operation Zero Tolereance, Wolverine being Death, that stuff sounded hype (sans Cyclops being dead btu he came back soon after), especially since my eXperience with the X-verse was from the 1992 cartoon which was directly based upon that early-mid 1990s era.

Unfortunately the writers of that era seemed to presume I’d just...know the lore well enough that i didn’t need too many explanations. And in most other franchises that’d be true except X-men, God bless it, has contuinty so thick you need a knife to cut through it. And I’m the guy who’s first Spider-Man comic was literally the very last one published in the clone saga. But I persevered and looked forward to X-treme X-Men cos X-treme must = cool right and also New X-Men cos it was a fresh start and something I’d heard good stuff about.

Then X-treme X-men was beautifully drawn nothingness and New X-Men was questionably drawn High concept OOC drug trip BS that you needed to be 30+year old magician on drugs believing he’d been once abducted by aliens and going through a bad break up to understand.

But it was a convergence of the wrong place at the wrong time. A fan picking something up because he wanted to see stuff akin to the 90s cartoon at the time period when the comics were actively trying to move away from that. Didn’t help that the movies were also 90s show influenced meaning the comics were the odd duck to me.

Man, when the art was bad in Morrison's run, it was bad. I think you've accurately described both of those runs.

I remember buying, with my own money even, single issues that were sold at convenience stores in my childhood neighborhood - unfortunately I didn't keep any of them. By the time I started buying monthly single issues, Jean was dead and the X-Men weren't what they used to be - I came in right when the Extinction crisis started.

Its why I’m considering trying to go regular again with the new era starting disassembled. Its not merely looking like nostalgia so much as it looks like it’s going to be going back to that era beyond lip service.

There's always hope, in every nook and cranny, whenever Marvel does their periodic soft reboots/line-wide relaunches. I certainly hope that Scott is going to be featured in exciting stories and treated with respect - basically what everyone wants for their favorites.

I do not know if Whedon WANTED to bring Jean back or not, I just know he very likely wouldn’t have been allowed to no matter what because she’d just died, because of what a big deal it was, because it was clearly more than just something Morrisson wanted to do it was an editorial statement of ‘Jean Grey was better dead than alive, bringing her back at all was a mistake in the 80s’ and also ‘Cyclops is more interesting when she’s dead...and not married’.

Yeah, I doubt Morrison killed Jean against Marvel's wishes, and they could've brought her back at any point; instead, her death was basically the only thing not forgotten or contradicted soon after the run concluded. I wish editors would quit thinking of marriage as this negative weight - I enjoyed the Superman book with Lois and Jon. The question of which characters were better dead than alive is an interesting one. Not counting the obvious must-stay-dead characters, like Uncle Ben or Mar-Vell, I have seen a few people claim that Jean Grey or Jason Todd were better dead.

Remember between the late 1990s-mid/late 2000s Marvel made a cottage industry out of killing off the female love interests of male heroes, especially if they were married. Betty Banner, Mary Jane (she came back but was intended to be dead for over a year), Janet Van Dyne, Karen Page, Jean Grey. And many outright marital/long term relationships folded up one way or another. Whether it was Betty coming back but she’s not married to Bruce, or Lilandra and Xavier, Scott and Jean, Rogue and Gambit, Peter and Mary Jane, Jonah and Marla, Harry and Liz and yeah Cyclops and Jean it was a joke.

There obviously was/maybe still is an in-house mentality that those types of relationships are reductive, in particular to the male heroes in the equation. Noticably Cyclops for instance wasn’t killed off again so JEAN could be made more interesting and when he had been he came back much sooner than Jean did than when she died in the 80s or the 2000s.

So however you slice it Jean wasn’t going to come back in the run succeeding Morrisson’s no matter what.

I never understood the idea that Jean needed Scott to stay dead to flourish - is she such a weak character that his presence undermines her? I've also seen claims that if Jean had lived, Scott wouldn't have become such an interesting (or polarizing if you like) character, but how does that make sense? Would Jean have stopped Marvel's Messiah Trilogy/Decimation narrative if she'd been around? Jean headed up a book with Scott completely gone and Marvel dropped that ball.

It's a shame when you think about how poorly Marvel has treated some of their best relationships.

Because the X-Men (possibly the first superheroes I was aware of sans the Power Rangers and deffo the first Marvel guys) were so big in the 1990s I too absorbed them via osmosis though the nature of the 90s cartoon’s sophistication and continuity made me following them difficult. Mostly i just saw colourful characters with cool powers, didn’t even get the whole mutant metaphor till much later on. I think the critics of the 1992 cartoon often unfairly compare it to BTAS which is like comparing any gangster film ever but esp in the 1970s to the Godfather. 20 years later and there STILL hasn’t been another superhero cartoon on the level of BTAS not even the ones by the same group of people. BTAS was ahead of it’s time whilst X-Men was OF its time but pushing the boundaries. It’s like an advanced TMNT or G.I. Joe with the art style very much in the action figure style era of those 80s and 90s shows.

With Magneto I think if anything the 90s show demonstrated how he can be done well AS a villain. I don’t think he should be an X-Man himself and be opposed to them, but not be basically 60s era Doctor Doom. He’s a villain you can understand, who could even ally himself with the X-Men and would really rather not fight them. You can maybe see his POV but not his methods. That’s why in the show he was allied with the X-Men (but never one of them) as much as he was opposed to them.

I agree completely with your descriptions of BTAS and X-MenTAS.

[Wiccan]

I think the idea that any superhero should stay dead forever is dumb. Imo they all deserve a chance to... Well, be publicated? Idk how to explain really. But comics are not finite stories like a movie or even TV shows where things just happen and... That's it.

Comic book characters are also brands or parts of brands somehow. Uncle Ben? Sure, he's a supporting character who literally died on his first appearance and was only made for one specific plot device. But Jean staying dead for all these years because "She should have stayed dead after DPS anyway" is one of the most dumb ones. DPS was already, well, not to say ruined, but overruled, almost 20 years before her most recent death. Jean came back and was alive for most of the '80s and the whole '90s and they can't take that back no matter what they do with her. Her actual death was a super lame one by some random. Not really a great story that shouldn't be tarnished.

And from an in-story point it never made any sense for her death to stick. Characters get all the most random, weird, convoluted ways to get back from death, but the girl who's literally connected to an entity who can resurrect people has to stay dead? C'mon.

[spirit2011]

I think the idea that any superhero should stay dead forever is dumb. Imo they all deserve a chance to... Well, be publicated? Idk how to explain really. But comics are not finite stories like a movie or even TV shows where things just happen and... That's it.

Comic book characters are also brands or parts of brands somehow. Uncle Ben? Sure, he's a supporting character who literally died on his first appearance and was only made for one specific plot device. But Jean staying dead for all these years because "She should have stayed dead after DPS anyway" is one of the most dumb ones. DPS was already, well, not to say ruined, but overruled, almost 20 years before her most recent death. Jean came back and was alive for most of the '80s and the whole '90s and they can't take that back no matter what they do with her. Her actual death was a super lame one by some random. Not really a great story that shouldn't be tarnished.

And from an in-story point it never made any sense for her death to stick. Characters get all the most random, weird, convoluted ways to get back from death, but the girl who's literally connected to an entity who can resurrect people has to stay dead? C'mon.

People said to me that quesada had a rule that characters would stay dead. On the first year of Whedon, Colossus was ressurrected. So the rule was about Jean and only her.

For all talk of Morrison to give Jean a death memorable like Dark Phoenix, he failed badly. She didn't save anyone, it wasn't a sacrifice. It was a plot device to give angsty to Scott and only that. It didn't served Jean story.

Phoenix Ressurrection didn't even bothered to explain why she was back now and not earlier. Ressurrection is part of the Phoenix cycle

[MichelleDiMera]

Yep its comical how they kept using all that Grant Morrison crap but kept the Jean death for 13 years..

[spirit2011]

Yep its comical how they kept using all that Grant Morrison crap but kept the Jean death for 13 years..

You mean not using it? the only things that stuck from Morrison were Fantomex, Jean's dead and Scemma.
Magneto as xorn was retcon, decimation ended the 3984540 new mutants that showed up, no more X-corporation.
At least Fantomex was ok, but he was also overplayed

lol, I forgot about Hope! Why would Marvel bring Jean back? Rachel, Hope, Jeen, they all served some function that kept Jean out.

Hope never really worked as Jean replacement, not even the same powers. Jeen worked better but then she would have to come back to her timeline anyway.
It just made Marvel bring more characters that weren't needed at all.

Whedon didn't even touch Jean, except to reinforce that she still mattered to Scott - he had no responsibility to undo the least popular decisions made by Morrison.

I didn't asked to him undo Morrison decisions, but his statement about Jean were very poor and bad taste

[CRaymond]

For all talk of Morrison to give Jean a death memorable like Dark Phoenix, he failed badly. She didn't save anyone, it wasn't a sacrifice. It was a plot device to give angsty to Scott and only that. It didn't served Jean story.

Here Comes Tomorrow was about turning away from pessimism, cynicism, and depression toward heroic optimism. It’s Watchmen.

[spirit2011]

Here Comes Tomorrow was about turning away from pessimism, cynicism, and depression toward heroic optimism. It’s Watchmen.

Except it isn't. X-men only got darker after Morrison's run

[CRaymond]

Except it isn't. X-men only got darker after Morrison's run

That’s not Morrison’s fault.

LOL

My comment was about how horribly you misunderstood the death(Planet X) and future actions(HCT) of Jean Grey. It was nothing BUT meaningful, and it was intended that way by the author.

[spirit2011]

That’s not Morrison’s fault.

LOL

My comment was about how horribly you misunderstood the death(Planet X) and future actions(HCT) of Jean Grey. It was nothing BUT meaningful, and it was intended that way by the author.

I don't think I misunderstood women in refrigerators

[MichelleDiMera]

You mean not using it? the only things that stuck from Morrison were Fantomex, Jean's dead and Scemma.
Magneto as xorn was retcon, decimation ended the 3984540 new mutants that showed up, no more X-corporation.
At least Fantomex was ok, but he was also overplayed


Hope never really worked as Jean replacement, not even the same powers. Jeen worked better but then she would have to come back to her timeline anyway.
It just made Marvel bring more characters that weren't needed at all.


I didn't asked to him undo Morrison decisions, but his statement about Jean were very poor and bad taste

They kept Quienten around..brought back Cassandra Nova, the Cuckoos, 2nd mutations..they ran back to alot of Morrison crap. But an original X Man...the Phoenix..was kept dead with all sort of replacements running around. Hideous.

[CRaymond]

I don't think I misunderstood women in refrigerators

Ok so this is just going to be a circular, evasive conversation. If you go back a page, you’ll see I called Jean Grey a plot device. I understand the refrigerator sentiment, but there’s a significant narrative difference between dismemberment horror and divine transubstantiation.

[spirit2011]

Ok so this is just going to be a circular, evasive conversation. If you go back a page, you’ll see I called Jean Grey a plot device. I understand the refrigerator sentiment, but there’s a significant narrative difference between dismemberment horror and divine transubstantiation.

Not really. Not when the whole divine thing is to give the husband some manpain. Jean took zero development from that, because it wasn't about her, it was about Scott.
She wasn't a plot device, until Morrison made her into one

[Mutant 77]

I have a very "weird" question.

Is Jean supposed to be a "regular" red-haired person with white skin and freckles?

In truth, I always assumed she has normal skin and no freckles, her red hair being part of his mutation? Just wondering...

Please, don't take this as "offensive" towards red-haired persons!

[CRaymond]

Nevermind. I don’t care enough lol.

I think there’s immortality to be had in a Dark Phoenix Broadway show, and I wish there was an easy cheat-sheet musical skeleton you can wrap the Saga over. It even starts with an “I wish” number (“I want to liiiiiiive!”) in the space shuttle that gets totally subverted in the final act.