Jean Grey: Phoenix/Marvel Girl Appreciation 2020

[spirit2011]

Just to once again fact check, while it is most likely true that overall sales on Morrison's run went down some by the end of his run this is actually normal for many comic runs. There is a reason comics are rebooted every so often because #1's sale. With Morrison's run it didn't start with a number 1 but the title did see a bump in sales due to the new status quo and fans were excited for the changes. Some comic fans follow certain writers. I'm sure there are some Hickman fans that are reading X-men for the first time.

So trying to criticize a run because numbers drop is ridiculous. Look at the Jean Grey solo, the Iceman solo, or even X-men Red. They all saw a decrease in sales, which is an expected trend. There are probably a lot of reasons for this (some fans decide to trade wait, etc).

Again I dispelled the untruths (and so did Frank) but I guess we have to do so again. The Morrison run sold well through the entire run. New X-men sold better than X-treme X-men and Uncanny X-men. Astonishing X-men also sold well (in fact I think it sold better as Whedon is a more popular and well known creator) and Astonishing was in many ways a continuation of the Morrison run. The implication that Morrison somehow hurt sales or began a decline in the X-titles (sales wise) is absolute nonsense and is simply not true. It is not supported by any evidence or metric.

I get that obsession over ships (as unhealthy as that is) occurs and that is all some will see (that Morrison had the audacity to mess with Scott and Jean) or those upset that he killed her (personally I loved both of Jean's death scenes in New X-men and I think they were additive in adding to her death and rebirth motif). I've read some Jean fans on twitter were upset about the cheating in Scott and Jean's relationship and I agree cheating isn't good but it happens. It is way past time to get over it.

I'm going to leave with this, despite what some of you think about the Morrison run it was effective. It stuck with you. It made you react and feel something. You still wrestle with the story and the author's choices. It moved you even if in a negative way. Art should do that and again shows it was impactful and meaningful. We don't argue about the early Gold Team days or Scott Lobdell's X-men for a reason. It was good but it wasn't great. It didn't cause strong reactions or debates. The best works tend to be controversial and tend to illicit strong feelings and emotions.

If GM's run was mediocre like much of superhero comics we wouldn't even be discussing it today. It would be largely forgotten by the audience. GM's run is a favorite of a lot of X-men creators and editors. Tom Taylor said that when he wanted to get Jean's voice down for X-men Red he would re-read Morrison's run. The run had an impact on the X-men.

Just because we are talking doesn't make it good, people still talk about Austen run and it was completely awful

people discuss it because it crapped on jean chaarcter for over 14 years, if it was completely undone and had no consequences nobody would give a crap

Snyder run sold consistently throught all his run and sold better than the runs that preced and succeed him. That is quality, since snyder wasn't even a big name like morrison was when he took over the x-men.

[Vishop]

Hail Lord Claremont

Seriously that guy deteriorated HEAVILY over anything he wrote after his UXM run and it makes me chuckle to see people blaming other writers or runs for his decline. He is a great writer no doubt and he wrote the defining run no doubt.....

[franckd]

you can't be the x-men god when all the editorial do is sabotage you. he should have been give the uncanny book, but they delegated him a 3rd rate book.

Wow... Storm, Rogue, Gambit,... With Salvador Larroca's art. A third rate book? If you say yo...

Morrison was writing the flagship book with some hype, but even then his sales were the same as claremont when he was writin x-men-uncanny

Claremont was writing Uncanny x-Men with Salvador Larroca's art. His last issue (#389) sold 106,514 copies. The exact same creative team, on X-Treme X-Men started with a very strong 135,216 copies sold. Yet, you still call it a third rate book? 135,216 is even amazing. Flagship or not. Yet, he lost more than 50% readers in 3 years.

yes, it was clear that he wasn't head writer or even imortant to read his stories.

So you confirm that CC sales were bad because he didn't have creative freedom.
He had - and he couldn't stress it enough during his interviews - total creative freedom with X-Men Forever. The so called "continuation" of his best selling book in 1991. Yet, see where it went from a selling standpoint...

And you know why, I'm even not a CC basher. I was always happy when he was announced on a X-Men book. Each time, I tried the book as I really wanted to enjoy it. Each time I gave up and stopped buying it. Figures sales tend to show I wasn't the only one.

more like I have facts, Marvel was expecting a 300k per month from Whedon

Please allow me to ask again : Link? Source?
Because writing the word "facts" in a sentence doesn't make it fact, without proof.

Hail Lord Claremont

Seriously that guy deteriorated HEAVILY over anything he wrote after his UXM run and it makes me chuckle to see people blaming other writers or runs for his decline. He is a great writer no doubt and he wrote the defining run no doubt.....

I can't agree more. I loved CC original run. But his second and third run with the main books were nowhere that enjoyable, to me. And I obviously noticed that decline, in quality. And it's so easy to blame other writers for that.

[Micabe]

Especially since whenever they wanted to show dead X-Men, they always used Jean in that outfit since that's what she was in when she died (Endsong was completely ignored which just proves my point that Endsong was just used to capitalize on Jean's popularity and they didn't care for it as canon or not. Jean officially died for them in Morrison's run and they were sticking to that).

Ross's design is super elegant and I love the hood, long cloak, and boots.

I agree, Carol and Jean have so much in common especially with Claremont at the helm. Ideas for The Dark Phoenix Saga were originally meant for Carol's own Ms. Marvel run including being turned into the Black Queen so it's utterly criminal that these two women have never interacted before. Especially when I think there's a lot of fandom overlap.

I've never heard that before -- what's the source of this tidbit?

[MechaJeanix]

Hail Lord Claremont

Seriously that guy deteriorated HEAVILY over anything he wrote after his UXM run and it makes me chuckle to see people blaming other writers or runs for his decline. He is a great writer no doubt and he wrote the defining run no doubt.....

Claremont did some good work but his work was far from perfect. I follow "The Claremont Run" on twitter and whoever runs the twitter feed takes an academic approach to Chris Claremont's first X-men run and it has been highly illuminating. Claremont deserves credit for creating complex characters and he deserves credit for diversity in the X-books (though again there were problems and some things did not age well). He wrote strong women for sure. He made most of the characters have long inner dialogues that usually was full of self doubt (he did this too much that nearly every character began to sound the same because they used the same Claremontism speak). He did great with Jean during the Phoenix years. I give Claremont credit for making Storm the badass heart of the X-men. In my opinion she was the standout star of his run. I don't mean to come across that I disrespect Claremont but some of his writing hasn't been great (sometimes there is too much prose or abstrations, and he likes to tell rather than let the artist show, etc). Claremont contributed a lot to the books so I wouldn't take that away from him. I even enjoyed Xtreme X-men to an extent though Morrison's run was leaps and bounds superior to it. Claremont's later Uncanny run when the X-men fought the Fury was better though there was other messy stories like Dino Rachel.

Claremont, Morrison, and Taylor in my opinion are among the definitive Jean Grey writers (perhaps Bendis ought to be included for Teen Jean). Simonson has a high rating for me as well but again she did things others accuse Morrison of (a lot of melodrama and relationship angst and character assassination where Maddie Pryor was concerned - though others were likely more responsible for those choices).

As much as I adore the Morrison run and I will defend it - that is what discussion boards are for, and I will call out lies, distortions, and untruths, but I have in the past conceded some issues with the run. First of all there could been more diversity in the main team. The issue with the Muslim terrorist has not aged well (though he did introduce Dust a Muslim X-man). New Angel could be seen as exhibiting stereotypes, etc. No work is "perfect", but for me the Morrison run comes closer than the others. I enjoyed every single issue. I still remember the excitement for each issue. I recall going to the comic store a week early to get the advanced copy so my brother and I could post advance spoiler threads for New X-men (we did it on this forum and others before such practices were no longer allowed).

Morrison's run came after the disappointing Claremont run (revolution -which I liked parts of it but as a whole it was a mess), and Scott Lobdell's Eve of Destruction which again it was somewhat enjoyable and it was great seeing Jean lead, but the writing was not that great. Morrison's run was dynamic, it was about evolution and adaptation. It was about "in" vs "out" and old vs new, among other ideas.

I love that line with Quire where he hears all these thoughts but to him everyone is thinking the same dumb thought. The book had Xavier question his ideas and his dream (see conclusion to Riot at Xavier's) and this is something we are seeing more of now. Morrison wrote about mutant ideas, mutant fashion, and mutant culture. Hickman is taking these ideas and running with it.

Change was a big theme. We saw Scott change (his attitudes, his demeanor). We saw the love between Jean and Scott change. We saw Jean literally evolve into something more than she was. Beast evolved. Xavier's ideas evolved. The X-men came out (thanks to Cassandra). We saw Emma go from a side character to an A-lister. We saw the creation of new characters like the cuckoos, Quire, Blob, the special class, "Xorn', Dust, and others. There is a lot to explore in the run and that is just a small portion of why we continue to discuss it.

[franckd]

Just because we are talking doesn't make it good, people still talk about Austen run and it was completely awful

I don't see much people talking about Austen's run, except for a good laugh, time to time. But I know a few fans who enjoyed it (I did not)

people discuss it because it crapped on jean chaarcter for over 14 years, if it was completely undone and had no consequences nobody would give a crap

Sure, some people who hates the run never miss an opportunity to trash it. It's like they don't want to let it go. Again, you're reducing the run to a relationship.
And it's such a bold claim to say that "nobody" would give a crap. It's like claiming that Morrison's sales were bad. It's not facts.

Snyder run sold consistently throught all his run and sold better than the runs that preced and succeed him. That is quality, since snyder wasn't even a big name like morrison was when he took over the x-men.

Just a note : quality is not about what you like or don't. Quality is not always about sales. Rob Liefeld X-Force sales were huge, yet it's still one of the biggest cr*p I have ever read.
But I won't judge Synder's X-Men as I haven't read it and I'm totally opened to the idea that his run was good. I even think I will look for back issues.

[franckd]

Claremont did some good work but his work was far from perfect. I follow "The Claremont Run" on twitter and whoever runs the twitter feed takes an academic approach to Chris Claremont's first X-men run and it has been highly illuminating. Claremont deserves credit for creating complex characters and he deserves credit for diversity in the X-books (though again there were problems and some things did not age well). He wrote strong women for sure. He made most of the characters have long inner dialogues that usually was full of self doubt (he did this too much that nearly every character began to sound the same because they used the same Claremontism speak). He did great with Jean during the Phoenix years. I give Claremont credit for making Storm the badass heart of the X-men. In my opinion she was the standout star of his run. I don't mean to come across that I disrespect Claremont but some of his writing hasn't been great (sometimes there is too much prose or abstrations, and he likes to tell rather than let the artist show, etc). Claremont contributed a lot to the books so I wouldn't take that away from him. I even enjoyed Xtreme X-men to an extent though Morrison's run was leaps and bounds superior to it. Claremont's later Uncanny run when the X-men fought the Fury was better though there was other messy stories like Dino Rachel.

Claremont, Morrison, and Taylor in my opinion are among the definitive Jean Grey writers (perhaps Bendis ought to be included for Teen Jean). Simonson has a high rating for me as well but again she did things others accuse Morrison of (a lot of melodrama and relationship angst and character assassination where Maddie Pryor was concerned - though others were likely more responsible for those choices).

As much as I adore the Morrison run and I will defend it - that is what discussion boards are for, and I will call out lies, distortions, and untruths, but I have in the past conceded some issues with the run. First of all there could been more diversity in the main team. The issue with the Muslim terrorist has not aged well (though he did introduce Dust a Muslim X-man). New Angel could be seen as exhibiting stereotypes, etc. No work is "perfect", but for me the Morrison run comes closer than the others. I enjoyed every single issue. I still remember the excitement for each issue. I recall going to the comic store a week early to get the advanced copy so my brother and I could post advance spoiler threads for New X-men (we did it on this forum and others before such practices were no longer allowed).

Morrison's run came after the disappointing Claremont run (revolution -which I liked parts of it but as a whole it was a mess), and Scott Lobdell's Eve of Destruction which again it was somewhat enjoyable and it was great seeing Jean lead, but the writing was not that great. Morrison's run was dynamic, it was about evolution and adaptation. It was about "in" vs "out" and old vs new, among other ideas.

I love that line with Quire where he hears all these thoughts but to him everyone is thinking the same dumb thought. The book had Xavier question his ideas and his dream (see conclusion to Riot at Xavier's) and this is something we are seeing more of now. Morrison wrote about mutant ideas, mutant fashion, and mutant culture. Hickman is taking these ideas and running with it.

Change was a big theme. We saw Scott change (his attitudes, his demeanor). We saw the love between Jean and Scott change. We saw Jean literally evolve into something more than she was. Beast evolved. Xavier's ideas evolved. The X-men came out (thanks to Cassandra). We saw Emma go from a side character to an A-lister. We saw the creation of new characters like the cuckoos, Quire, Blob, the special class, "Xorn', Dust, and others. There is a lot to explore in the run and that is just a small portion of why we continue to discuss it.

Yes. It was kinda ironic, that a book about "evolution" was so stuck in a formula, during the 90's. Most of the books were stale, and even if the 90's had some good moments, it was far, far away from the golden age era, that was more daring, more risky. More free? With Morrison, It was like someone kicking the habits in the n*ts. It was fresh, new and yet - as a huge fan of the Byrne/Cockrum/Paul Smith era - I could finally find back the characters I loved so much. They felt so alive. The book was, at last, breathing again.

And Jonathan Hickman feels like the next step of this. He's bringing the books to a new level. Yes, I am not happy with the way he writes Jean. And I prefer X-Force (so far my favorite book of the DoX line) but as for the bigger picture, Jonathan Hickman is giving the books a pulse, again.

[Portsian]

Talking about New X-men sent me to nostalgia. So I googled it and I found amazing reviews of the run. I won't copy/paste or link them, as I'm aware that I would not change anything. And I don't need ton convince anyone. But it's so amazing to read intelligent reviews, filed with respect and love. It's refreshing.

Id like the links please, can you pm them to me?

[MechaJeanix]

Yes. It was kinda ironic, that a book about "evolution" was so stuck in a formula, during the 90's. Most of the books were stale, and even if the 90's had some good moments, it was far, far away from the golden age era, that was more daring, more risky. More free? With Morrison, It was like someone kicking the habits in the n*ts. It was fresh, new and yet - as a huge fan of the Byrne/Cockrum/Paul Smith era - I could finally find back the characters I loved so much. They felt so alive. The book was, at last, breathing again.

And Jonathan Hickman feels like the next step of this. He's bringing the books to a new level. Yes, I am not happy with the way he writes Jean. And I prefer X-Force (so far my favorite book of the DoX line) but as for the bigger picture, Jonathan Hickman is giving the books a pulse, again.

Agreed on all counts. I'm hesitant with Hickman on Jean but the last three times he has used her she has been fine imo. Only time will tell if the trend continues.

Hickman has bold ideas just like Morrison. It is the 'kick in the pants' that the books needed. X-men should be about evolution and bold ideas and about taking risks. I like that Hickman believes in being additive and not destroying things just for the sake of it. X-men should be a sci-fi book with bizarre and sometimes disturbing elements. It should challenge the reader and at times make the reader uncomfortable. Characters should sometimes make morally unclear choices - just like we do (and still be heroic in the end or when it is needed).

I am glad that Jean is around for the Hickman era just like she was during the Morrison era. I wish Jean had been around for Whedon and Mike Carey. Though both writers did use her in brief flashbacks.

[Portsian]

Can we please get back to Jean instead of point scoring and repeated posts, some of us will not change the others’ minds, so lets move on in nice way......

[MechaJeanix]

Can we please get back to Jean instead of point scoring and repeated posts, some of us will not change the others’ minds, so lets move on in nice way......

Well this is what discussion threads are for -debate and discussion. At least we are talking about something other than Jean's costume. There is only so much we can say about costumes, powers, and Jean's relationships. I mean almost everything we discuss we have done so before (over and over..). Soon some new books will be out soon and hopefully will give us something new(er) to discuss.

[Cruelrain]

there is always time to drag Jean's Marvel Girl look

[MechaJeanix]

there is always time to drag Jean's Marvel Girl look

I mean technically you are not wrong about the Marvel Girl look. I also feel bad for writing long posts. I do try to shorten them. I'm just too wordy. It is a bad habit. It is why I can't twitter well. I will try not to take the bait of those acting in bad faith. Comics should be fun and we should be enjoying ourselves and sharing what we love about our common interest/hobby.

[Cruelrain]

Yeah, also saying people to stop debating about a certain topic (in this case was about sales but still related to Jean) is not right.

one can decide not to read.

[whitecrown]

then how do you explain Claremont's X-treme selling about half of Morrison's numbers if he was so great in that era? Even Austen's book did better

Morrison and Austen had the two core X-Men books. X-Treme X-Men was a spinoff title. Wolverine was also not a lead in X-Treme X-Men unlike the other two books so you can imagine which ones got pushed.