I do get the concern for Jean’s usage, but I think we should at the very least trust Mercury’s take if it is so difficult to believe in what Gillen says. Yes, Mercury does get excited over a lot, but they are most certainly incredibly accurate in news about Jean is portrayed usually.
Not to mention we have wanted a spicier Jean and already we are seeing snippets of it in this preview alone from just a single line, which no one can deny is the most personality Jean has had in that one phrase in comparison to Hickman’s Jean comparatively. We have seen Gillen’s view of Jean before through his previous X-Men stories.
Critique is fine, but pre-judging in my opinion is not a real good thing. Speculation is fine. Excitement is good. But tempering expectations are also reasonable to do. But let’s actually read the whole thing before writing Gillen’s work on Jean off as good or bad.
@jwatson doesn’t really like Gillen’s writing anyways and it’s completely fine for them because they have legitimately given Gillen’s work a try and didn’t like anything. But I think everyone else should at the very least see what he does with Jean before saying anything, especially if we liked what he has brought so far.
Example: I was pretty underwhelmed by Jean’s portrayal in the first issue of A.X.E. She came at the tail end of a battle and completely missed out on a psychic fight that really showed off the power of the psi’s of the Quiet Council after Druig attests that no single Eternal can fight the psi’s in combat, despite literally being a nation of psychics.
Is that gonna make me judge an entire issue off of a preview? No. Would I like to see Jean wrecking Eternals right out of the gate? Yeah, but I am not gonna nitpick the issue for what I see is only a couple of pages in a battle that had already started before Exodus had even arrived. I will reserve that judgement for when the issue comes out.