Jean Grey / Phoenix Appreciation 2022

[Phoenixx9]

As for Jeannie, if Jessica Chastain is not too old for the part (before someone jumps on my throat: no character needs to be young. It's a matter of choice), then can we pretend Deborah Ann Woll was never Karen Page? The only thing that is not perfect about her when it comes to playing Jean is that she is too tall. But after Hugh Jackman, I think we can all survive that.

Yes, I can forget Deborah Ann was Karen and she would make an excellent Jean!

[Grinning Soul]

Yes, I can forget Deborah Ann was Karen and she would make an excellent Jean!

She has the acting range *and* the looks!

[andreikes]

When does x men 12 come out?

images-2.jpeg

[Phoenixx9]

She has the acting range *and* the looks!

Totally agree!! I love her.

[Rev9]

Hmm. Carefully inoffensive? LOL, like one thing that I will say about Duggan is I think he's a writer who unlike others I could name, actually DOES listen to criticism of his work (though I also maintain that doesn't always mean he actually HEARS the criticism or takes away the right things from it). Tbh, I think one of the biggest drawbacks to his X-Men title is how safe he's playing it, wherever possible. He's trying to please as many people as he can, as best he can, in large part because I think he IS aware of a lot of the criticism to his Marauders run, but the thing is......you can get GOOD writing, out of playing it safe and trying to keep as many people entertained as possible. But its really hard to get GREAT writing that way. The best stories require taking risks.

Thing is, you can never please EVERYONE. Its a pipedream. There is no such thing as a universally beloved story. So what really tends to happen when you try and make as many readers happy as possible, when the reality of the writer/reader dynamic is that its not even the job of the reader to KNOW what story is REALLY going to make them happy or excite them until a writer actually WRITES that story and the reader goes wow, I didn't even know this was the story I was looking for......

Like, because no writer can ever actually know how to please the most people possible, give as many people the story they really want to read when THEY don't even necessarily know what that story looks like until they see it.....what actually tends to happen is writers end up trying not to DISPLEASE as many people as possible. They can't really gauge what everyone wants, and can't guarantee a story that somehow gives everyone what they want especially when readers have directly conflicting wants....so they err on the side of at least paying attention to what everyone DOESN'T want, the things that will actively alienate them, and shies away from that at any opportunity.

And that's kinda like the storytelling equivalent of painting a picture that isn't the result of having an actual image in mind and bringing it to life, but simply painting by way of negative space, painting away from everything you know people DON'T want to see and sorta just....seeing what that leaves you with. It creates an end product that's less likely to bother anyone, be something they OBJECT to.....but not all that likely to excite or ignite them either.

That's what I think the biggest 'flaw' in his X-Men run is, and his handling of the various characters. He's not writing TOWARDS his image of them and what their stories should be. He's writing AWAY from what he most commonly hears readers don't WANT their stories to be. His Jean isn't the worst I've seen her written, not by a wide margin. But she's not the best, either. She's kinda just there.....EXCEPT for a smattering of moments, where she really pops.

Because while he's spending a lot of time playing it safe with these characters, refrain from doing anything too alienating with them, he is also of course still TRYING to give people what they actually want and not just avoid what they don't want....but as I said before, since there's no singular Jean story that people want, or Rogue story, or Everett story....there's no cohesive image of what ALL fans of these characters can reach a consensus on, that he can hear everyone agreeing on 'yes this for sure, this is THE story we ALL agree this character needs'....

In order to please the most fans as possible, what actually happens is that rather than committing towards a single overarching storyline or character arc for each character, and that he'd have to sink a lot of time, page-space and energy into crafting without a guaranteed favorable payoff overall, no idea how much MOST fans would like that single focused storyline and whether it'd end up worth all that.....instead he focuses on giving shape to as many different fan wants/opinions as he can find room for. But logistically, that requires a lot more INDIVIDUAL 'payoffs' stemming from shorter time/areas of focus.

And thus rather than longer character arcs that advance these characters in specific directions and develop them in new and potentially lasting ways, what Duggan actually ends up creating, I think, are a lot of smaller character MOMENTS that give different groups of fans character BEATS they're pleased with and cater to their particular interests and wants for those characters. But these character moments are kinda scattered and effervescent. They create favorable reception, but they're hard to craft a lingering impression from. It makes it likelier for Duggan to receive a more positive response from fans DURING his run, WHILE he's writing and delivering these moments and fans are reading and receiving them for the first time, but is it going to create a story or arc for any of these characters that fans are going to come back to and reread or think of nostalgically once his run is over and he's moved on to something else? I don't know that it is.

The irony of course, is that Duggan IS fully capable of committing to a longer storyline with a slowburn payoff, sink that time, page-space and energy into building something with weight and far-lasting implications. He's doing it in this very title, with his over-arching PLOT for the X-Men as a whole.

But he's just not doing it with the INVIDIDUAL X-Men. He builds up to a lot of things, teases various directions they could spin out of, maybe is using that to gauge how much interest or excitement people have for things like a story where Shiro goes to Otherworld. But while there's a definite larger shape to the team plot, is there that same shape to any of the members' personal arcs? Is there anything we can point to that says this is Lorna's character arc? There's development for Everett, focus on parts of his character and story like how he was changed by the Vault, the stuff with Urich, but is there an Everett STORYLINE, something that's going somewhere with intent rather than being a collection of Ev moments that are only tethered together by virtue of happening one after another in the pages of one single, continuous title?

And that's what I think his Jean is missing. She's not being written badly, by any means. I've enjoyed a number of her scenes. There's nothing particularly objectionable about his portrayal of her, its just....she's there until she's not and when she's not, there's not really any sense of where or when we'll see her next or in what context, what might be coming down the road for her CHARACTER....because there's not really been a STORY crafted out of her various scenes or that we can feel being built up to. I don't know that when his run is over, we'll be able to say 'this here was the overall shape of Jean's character in his run, this was the ARC he gave her, this was how being in this book advanced HER plot rather than just how her presence in the book was used to advance the book's plot.'

And I would like to be able to, is the thing. I would like to read what story he comes up with for Jean specifically, for Ev, for Shiro, for Rogue. But we're almost a year in and I don't really see any greater shape forming around any of the individual characters, just the team as a whole. If you look back through other X-Men runs, the original X-Men Red, the Dark Phoenix Saga, the original X-Factor, etc, etc.....each of those runs had over-arching stories for the whole team, sure, but you can also clearly see JEAN'S personal story shining through them too.

I'd argue that of the current X-Men team, you could say Scott has his own character arc/story that's unfolded, between his death, the Captain Krakoa thing, the way his solo scenes have intertwined with Dr. Stasis and the way that's been building up.....but I don't really see the same unfolding for the other characters. And ultimately, I think its because Duggan's approach to how he writes the individual characters has been so centered around fan acclaim, between the X-vote and having fans vote on members of the lineup, and aiming for well-received character moments and interactions....that he hasn't really even tried yet to commit to just...embracing his own singular vision and plans for the characters and just....swung for the fences. Risked that y'know, maybe what he wants to do with a clear Jean character ARC or storyline might not be to every fan's taste and might even piss off or alienate some fans, but like.....that's kinda the risk you take, as a storyteller? You can't write the story everyone wants you to write. Its flat out impossible.

At the end of the day, best you can do is write the story YOU want to write, and trust the fans who have a similar outlook on the characters will find it and enjoy it too, and the ones who don't, well....if you don't view the characters the same as them there was never really any chance of you writing that character's Next Great Epic in their eyes, y'know? So yeah, maybe as a writer you settled for writing moments they'd receive fondly, as that's easier to pull off while having a different overall interpretation....but is it worth it, if you hobble everything else your run or character arcs COULD be, were you to just...go for it in those directions instead?

So, yeah. That's my take on his run in general, and his depiction of Jean in particular. Its not great. Its not bad. Its safe. Its not going to make any waves.

But that's just it. Its not going to make any waves.

And like, if you want to write something that's remembered? Something that leaves people talking, leaves a mark, makes an impression, that lasts?

You gotta make some fucking waves.

Lots of truth

[MarvelMaster616]

When does x men 12 come out?

images-2.jpeg

I know. I feel the exact same way. The next issue can't come fast enough.

[MarvelMaster616]

I can agree with some of your/othersÂ’ points.

Opinion on his handling of Jean?

Also, how did I miss this Gerry drop?

Is he trolling or...



https://mobile.twitter.com/GerryDugg...10672538517504

WaitÂ…

I meanÂ…🥹

Oohh! Intriguing.

Then again, everyone seems a bit more comfortable with nudity on Krakoa, so...

[Rev9]

give her some botox and let's get Jessica Chastain play Jean Grey for the next 20 years!!!!!! If Barbara Streisand could play a teenager in Yentl, so can Jessica Chastain. it is called movie magic. ;-)

MARVEL, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!!!!!!

Charlize Theron just got cast...though, Jessica should be next!

Attachment 120979

Considering the rebooting or relaunching of the X-Men in the MCU is still some years away ,Chastain is too old already so unless it's another time travelling storyline ..nein.

[Exodus]

Considering the rebooting or relaunching of the X-Men in the MCU is still some years away ,Chastain is too old already so unless it's another time travelling storyline ..nein.

Why is it ok for Charlize Theron to be spoilers:

Clea

end of spoilers, or Benedict Cumberbatch to be Doctor Strange?

make Jean headmistress of the Xavier school protecting the children with her Phoenix powers as if she was Dumblegay from the Hairry Potter movies!...and cast Sigourney Weaver as Emma Frost!

Deborah Ann Woll is also already 37 by the way...Or when is the age that someone should retire?

[Gray Lensman]

Why is it ok for Charlize Theron to be spoilers:

Clea

end of spoilers, or Benedict Cumberbatch to be Doctor Strange?

make Jean headmistress of the Xavier school protecting the children with her Phoenix powers as if she was Dumblegay from the Hairry Potter movies!...and cast Sigourney Weaver as Emma Frost!

Deborah Ann Woll is also already 37 by the way...Or when is the age that someone should retire?

That depends on how you want to portray them. If you want the earliest X-Men to be teenagers, then you probably want your principle cast to be twenty-somethings at the oldest. If you want Jean to be part of an older generation training her own kids (plus her friend's kids) then it's best to go late 30s to early 40s.

Ideally, I'd go for the younger route, keep the same actors, and never have to reboot the franchise for decades as they can keep introducing the newer and newer student classes every five to ten years of real time.

[Jackraow21]

Oh wow. I didn’t know I wanted this casting for Jean and Scott until I saw this. Yes! Love it. At first I wanted Cavill for Logan actually, but this has convinced me he’d make a great Cyclops.

Give me Milo Gibson as Logan, who’s 31 and younger than both Chastain (45) and Cavill (39) but he looks older and the whole point of Wolverine is that he doesn’t age, so…

[Grinning Soul]

Why is it ok for Charlize Theron to be spoilers:

Clea

end of spoilers, or Benedict Cumberbatch to be Doctor Strange?

make Jean headmistress of the Xavier school protecting the children with her Phoenix powers as if she was Dumblegay from the Hairry Potter movies!...and cast Sigourney Weaver as Emma Frost!

Deborah Ann Woll is also already 37 by the way...Or when is the age that someone should retire?

Please... go back and re-read the posts, please.

Phoenixx9 and I didn't say Chastain couldn't be Jean because of her age. In fact, I said that if we're considering Chastain, I'd like us to consider Woll. And I made it clear that a character does *not* have to be young. It is a choice.

Rev was the one who mentioned Chastain age, but he didn't say anything about Woll.

[Grinning Soul]

That depends on how you want to portray them. If you want the earliest X-Men to be teenagers, then you probably want your principle cast to be twenty-somethings at the oldest. If you want Jean to be part of an older generation training her own kids (plus her friend's kids) then it's best to go late 30s to early 40s.

Ideally, I'd go for the younger route, keep the same actors, and never have to reboot the franchise for decades as they can keep introducing the newer and newer student classes every five to ten years of real time.

Exactly. That's my preference too.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

[Grinning Soul]

Oh wow. I didn’t know I wanted this casting for Jean and Scott until I saw this. Yes! Love it. At first I wanted Cavill for Logan actually, but this has convinced me he’d make a great Cyclops.

Give me Milo Gibson as Logan, who’s 31 and younger than both Chastain (45) and Cavill (39) but he looks older and the whole point of Wolverine is that he doesn’t age, so…

I've just checked him out.

Glacial blue eyes? Check. A "don't eff with me" face? Check. And little on the shorter side for a male. I like it!

Can he act? I've never watched anything with him.

[Jackraow21]

I've just checked him out.

Glacial blue eyes? Check. A "don't eff with me" face? Check. And little on the shorter side for a male. I like it!

Can he act? I've never watched anything with him.

He’s only had small roles in the films I’ve seen with him, Hacksaw Ridge and The Outpost. But apparently he was in a film called All The Devil’s Men where he had a bigger role. I’ll have to check it out. If he can channel and convey rage like his father (see Braveheart, The Patriot or any of the Lethal Weapon films) then he’d be ideal in my book!