Frankly, I am surprised by how much I like this issue and the clarification and closure it provides. Jean's boundless empathy is on full display. She doesn't call Mastermind to task for what he really did, i.e., psychically and maybe even physically rape her clone, because he is dying, attempting, feebly so, to make amends, and she is a supreme empath. She could have easily denied his request for her to visit him and, standing before him, could have also easily destroyed him. However, that is not who she is. Also, I don’t think she ever felt she was in danger of dying along with him, and that’s why she telekinetically ejected Bobby and Bishop from and remained in his illusion on the astral plane. (Interestingly, the details of how Mastermind enveloped them in his illusions made me realize that, during the Dark Phoenix Saga, he had done the same to the clone created by the Phoenix Force [P.F.] and to Jean’s duplicated essence. He didn’t penetrate her mind as much as envelope it in his illusions on the astral plane, which speaks to what she was "desiring.")
Furthermore, I am actually pleased that Jean distinguishes herself from the clone the P.F. created. As much as I love Claremont's and Cockrum's original motivation for and intention behind creating the P.F. - to show Jean's fullest potential as a psi - that story was retconned and, though a duplicate of Jean's essence was bonded to the clone, neither the duplicated essence, Phoenix, nor Dark Phoenix was really Jean Grey. As a longtime Jean fan, I have often been torn between accepting that Jean was technically
not the Phoenix or Dark Phoenix and insisting that she was. I think many of us, i.e., fans, have conflated the P.F.’s abilities with Jean’s abilities, feeling that, if we accept the retcon, we are admitting Jean is not powerful. As a result of this issue, for the first time, I felt okay fully accepting the fact that Jean's true essence was not involved in the Phoenix Saga or Dark Phoenix Saga. Not to be melodramatic, but it was almost as if a long and tightly shut door unlatched for me.
Incidentally, what I love most about how five-time Eisner Award winner Brian Michael Bendis wrote Jean is that he showed how powerful she always was and still is sans the P.F. He not only tipped his hat to what was both alluded to and stated (e.g., "She has infinite mental powers!”) during the original 66-issue run of
X-Men, before the P.F. was even an idea in Claremont’s mind, he also expounded upon both. He
showed why the P.F. was drawn to Jean, which was a combination of her purity of heart, soul, and intent and her innate raw and potentially infinite power. He effectively railed against the unfounded declaration Claremont was the first to make when he wrote, "Jean used to be the weakest X-Man." He underscored that Jean doesn't need nor ever needed the P.F. to reach her fullest potential as a psi. The fact that Jordan D. White has confirmed that time-displaced teenage Jean
is current Jean, her memories
and powers intact, made me sigh with relief. This is why I hope this aspect of Jean’s history, i.e., her time travel and power exploration and revelation during this period, is further explored.
All of that being said, I do find some of Mastermind's dialogue troublesome. However, it also strikes me as realistic because this is often how predators think and feel, even when confessing their perpetrations: They justify their violations by underscoring their own trials, tribulations, and, in some cases, understandable victimhood. They also tend to skirt around the details and ramifications of the abuses they have inflicted upon their victims, almost as if they simply can’t face the gravity of what they have done. It may not be as satisfying as having him confess to what he really did or having Jean eviscerate him, but it does ring true to life.
It is at this point that she realizes she, Bobby, and Bishop could die if Mastermind dies, but as she once stated, “the psyche is [her] domain,” and so she acts to save her teammates by telekinetically ejecting them from his illusion and chooses to stay. The call to forgiveness, to transcend the frailty and fallibility of the human ego, and to see to it that someone, even someone as abhorrent as Mastermind, experiences redemption compels her to remain. This may actually be one of my favorite moments of hers:
And with that, even though Jean seems to know she will not die with him - she did once transfer her psyche from her dead body into Emma Frost’s body - Mastermind saves her.
As much as I hated and maybe still hate Mastermind for what he did, this issue gave me closure on two things: Jean was never really the Phoenix or Dark Phoenix - though on some level they were bonded, they were separate beings - and Jean faced what was done and she remembers and was able to forgive him - something I am not sure I could have done without calling him to task. Perhaps the fact that she recognized herself as a separate person from the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix allowed her to express such selflessness.
I am still processing this issue and may even change my mind regarding how I feel about it, but for now, it has thrust me into a contemplative state and has made me love my favorite character more than I thought possible.
I once hated the retcon, too, and tried to ignore it, but I have not only made my peace with it, I have grown to prefer it. Part of this has to do with the fact that Claremont did not adequately address the abuses perpetrated by Mastermind and Emma nor their effects on Jean, or, as was later revealed, her clone. He and Byrne alluded to both through swathes of dialogue and art, but they never tackled it head-on. In the end, much has been attributed to Jean’s “dark desires” that, frankly, I feel are not only not indicative of her character, but diminishing of the severity of abuse - psychic and physical - and trauma.
I prefer Bendis’ final take on the relationship between Jean and the P.F.: