Originally Posted by
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.