Jean Grey: Phoenix/Marvel Girl Appreciation 2020

[franckd]

Jean/Phoenix came up with the prototype resurrection protocols.

And for that very reason, Jean should be Krakoa's Queen.

You do realize that the Whedon run (Astonishing X-men) sold really well so Morrison did not destroy the X-men or contribute to any such decline that you are suggesting. Whedon was also a fan of the Morrison run and wanted to continue under the banner of New X-men but he ended up with Astonishing. He also used the surviving characters (and added Kitty and later Colossus).

I remember that too. Whedon was hired to write New X-Men's continuation, and he was a fan of the run. He was quite surprised that he ended up on a title named Astonishing X-Men.

What I loved about his run, was the nostalgia mixed with modern take, and the fact it was quite respectful of GM's run. Too bad he retconed Cassandra Nova (Did he know that she was Ernest?). I really loved Cassaday's art too and that he was the only artist for the run. Such a consistency. Well, the book was late, some times. With a big break between some arcs. But As a whole, he works great.

It was not near as genius/intelligent as GM's run, but it was quite good. By the way, when I say that GM's run is intelligent, I never mean that you need to be intelligent to love it. To each is own taste. I just mean that I (yes I) find it intelligent/clever. Same for a movie, same for a tv series. It's a personal opinion. My opinion. It never means that people who don't love the same things than me are dumb/stupid...

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

I enjoy the absolute notoriety of Morrison's run. That man came to shake **** up and looking back, I appreciate everything from it except Xorn/Drugneto. And Jean not getting her own shot to explore new romantic avenues in the wake of Scemma, of course. They really kept the girl dead until they got tired of Scemma too. Crazy.

I do like that death being part of Jean's history though, especially now that she is somewhat back in comics.

[whitecrown]

I enjoy the absolute notoriety of Morrison's run. That man came to shake **** up and looking back, I appreciate everything from it except Xorn/Drugneto. And Jean not getting her own shot to explore new romantic avenues in the wake of Scemma, of course. They really kept the girl dead until they got tired of Scemma too. Crazy.

I do like that death being part of Jean's history though, especially now that she is somewhat back in comics.

It's so misogynistic and dated of writers to keep a female character dead because they didn't want her husband to divorce her but they needed a reason for him to move on with his cheap floozy. Then to add insult to injury, said floozy was given full reign of the X-Men as leader only on the basis of who she was sleeping with whereas almost every other major X-Woman (Storm, Psylocke, Polaris, Rachel, Kitty, etc.) was shunted off which is why a lot of these fandoms have issues with the character and not just Jean. Emma fans like to think their character is so unique but besides the fact that Morrison's take on her was basically just a rip-off of Moondragon and Claremont's British Betsy Braddock, Emma in the Fraction run and onwards was essentially just warming Jean's seat. Not very progressive or feminist at all imo.

I don't have a problem with Jean having been dead before but I can't think of any major character who has been dead as long as she has been. Especially since her first death was at least somewhat justified and they brought her back the second they felt they could in an ethical manner. But after Morrison's run, she was purposefully left apart only to boost Scemma even though various writers wanted their own chance to work on Jean. Should have let Bendis bring her back in New Avengers and be with Logan and far away from Scemma's X-Men. Jean would have been in the better selling book by then anyway.

[PwrdOn]

For all that the X-Women are celebrated in fandom, they've been written pretty poorly across the board for quite some time, and that includes under Morrison who basically treated Jean and Emma as stand-ins for his own personal relationship drama.

[MechaJeanix]

For all that the X-Women are celebrated in fandom, they've been written pretty poorly across the board for quite some time, and that includes under Morrison who basically treated Jean and Emma as stand-ins for his own personal relationship drama.

I don't think either was portrayed poorly in the run and again the relationship drama was only a portion of the run. Claremont also used relationship drama. When Scott believed Jean to be dead he had a brief thing with Lee Forrester. Some fans get up in arms due to the times writers had Scott say something negative about Jean during his time with Emma, but in the Claremont days Scott told Storm he felt nothing for Jean when he believed she was dead. To him she pretty much died on the Shuttle.

Simonson, who most of us enjoyed wrote a lot of relationship drama between Scott and Jean in X-factor. She wrote the scenes of Jean thinking to herself and bashing Maddie (if you look at the fan letter pages at least some fans reacting very negative to it and did not like Jean for it).

The 90's writers wrote the Scott flirtation with Psylocke. This is pretty standard stuff (though I agree with most of you it can be annoying but for those of us who date and have relationships we know drama can and does happen).

My main point is that the X-men are a soap opera and thus relationship drama in some form will exist. Jean and Emma's drama did come to a head when they fought but there were other times they interacted with each other that did not involve Scott. There were times they worked together as X-men.

I know some folks cling to the Emma's characterization in Generation X, and while it was fine it was largely boring. Morrison gave her a very distinct personality and made her shine in a way she hadn't before. He gave her depth. My favorite aspect of Emma is that she will stand up and get in your face even though she knows she's going to take a beat down (example Emma not backing down to Jean when Jean catches her and Scott).

In Morrison's run we again saw that Emma was a teacher and cared for her students. She doesn't always do the right thing or always have the most healthy interactions but she does care about her students and cares about mutants. I loved her friendship with Beast in the series.

As for Jean we've discussed her portrayal at length. I know some fans don't like it when Jean is perfect but some don't like it when she's not. I liked that Jean was brutal with Emma because most people have a breaking point or can have a bad day and go too far. I've also seen some Jean fans on X-twitter criticize Jean's brutality with the U-Men, but these were guys who came to a school to murder children. Morrison's Jean had her trademark empathy and compassion but she was also tough. Morrison made Jean a leader of the school when Xavier was in space (actually Cassandra). She had her press conference. She had the big moment where she stored Xavier's mind in hers. She helped set up X-corp offices and was in the Fantomex intro story. I know I'm beating a dead horse but there was so much more than the relationship drama.

Superficially, I loved how Jean was defined/described by other characters: not knowing her own strength as said by Emma, being a grown up omega mutant on Richter Scale, she'd be a 12, and if she was a mountain, she'd be Olympus Mons on Mars as described by Beast, etc. Also I loved all the phoenix moments and her quotes "born in blood and flame and sacrifice". The scenes in Here Comes Tomorrow where Jean was floating near towers in space was a reference to the Classic X-men backstory that Claremont wrote where Jean as White Phoenix talks with death. Morrison did his homework with Jean.

Did Morrison love the Emma character? Of course. Did he love Scott with Emma? Of course that is obvious. I don't know whether he cared for Jean or not as it isn't important because he did right by the character IMO.
Yes he killed her, but with the phoenix element she could have been brought back at any time if any editor approved. As others noted she was brought back for Phoenix Endsong in 2005. Here Comes Tomorrow was in 2004. Jean died in New X-men 150 in 2003.

[spirit2011]

It's so misogynistic and dated of writers to keep a female character dead because they didn't want her husband to divorce her but they needed a reason for him to move on with his cheap floozy. Then to add insult to injury, said floozy was given full reign of the X-Men as leader only on the basis of who she was sleeping with whereas almost every other major X-Woman (Storm, Psylocke, Polaris, Rachel, Kitty, etc.) was shunted off which is why a lot of these fandoms have issues with the character and not just Jean. Emma fans like to think their character is so unique but besides the fact that Morrison's take on her was basically just a rip-off of Moondragon and Claremont's British Betsy Braddock, Emma in the Fraction run and onwards was essentially just warming Jean's seat. Not very progressive or feminist at all imo.

That was sexism on the finest. They also wanted to bury Jean popularity and push emma/scott while screwing up Jean whole story.
yeah Morrison Emma was just a copy of british socialite Betsy. Claremont should had sued
If wasn't on Morrison Emma would had fell as side character and other women could have been better used

I don't have a problem with Jean having been dead before but I can't think of any major character who has been dead as long as she has been. Especially since her first death was at least somewhat justified and they brought her back the second they felt they could in an ethical manner. But after Morrison's run, she was purposefully left apart only to boost Scemma even though various writers wanted their own chance to work on Jean. Should have let Bendis bring her back in New Avengers and be with Logan and far away from Scemma's X-Men. Jean would have been in the better selling book by then anyway.

because of Morrison Jean being dead became a unfortunate meme. Jean didn't even died many times, but her last dead sticking up so long really made only bad for the character.

Barry Allen was dead for 24 years and I guess kara danvers was for 20 years. I think they are the closest comparable deaths, even if they died to sacrifice to save multiverse while Jean died to give Scott a big man pain.

At least barry returned, got to be the main Flash, got a tv show and movies. kara also is the supergirl, her own book and a TV show;
Meanwhile Jean is being written by a writer that doesn't like her and prefered see her death.

Not fair

For all that the X-Women are celebrated in fandom, they've been written pretty poorly across the board for quite some time, and that includes under Morrison who basically treated Jean and Emma as stand-ins for his own personal relationship drama.

basically sexism: Emma role was to be ab*tch and steal the other woman husband because she didn't like Jean.
jean was a two goody shoes that couldn't help her husband and should die to give him a better path on life;

zero complexity

I hope Feige is a Jean fan. He seems to have much better taste from what I've heard than Quesada ever did that's for sure.

Wow, Hickman is really gross if he could go around making a joke about a Karen calling the cops on a black man and ask who the X-Men's version of Karen is but wouldn't treat anything about Black Lives Matter. Those are his true colors right there. And then to sabotage the poll so his favorite isn't voted out when clearly he wanted Jean branded as a Karen.

Well now we know why Jean very narrowly lost against Thor in that poll. At the very least we can laugh at how Hickman's fav didn't even last one round in the popularity contest and Jean utterly annihilated her.

Yeah, it's ironic that we're being called out for not liking Morrison's run and being told that we are too negative but certain users are going out of their way to ridicule anyone who wasn't a fan. Yet that's not negativity? That reeks of privilege right there.

Welp if Hickman did anything against Scott or Emma, people would had asked for his head. But it is Jean so it is only a joke and we have to accept that. he actively worked to make Jean lose, just because she beat his favorite character.

I really liked that taylor went and defended Jean. He is pretty nice, should had never stopped writing Jean.

Why Jean fans can't catch a break?

[franckd]

I don't think either was portrayed poorly in the run and again the relationship drama was only a portion of the run. Claremont also used relationship drama. When Scott believed Jean to be dead he had a brief thing with Lee Forrester. Some fans get up in arms due to the times writers had Scott say something negative about Jean during his time with Emma, but in the Claremont days Scott told Storm he felt nothing for Jean when he believed she was dead. To him she pretty much died on the Shuttle.

Simonson, who most of us enjoyed wrote a lot of relationship drama between Scott and Jean in X-factor. She wrote the scenes of Jean thinking to herself and bashing Maddie (if you look at the fan letter pages at least some fans reacting very negative to it and did not like Jean for it).

The 90's writers wrote the Scott flirtation with Psylocke. This is pretty standard stuff (though I agree with most of you it can be annoying but for those of us who date and have relationships we know drama can and does happen).

My main point is that the X-men are a soap opera and thus relationship drama in some form will exist. Jean and Emma's drama did come to a head when they fought but there were other times they interacted with each other that did not involve Scott. There were times they worked together as X-men.

I know some folks cling to the Emma's characterization in Generation X, and while it was fine it was largely boring. Morrison gave her a very distinct personality and made her shine in a way she hadn't before. He gave her depth. My favorite aspect of Emma is that she will stand up and get in your face even though she knows she's going to take a beat down (example Emma not backing down to Jean when Jean catches her and Scott).

In Morrison's run we again saw that Emma was a teacher and cared for her students. She doesn't always do the right thing or always have the most healthy interactions but she does care about her students and cares about mutants. I loved her friendship with Beast in the series.

As for Jean we've discussed her portrayal at length. I know some fans don't like it when Jean is perfect but some don't like it when she's not. I liked that Jean was brutal with Emma because most people have a breaking point or can have a bad day and go too far. I've also seen some Jean fans on X-twitter criticize Jean's brutality with the U-Men, but these were guys who came to a school to murder children. Morrison's Jean had her trademark empathy and compassion but she was also tough. Morrison made Jean a leader of the school when Xavier was in space (actually Cassandra). She had her press conference. She had the big moment where she stored Xavier's mind in hers. She helped set up X-corp offices and was in the Fantomex intro story. I know I'm beating a dead horse but there was so much more than the relationship drama.

Superficially, I loved how Jean was defined/described by other characters: not knowing her own strength as said by Emma, being a grown up omega mutant on Richter Scale, she'd be a 12, and if she was a mountain, she'd be Olympus Mons on Mars as described by Beast, etc. Also I loved all the phoenix moments and her quotes "born in blood and flame and sacrifice". The scenes in Here Comes Tomorrow where Jean was floating near towers in space was a reference to the Classic X-men backstory that Claremont wrote where Jean as White Phoenix talks with death. Morrison did his homework with Jean.

Did Morrison love the Emma character? Of course. Did he love Scott with Emma? Of course that is obvious. I don't know whether he cared for Jean or not as it isn't important because he did right by the character IMO.
Yes he killed her, but with the phoenix element she could have been brought back at any time if any editor approved. As others noted she was brought back for Phoenix Endsong in 2005. Here Comes Tomorrow was in 2004. Jean died in New X-men 150 in 2003.

Morrison gave Jean so many great moments. She was a complex, and like a diamond she was multifaceted. She never was a one dimensional character, during this run.
By killing her, Morrison also proved a point : Jean is Phoenix. She came back in the future from a Phoenix egg found on the dark side of the moon, where she originally sacrificed herself. Morrison's story with Jean was to link Jean and the Phoenix.

When she's the white Phoenix of the crown, in the future, she talks to present Jean through "the voice" (Black text bubble). It was amazing, that all this time we thought it was either Jean or The Phoenix talking. It was actually future Jean. A bit like the concept of time for Dr Manhattan, Jean/Phoenix is both present and future.

After that, I was almost sot sure that Marvel would have no choice but bringing her back as Phoenix. Yet, they let Rosenberg write this terrible "break up story" and missed completely what the Phoenix and Jean were about. Having the Phoenix Force being a kind of "stalker" was dumb beyond words.

[spirit2011]

I believe what I saw with my own eyes and I'm pretty sure what I saw was posted here in these forums. The X-Men basically died when Morrison came onboard so I'll stick with my Claremont purists and pretend the X-Men Universe ended with Eve of Destruction. At least Jean doesn't wind up dead again that way.

Well it's no coincidence then that I despised Morrison's run and I feel similarly so towards Hickman's run. And frankly, fandoms from the other parts of the Marvel Universe are shocked and horrified at what the X-Men have become under Hickman (not that they cared much for the book's direction the past decade or two). The X-Fandom has alienated itself from the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Inhuman fandoms and for good reason and I'm frankly on their side because they haven't lost their way like the X-Men have parading around like a bunch of bullies with Apocalypse, Sinister, Emma Frost, Exodus, etc. on their side. The Avengers and the FF have integrity at least.

It's a bit difficult to appreciate Morrison's run when certain posters are flat out saying that anyone who didn't like the run probably isn't an intellectual and essentially lacks brain cells.

Funny thing that I was always considered to be smart on school, high school and college. So it is kinda of comedic seeing people downplay my intelligence because of ok run as it best.

I remember looking on the charts and thinking how after Morrison x-men sales went down. morrison's own runwasn't a sales success at all, it sold the same as Claremont, but for some reason Claremont was a failure.
See how it is easy to manipulate perceptions?

[franckd]

May 2001
New X-Men #114 (Grant Morrison First issue) : 144,835 copies sold
X-Treme X-men #1 (Chris Claremont) : 135,216 copies sold.

3 years later...

January 2004
New X-Men #151 : 124,048 copies sold
X-Treme X-men #39 : 57,739 copies sold.

Just saying.

[Havok83]

I remember looking on the charts and thinking how after Morrison x-men sales went down. morrison's own runwasn't a sales success at all, it sold the same as Claremont, but for some reason Claremont was a failure.
See how it is easy to manipulate perceptions?

LOL....completely not true. New X-men was consistently in the top 10 throughout Morrison's tenure and X-treme was nowhere near it, selling about half as much on average

[Havok83]

I remember looking on the charts and thinking how after Morrison x-men sales went down. morrison's own runwasn't a sales success at all, it sold the same as Claremont, but for some reason Claremont was a failure.
See how it is easy to manipulate perceptions?

LOL....completely not true. New X-men was consistently in the top 10 throughout Morrison's tenure and X-treme was nowhere near it, selling about half as much on average.

[spirit2011]

LOL....completely not true. New X-men was consistently in the top 10 throughout Morrison's tenure and X-treme was nowhere near it, selling about half as much on average

The same as it was Claremont writing x-men, Morrison didn't improve sales at all.

X-Men 94 108,544
Claremont was just doing fine. X-men would be a lore more healthy on sales and stories if morrison never did his run

look how well Alan Davis and Claremont were doing, they were topping the charts everymonth

1 - Uncanny X-Men 375 $2.99 Marvel 114,868
2 - X-Men 95 $1.99 Marvel 108,852

now compare with morrison failing

7 9 New X-Men 131 $2.25 Marvel 105,474
8 10 New X-Men 130 $2.25 Marvel 105,464

7th and 8th place

[franckd]

LOL....completely not true. New X-men was consistently in the top 10 throughout Morrison's tenure and X-treme was nowhere near it, selling about half as much on average

You're absolutely right (see the numbers on my previous post above). Those are facts. And funny enough, we are the ones, being accused to manipulate perception...

[Havok83]

The same as it was Claremont writing x-men, Morrison didn't improve sales at all.

X-Men 94 108,544
Claremont was just doing fine. X-men would be a lore more healthy on sales and stories if morrison never did his run

X-men 94 was written by Davis, not Claremont. And who said Claremont's run was a sales failure? If you are going to compare the two writers, both had an ongoing at the same time and Claremont's didnt even come close to the same sales

His Revolution run may have sold fine but the books were horrible as he was creatively bankrupt. He came back with stale ideas and his writing style no longer worked in that then modern era. The end of the 90s was not good for the X-line and Claremont returned with more of the same. Morrison injected much needed energy into the books and Claremont's X-treme even benefited by being recontextualized into that new status qup

[MechaJeanix]

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.