A.X.E.: X-Men #1 Spoilers/Reviews

[Huntsman Spider]

...and as Dark Phoenix, she did it by accident, although DP didn't feel any remorse after the realisation. Zombie Celestial is deliberately choosing to annihilate an entire world, for **** reasons and faulty programming.

Pretty much, yeah. Somewhat valid points about humanity as a whole being made of suck and fail compared to where and what they should have been if not for being hobbled by fear and hatred of the relatively petty differences amongst them, although annihilating the entire world and everyone in it is a bit too much, to understate the matter.

[Hulkout42]

Felt very Meh issue, same as the Ironman one tbh, i mean i called it when it came to her getting thumbs down but honestly the story of how and why just did not do it for me.

[BrianWilly]

Reposting my review from another forum 'cuz this issue truly brought out my inner Jean turbostan

Right off the bat I do like that other people seem to like this issue, the general consensus being that it's a very landmark character-defining story for the character and so forth, and I…well, I do think this can be a great turning point for the character, but at the same time I can’t help but feel like this is still a bit of a half-measure when it comes to actually doing anything about it.

The nice thing is that Gillen seems to be on my general wavelength when it comes to Jean in a lot of general ways – or maybe I’m just on his wavelength – in the sense that the current Jean, the Jean who’s been with us through the Krakoa era, honestly ever since Phoenix Resurrection...is a bit of a regression. This is a Jean in denial, in repression, one who's trying very hard to put away her Phoenix past which, unfortunately, turns her into being half the person that she really is, half the Jean that she really could be. Hence the regression to the terribly infantilizing Marvel Girl name and costume at the start of HoX that Hickman never got around to actually explaining, hence her playing at being the domestic 60s housewife of the Summers clan, hence her leaping at the prospect that she’s free of her responsibilities as Phoenix ‘cuz now she’s saved more lives than she ever took, which was certainly a...take.

Now, this is not an utterly terrible thing, as this version of Jean becomes a very quintessential superhero, very charismatic and helpful and all-around very well-liked by everyone around her. It's not as if the current Jean has been a bad character or anything, it's not like she really needed to be "fixed." Most readers have probably been vibing with Jean just fine, especially throughout the Duggan X-Men stuff that has been consistently pretty appreciative of the character. But it’s also been kind of exhausting watching her, and everyone around her, just studiously ignoring the Phoenix-shaped elephant in the room, which just feels regressive for everyone and, honestly, kind of a betrayal of Jean's own self, of the Jean that took the title of Phoenix for years and years specifically in order to redeem the bad that she’s done, in order to not hide from it, to accept that part of herself. As "fine" as the character has been, as "appreciative" as the stories have been of her...she could be more. She should be more.

Because where Gillen starts to lose me in this issue, see, is his interpretation of Phoenix as pretty much only a negative aspect of Jean, as only her tawdry torrid sinful past that blights everything she does going forward. All hellfire and brimstone and dead broccolis; no cosmic liberation, no fiery potential. When you interpret the Phoenix in that way, when that’s the groundwork we’re starting with here, then the whole thing very much becomes, like…why would she want that? Why would we want that for her? I’m just imagining all the readers who have been tired of Jean always being attached to the Phoenix (even though she hasn’t actually hosted it in the comics for almost twenty years now), and I can’t imagine this interpretation of Jean-as-Phoenix making anyone less tired of it.

What Gillen seems to be saying though is that...like, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re tired of it. She’s Phoenix and that’s really all there is to it. She's been Phoenix in four different feature films, four different animated series, and like seven different video games. The Dark Phoenix Saga might very well be the single most well-known X-Men story of all time. It’s not ever going away and that’s it. Now and forever. The end. Which...yeah. That's correct. That's the way it should be. Becoming the Phoenix was, without question, without doubt, the single most important thing that happened to Jean and it's just been exhausting seeing writers and stories twisting themselves into knots, trying to say it's not the case. Because it is.

But what Gillen doesn’t do, unfortunately, is to add any lore, or adjust any of the current lore, so that this assertion here that Jean is always the Phoenix forever and ever actually makes any sense beyond the metaphorical or emotional level. We don’t attempt to touch on the fact that other people have also been Phoenix, or that another person is the Phoenix right now (well, Echo’s currently a corpse in-story, but still), and the whole matter of the cocoon situation is literally just handwaved as “it’s complicated.” And this is worrisome to me, because while Gillen is declaring here as absolutely, as definitively, as decisively as he can that Jean is the Phoenix...the door is still technically left wide open for all the Jason Aarons out there to continue getting it wrong.

Because I think it's been clear for some time that editorial did not want Jean to be Phoenix when she came back and still doesn't...and so, no matter how convincing a case that Gillen makes for Jean as the Phoenix here, he still can't actually just make it happen, and all it still takes is for editorial to say "lol no" at some point and we're right back to square one again. Which just feels like a cold splash of water on the otherwise impressive character work here...a harsh reminder that comics often aren't dictated by impressive character work, but by branding and corporate interests, that it doesn't actually matter how much sense something might make for a character or a story or a mythos; all of that stuff can get turned on its head in an instant as soon as some bigwig who only sees these stories as IP farms decides that they still just don't want people thinking too much about the Fox Phoenix movies, or whatever. Like, I say that "editorial" took a hand here, but edicts like this are honestly probably coming from even higher on the corporate ladder. It's the sort of meddling that gets us the Decimation era (a decision that absolutely hurt the X-Men world at the time) and also gets us the non-mutant Maximoffs (a decision that absolutely hurt the characters) or the Franklin retcon (which absolutely hurts my brain) (and also the character); the sorts of counterintuitive fiats that come so easily to corporations and yet seem simply insane to the readers that actually enjoy these characters.

This story could be a significant turning point for Jean...but it needs to be allowed to do that, and I don't know if it will be. Gillen? Ewing? You out there? Prove me wrong, please.

[kevinism]

I think I love you

[Mercury]

It's telling that she couldn't admit here what she did to Nightmare. Her self-righteousness in the face of the Progenitor, who, in addition to declaring her “the Phoenix, now and forever,” also made multiple allusions to her cosmic nature, stemmed from fear, guilt, and her denial of her own vastness, or to quote Whitman, of her “multitudes.”

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

Reposting my review from another forum 'cuz this issue truly brought out my inner Jean turbostan

Right off the bat I do like that other people seem to like this issue, the general consensus being that it's a very landmark character-defining story for the character and so forth, and I…well, I do think this can be a great turning point for the character, but at the same time I can’t help but feel like this is still a bit of a half-measure when it comes to actually doing anything about it.

The nice thing is that Gillen seems to be on my general wavelength when it comes to Jean in a lot of general ways – or maybe I’m just on his wavelength – in the sense that the current Jean, the Jean who’s been with us through the Krakoa era, honestly ever since Phoenix Resurrection...is a bit of a regression. This is a Jean in denial, in repression, one who's trying very hard to put away her Phoenix past which, unfortunately, turns her into being half the person that she really is, half the Jean that she really could be. Hence the regression to the terribly infantilizing Marvel Girl name and costume at the start of HoX that Hickman never got around to actually explaining, hence her playing at being the domestic 60s housewife of the Summers clan, hence her leaping at the prospect that she’s free of her responsibilities as Phoenix ‘cuz now she’s saved more lives than she ever took, which was certainly a...take.

Now, this is not an utterly terrible thing, as this version of Jean becomes a very quintessential superhero, very charismatic and helpful and all-around very well-liked by everyone around her. It's not as if the current Jean has been a bad character or anything, it's not like she really needed to be "fixed." Most readers have probably been vibing with Jean just fine, especially throughout the Duggan X-Men stuff that has been consistently pretty appreciative of the character. But it’s also been kind of exhausting watching her, and everyone around her, just studiously ignoring the Phoenix-shaped elephant in the room, which just feels regressive for everyone and, honestly, kind of a betrayal of Jean's own self, of the Jean that took the title of Phoenix for years and years specifically in order to redeem the bad that she’s done, in order to not hide from it, to accept that part of herself. As "fine" as the character has been, as "appreciative" as the stories have been of her...she could be more. She should be more.

Because where Gillen starts to lose me in this issue, see, is his interpretation of Phoenix as pretty much only a negative aspect of Jean, as only her tawdry torrid sinful past that blights everything she does going forward. All hellfire and brimstone and dead broccolis; no cosmic liberation, no fiery potential. When you interpret the Phoenix in that way, when that’s the groundwork we’re starting with here, then the whole thing very much becomes, like…why would she want that? Why would we want that for her? I’m just imagining all the readers who have been tired of Jean always being attached to the Phoenix (even though she hasn’t actually hosted it in the comics for almost twenty years now), and I can’t imagine this interpretation of Jean-as-Phoenix making anyone less tired of it.

What Gillen seems to be saying though is that...like, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re tired of it. She’s Phoenix and that’s really all there is to it. She's been Phoenix in four different feature films, four different animated series, and like seven different video games. The Dark Phoenix Saga might very well be the single most well-known X-Men story of all time. It’s not ever going away and that’s it. Now and forever. The end. Which...yeah. That's correct. That's the way it should be. Becoming the Phoenix was, without question, without doubt, the single most important thing that happened to Jean and it's just been exhausting seeing writers and stories twisting themselves into knots, trying to say it's not the case. Because it is.

But what Gillen doesn’t do, unfortunately, is to add any lore, or adjust any of the current lore, so that this assertion here that Jean is always the Phoenix forever and ever actually makes any sense beyond the metaphorical or emotional level. We don’t attempt to touch on the fact that other people have also been Phoenix, or that another person is the Phoenix right now (well, Echo’s currently a corpse in-story, but still), and the whole matter of the cocoon situation is literally just handwaved as “it’s complicated.” And this is worrisome to me, because while Gillen is declaring here as absolutely, as definitively, as decisively as he can that Jean is the Phoenix...the door is still technically left wide open for all the Jason Aarons out there to continue getting it wrong.

Because I think it's been clear for some time that editorial did not want Jean to be Phoenix when she came back and still doesn't...and so, no matter how convincing a case that Gillen makes for Jean as the Phoenix here, he still can't actually just make it happen, and all it still takes is for editorial to say "lol no" at some point and we're right back to square one again. Which just feels like a cold splash of water on the otherwise impressive character work here...a harsh reminder that comics often aren't dictated by impressive character work, but by branding and corporate interests, that it doesn't actually matter how much sense something might make for a character or a story or a mythos; all of that stuff can get turned on its head in an instant as soon as some bigwig who only sees these stories as IP farms decides that they still just don't want people thinking too much about the Fox Phoenix movies, or whatever. Like, I say that "editorial" took a hand here, but edicts like this are honestly probably coming from even higher on the corporate ladder. It's the sort of meddling that gets us the Decimation era (a decision that absolutely hurt the X-Men world at the time) and also gets us the non-mutant Maximoffs (a decision that absolutely hurt the characters) or the Franklin retcon (which absolutely hurts my brain) (and also the character); the sorts of counterintuitive fiats that come so easily to corporations and yet seem simply insane to the readers that actually enjoy these characters.

This story could be a significant turning point for Jean...but it needs to be allowed to do that, and I don't know if it will be. Gillen? Ewing? You out there? Prove me wrong, please.

All of this. Very well said.

For me, one of the most annoying aspects of editorial's haterade is that it's not even really about Jean's branding or putting her in the most sellable light. People who like powerful female characters love Phoenix. Jean Phoenix sells as much as anything not in the Spidey/Wolverine tier, and Marvel knows that. Their big problem is simply

strong main character's love interest = bad. and it's really gross that they are stuck in that way in 2022.

[PyroFN]

It's telling that she couldn't admit here what she did to Nightmare. Her self-righteousness in the face of the Progenitor, who, in addition to declaring her “the Phoenix, now and forever,” also made multiple allusions to her cosmic nature, stemmed from fear, guilt, and her denial of her own vastness, or to quote Whitman, of her “multitudes.”

I do like that is the character we have for Jean. She can put on a brave face like any person with their own baggage, but if we really get to the heart of the matter, she still is not completely over it. She is trying to live by her own words, but it’s always easier said than done, especially for a situation you know is absolutely impossible to deal with.

Thank god Gillen saw exactly what I saw from Jean’s pronouncement at the first Hellfire Gala. She is basically damning herself to a life of serving others out of guilt in order to make up for something she knows she cannot undo or make up for. A savior complex of monumental proportions. Killing Jean won’t bring back the D’Bari. Nor will even bringing the D’Bari back undo the knowledge that she destroyed them all. She is Phoenix and that is her blessing and curse. And she will keep paying and paying the price until she most likely dies because there will be someone who will bring up Dark Phoenix as if they knew exactly who she was and what she has been through.

She has every right to curl up into a depressive state or be self-destructive about the matter (especially after that Progenitor pronouncement), yet she chooses to be productive and proactive about it. Not perfectly, but doing her damned hardest to stay together because too many are counting on her. Unfair, yet reality. This is Jean Grey and I am absolutely in love with this issue.

[Lukmendes]

Not just "indictment," but more so damnation, in the Biblical sense of "there is no salvation from, no absolution for your greatest sin." That said, for all the Celestial's judgment of Jean, she did raise a point that the Celestial, whatever its justifications, would also be annihilating a world and all of its people, so . . .

Reminder that the Celestial passed Doom, the guy who nuked an universe with a reasoning that is basically "tantrum".

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...86/unknown.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...70/unknown.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...46/unknown.png







(Doctor Doom#10).

So yeah, he's a hypocrite for more reasons than just holding this "You killed a planet" against Jean lol.

Now, this is not an utterly terrible thing, as this version of Jean becomes a very quintessential superhero, very charismatic and helpful and all-around very well-liked by everyone around her. It's not as if the current Jean has been a bad character or anything, it's not like she really needed to be "fixed." Most readers have probably been vibing with Jean just fine, especially throughout the Duggan X-Men stuff that has been consistently pretty appreciative of the character. But it’s also been kind of exhausting watching her, and everyone around her, just studiously ignoring the Phoenix-shaped elephant in the room, which just feels regressive for everyone and, honestly, kind of a betrayal of Jean's own self, of the Jean that took the title of Phoenix for years and years specifically in order to redeem the bad that she’s done, in order to not hide from it, to accept that part of herself. As "fine" as the character has been, as "appreciative" as the stories have been of her...she could be more. She should be more.

Because where Gillen starts to lose me in this issue, see, is his interpretation of Phoenix as pretty much only a negative aspect of Jean, as only her tawdry torrid sinful past that blights everything she does going forward. All hellfire and brimstone and dead broccolis; no cosmic liberation, no fiery potential. When you interpret the Phoenix in that way, when that’s the groundwork we’re starting with here, then the whole thing very much becomes, like…why would she want that? Why would we want that for her? I’m just imagining all the readers who have been tired of Jean always being attached to the Phoenix (even though she hasn’t actually hosted it in the comics for almost twenty years now), and I can’t imagine this interpretation of Jean-as-Phoenix making anyone less tired of it.

To be fair, I find it somewhat justified because the Celestial is an *******.

If you're supposed to pass the judgement, he just shows up and gives you a thumbs up, if he's not sure you're gonna pass, he makes a test and may be quick about whether or not you pass, but, sometimes he decides to torment the characters a bit if they're not gonna pass, so it makes sense the Celestial would only talk about that time she killed a planet.

Though on the other hand, while it's justified on the Celestial's side, it's not as much on Jean's to not mention the good stuff the Phoenix even when Jean had her, while the subject was only really "that time a planet was destroyed" and her more recent actions, again, like you said, there's more to the Phoenix.

But what Gillen doesn’t do, unfortunately, is to add any lore, or adjust any of the current lore, so that this assertion here that Jean is always the Phoenix forever and ever actually makes any sense beyond the metaphorical or emotional level. We don’t attempt to touch on the fact that other people have also been Phoenix, or that another person is the Phoenix right now (well, Echo’s currently a corpse in-story, but still), and the whole matter of the cocoon situation is literally just handwaved as “it’s complicated.” And this is worrisome to me, because while Gillen is declaring here as absolutely, as definitively, as decisively as he can that Jean is the Phoenix...the door is still technically left wide open for all the Jason Aarons out there to continue getting it wrong.

Because I think it's been clear for some time that editorial did not want Jean to be Phoenix when she came back and still doesn't...and so, no matter how convincing a case that Gillen makes for Jean as the Phoenix here, he still can't actually just make it happen, and all it still takes is for editorial to say "lol no" at some point and we're right back to square one again. Which just feels like a cold splash of water on the otherwise impressive character work here...a harsh reminder that comics often aren't dictated by impressive character work, but by branding and corporate interests, that it doesn't actually matter how much sense something might make for a character or a story or a mythos; all of that stuff can get turned on its head in an instant as soon as some bigwig who only sees these stories as IP farms decides that they still just don't want people thinking too much about the Fox Phoenix movies, or whatever. Like, I say that "editorial" took a hand here, but edicts like this are honestly probably coming from even higher on the corporate ladder. It's the sort of meddling that gets us the Decimation era (a decision that absolutely hurt the X-Men world at the time) and also gets us the non-mutant Maximoffs (a decision that absolutely hurt the characters) or the Franklin retcon (which absolutely hurts my brain) (and also the character); the sorts of counterintuitive fiats that come so easily to corporations and yet seem simply insane to the readers that actually enjoy these characters.

This story could be a significant turning point for Jean...but it needs to be allowed to do that, and I don't know if it will be. Gillen? Ewing? You out there? Prove me wrong, please.

The problem is that if your point about editorial or some higher up decides to change their minds/doesn't absolutely confirm, not even Ewing at the peak of his game will do much, unless he slips something under the radar.

All of this. Very well said.

For me, one of the most annoying aspects of editorial's haterade is that it's not even really about Jean's branding or putting her in the most sellable light. People who like powerful female characters love Phoenix. Jean Phoenix sells as much as anything not in the Spidey/Wolverine tier, and Marvel knows that. Their big problem is simply

strong main character's love interest = bad. and it's really gross that they are stuck in that way in 2022.

I mean, Marvel and DC are definitely stuck in old ways with how some **** is handled.

On the DC side, the discussions about how Diana gets fucked over are, constant, which's really depressing considering that if you compare Marvel and DC on the 60's, DC definitely handled female characters better by comparison, and there were still a lot of issues, and while there are problems that got toned down, Diana still gets fucked over, and she's a huge character.

[Icefanatic]

I think people sometimes get too caught up in the seeming dichotomy that Jean is the Phoenix and yet...Sometimes the Phoenix is hosted by others... sometimes it has a conscious mind... other times it's like a wild animal....

Sometimes the moon seems full, other-times it is a sliver of itself, and other-times it is dark and seems gone entirely. The moon is still the moon, always and forever.

The Phoenix has had pieces of itself carved away. It has been entirely sundered apart. It has been corrupted to darkness. It has experienced things we do not know and cannot know and what we see are not necessarily contradictions but aspects of itself at various points in it's life.

[ARkadelphia]

Her range.

Girlfriend may need braces

[BobbysWorld]

Girlfriend may need braces

Krakoans don't have dentists, they just sign up for suicide missions instead.

[ARkadelphia]

I thought Hermie was a mutant

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

Reminder that the Celestial passed Doom, the guy who nuked an universe with a reasoning that is basically "tantrum".

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...86/unknown.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...70/unknown.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...46/unknown.png







(Doctor Doom#10).

So yeah, he's a hypocrite for more reasons than just holding this "You killed a planet" against Jean lol.



To be fair, I find it somewhat justified because the Celestial is an *******.

If you're supposed to pass the judgement, he just shows up and gives you a thumbs up, if he's not sure you're gonna pass, he makes a test and may be quick about whether or not you pass, but, sometimes he decides to torment the characters a bit if they're not gonna pass, so it makes sense the Celestial would only talk about that time she killed a planet.

Though on the other hand, while it's justified on the Celestial's side, it's not as much on Jean's to not mention the good stuff the Phoenix even when Jean had her, while the subject was only really "that time a planet was destroyed" and her more recent actions, again, like you said, there's more to the Phoenix.



The problem is that if your point about editorial or some higher up decides to change their minds/doesn't absolutely confirm, not even Ewing at the peak of his game will do much, unless he slips something under the radar.



I mean, Marvel and DC are definitely stuck in old ways with how some **** is handled.

On the DC side, the discussions about how Diana gets fucked over are, constant, which's really depressing considering that if you compare Marvel and DC on the 60's, DC definitely handled female characters better by comparison, and there were still a lot of issues, and while there are problems that got toned down, Diana still gets fucked over, and she's a huge character.

I think many people would argue that DC struggles to promote ALL of their characters, though WW probably gets the worst of it.

[Lukmendes]

I think many people would argue that DC struggles to promote ALL of their characters, though WW probably gets the worst of it.

Well, only if they're not from Gotham, anyone not from Gotham gets the equivalent of monkeys hitting keyboards with a stick as a marketing department.

Even if we set aside how she still doesn't have a cartoon 80 years after her debut (Which's really silly when motherfucking Kite Man will be getting one), she gets screwed in other ways, like how before Peréz came along to her comic was considered to be where writers were basically abandoned, how she still may get randomly disrespected in others' comics, other universes may have her being killed by Supes or just being some chick for him to end up with.

There's also disrespect by proxy so to say, where her rogues gallery may look like jokes in comics outside her own, and among her big 3 villains (Ares, Circe, Cheetah), Cheetah has the worst of it, since she may get treated as just some chick with cat powers, instead of a very strong and very fast enemy who's strong enough to keep up with Diana.

So yeah, considering she's party of DC's "Trinity", she was always the one who got the worst treatment between the three of 'em, Supes was the big deal pre-crisis, and then Batman became the big deal, Diana never had her turn in that, she was always the most disrespected one, and behind the scenes DC consistently was against giving her chances (Like, there's a Justice Society animated movie that was meant to be a solo Diana movie originally, but Warner somehow thought a solo Diana movie wouldn't sell).

Hell, as liked as something like DCAU is, that version of Diana was pretty meh, unlike Supes and Batman, she didn't have a solo cartoon, and considering Static did get one, and a fucking robot created in Batman Beyond like Zeta Project did get one too, that's noticeable... And they also screwed up how she's handled in Justice League, by having her be more eager to fight, a trait that is closer to Artemis, not Diana, taking until Unlimited's last season for the lasso of truth to be more than just some strong rope (Lasso of truth not forcing someone to tell the truth is like Storm without weather related powers), and after a while half of her personality became defined by wanting to get together with Batman.

Her own rogues gallery when they showed up weren't as impressive, Cheetah was a joke who was originally meant to get killed by Grundy offscreen, an animation error kept her around, but they did nothing with her afterwards, Ares had most of his traits given to Hades (Who also didn't show up much), and Circe showed up in only one episode, and that episode was more of a Batman one with Diana being turned into a pig for most of it, and if I remember correctly, Circe didn't even have anything against Diana herself, I think she just did that to piss off Hippolyta.

It gets even worse if you hear stuff from behind the scenes, since they say that unlike Supes and Batman, Diana doesn't have a run that really defines her, which made her implementation tricky, but... She has Marston's and Peréz's run for that lol.

So yeah, even a cartoon as good as Justice League screwed her up, she wasn't a terrible character, but was a meh representation of her comic version's best traits, and by herself she can look lacking compared to other characters.

[Steroid]

Finally got around to reading this and while I'm not the biggest Jean fan I thought it was a good read. As far as why Jean failed and someone like Doom passed imo comes down to the Gameworld comment. Jean still doesn't get that there is no scoreboard or getting in the "black" as there is nothing that will ever make up for the lives she took. Doom on the other hand is aware of this and not only owns it but would do it again if given the chance.