I remember teen Jean being the most talked about character during the Bendis era. For good or bad, she never went unnoticed. I wasn't sure about her at the beginning but ended up liking her a lot.
With Teen Jean they were never afraid to talk about how powerful Jean Grey is. Jeen was seen doing stuff with her powers that Beast said was at the level of Phoenix. And then when Jean returned and Taylor wrote her in Red he also made sure we knew how powerful Jean was. I was like ”wow, this is a great time to be a fan of Jean, she will do amazing things”. And then Hickman came and ... pffft.
Percy is still doing things with Jean that are things that she did when she was at her strongest, and even though it might be because of Morrison or Dauterman Jean's showing in Giant-Sized was pretty great. I just wish that she was more actively using her TK and having feats and such under Hickman.
He writes her a bit too passively but I feel like he understands her voice - or at least what her voice used to be. In issues like the past two issues of X-Men she sounded on point.
"We come into this world alone and we leave the same way. The time we spent in between - time spent alive, sharing, learning together... is all that makes life worth living." - Jean Grey
I was afraid on the beginining, seemed like he was positioning Jeen to be a villain. But at the end I like dhis premise, a confused Jean having to deal with the fact that her future isn't any good.
Bendis is a big Jean fan, it is all weird that all these years on marvel he never wrote adult Jean for real.
If editorial wasn't so awful, he could had wrote her
Bendis wrote adult Jean for once: in Alias. But for the entire time that he was at Marvel, she was dead and editorial was making it a point not to bring her back, probably from the very top. Jean's resurrection was among one of the first things that White did when he became X-Editor this time around, and Alonso was well on his way out.
"We come into this world alone and we leave the same way. The time we spent in between - time spent alive, sharing, learning together... is all that makes life worth living." - Jean Grey
"We come into this world alone and we leave the same way. The time we spent in between - time spent alive, sharing, learning together... is all that makes life worth living." - Jean Grey
Last edited by spirit2011; 04-09-2020 at 04:50 PM.
Hickman's opinion is the same as Rosenberg's: She's a non-entity designed only for Cyclops stories. Half of her dialogue in Hickman comics is just "SCOTT!".
Maybe it's supposed to be comedy?
Count me in on those who loved Teen Jean. She had presence and I liked that she made other characters nervous due to her powerful abilities. Teen Jean had the power but she wasn't as experienced as adult Jean. Adult Jean should be more formidable because she has the power, confidence, and experience with her powers. X-men Red was a good showing but otherwise she hasn't had the focus Teen Jean did.
I think Hickman likes powers to be understated and not as big or flashy as other writers (JDW did say he was concerned about power creep in an older X-men Monday article). At least Jean is still omega level and I think that will be important eventually. Hickman hasn't used Jean in a starring role other than Giant Size X-men and it was a mostly silent issue. I'd love to see how he handles her when she's the focus.
Percy has had Jean be powerful in X-force and I'm sure we will see more of that when she is used in the book.
Of course, I loved Teen Jean not just because she was powerful but because she had all of the qualities that we like about Jean. I did want adult Jean to get that kind of attention but because Teen Jean got so much for so long they probably wanted to focus on other characters.
Hickman was so focused on creating a whole new world for mutants to serve as the basis for mutants in MCU he neglected character development. Jean, who as Jeen had been a protagonist became just another character.
Other characters who were powerful during the Bendita era, like Magik similarly got out in the background. Even characters that used to get a lot of solo attention like Wolverine don’t seem to be doing much. Hickman and editorial were so focused on big on big picture smaller stuff got forgotten.
Still Jean has finally gotten a great showing in the XMan one shot and in X-Force.