I disagree. Jean is not bound by the Phoenix Force. She is an interesting character without it. Duggan is spotlighting her poise, savvy, decisiveness, and wealth of experience, which has been sorely missing. Her emotional landscape is as intricate and diverse as the Amazon forest. A writer worth his salt and with no biases against her should have a field day plumbing her depths. And I am confident that it will happen, if not all at once under Duggan, then someone else.
Many creators in the industry love her, and I'm not just hypothesizing that this is so - I know it's so. I encounter and talk to them every day.
She was cosmic at that point. Even still, let's say it did affect her enough to "kill" her. She should have been able to resurrect herself as quickly as she did after Wolverine killed her the issue or two before. In either case, this is why, in my headcanon, she chose to remain dead and ascend to White Phoenix status, perhaps subconsciously knowing, through urgings of the Phoenix Force, that she would have to repair the wounded orphaned universe to truly set things right.
Ommadon: “By summoning all the dark powers I will infest the spirit of man So that he uses his science and logic to destroy himself. Greed and avarice shall prevail, and those who do not hear my words shall pay the price. I'll teach man to use his machines, I'll show him what distorted science can give birth to. I'll teach him to fly like a fairy, and I'll give him the ultimate answer to all his science can ask. And the world will be free for my magic again.”
I'll have to look at the page again at some point (I can't find it in this thread). I don't think that's what he was doing, but I don't know. In either case, at that point, Jean was so bonded with the Phoenix Force - for all intents and purposes, she was it and it was her - that I don't think he could have accomplished drawing it out of her. In fact, he didn't. He intended to give her a stroke.
Yeah the planetary-scale stroke was B.S. because even if it did fatally injure Jean/Phoenix, she could have easily survived in an energy state, or easily rebuild her body, as even teen Jean has do so. So it only makes sense as a voluntary death, same as the death by alien energy cannon on the moon. But again, killing her was one thing, keeping her dead for so long was another.
And now I'm reminded of another line that was written to try to "bless" this mess in-universe. The "all I ever do is die on you" line from Jean to Scott.
There's a lot I liked about Morrison's development of Jean, but man...the end...he really couldn't stuff her in the fridge soon enough, then set the fridge on fire and wheel it off a cliff
Oh god, that line. Seriously, I can't, lol.
You do put the focus where it needs to be, though, which is on "keeping her dead for so long." That wasn't Morrison's choice. In fact, he may very well have intended for Jean to continue being featured in some way as White Phoenix. That the powers that be chose not to utilize her in this capacity is another matter. Personally, I would have loved for her to have a long run as a cosmic being fighting galactic beings and battles. It would have been fun and was definitely a missed opportunity.
Jean could have been brought back for any of the number of cosmic stories that were occurring around the time she passed. However, Marvel was adamant that Jean Grey stay dead and we've never gotten an explanation on why a character called Phoenix needed to be gone for 15 years when everyone and their mom was killed and brought back in the time she was gone!
I’m not saying she’s bound by the Phoenix, or that’s all there is to her. We’ve had this conversation before. However, Phoenix is certain a better code name than Marvel Girl. Her Phoenix identity is well known and made an absurd mistake is stripping it from her and giving it to no name characters.
At some point for her to shine she is going to have to reclaim what is rightfully hers. I suspect Feige will want Phoenix has a hero in the MCU. So even if it takes a few years she is going to become Phoenix.
And I think this is why is that dated green dress and why she is Marvel Girl again.