Jean Grey / Phoenix Appreciation 2023: “A Red Dragon”

[Havok83]

It's interesting to me that Jean is denied the Phoenix in this era where strong Marvel women like Captain Marvel and Mighty Thor are celebrated, and it feels to me a heroic Phoenix could fit comfortably into that paradigm. The main concern seems to be navigating the Dark Phoenix Saga history, maybe there's a fear of doing it wrong. It could factor into why going hard on distancing the two and going into departures like Thor's secret mom is the easier and more frequently pursued option.

Jean has been denied the Phoenix simply bc Aaron had a lock on it over in the Avengers office. Now that he's gone, its up in the air and we can only wait and see what is done with it in the next year. With that said, Jean very much is portrayed as a strong Marvel women alongside the likes of Captain Marvel and Jane Thor and this is without the PF. She has proven that she really doesnt need it. She can go toe to toe with Marvel's big guns

[CaptainUniverse]

What? But I am just getting started! Then we would find out that Cyclops has kids with this Pryor woman (even though its only been like seven months and they are like...five years old, but whatever!) and the boy looks exactly like Cyclops! Oh and when Jean finally shows up, Cyclops irrationally and angrily lectures her about...oh, I don't know...responsibility?

[Micabe]

Technically she was Dark Phoenix when that happened.

And, technically Jean Grey would have never turned to the dark side if not for the Hellfire Club's machinations; specifically, Emma Frost and Jason Wyngarde both of whose actions regarding the D'Bari's demise have never been held accountable or even addressed.

What? But I am just getting started! Then we would find out that Cyclops has kids with this Pryor woman (even though its only been like seven months and they are like...five years old, but whatever!) and the boy looks exactly like Cyclops! Oh and when Jean finally shows up, Cyclops irrationally and angrily lectures her about...oh, I don't know...responsibility?

I noticed you conveniently neglected to mention that it was Nathan Essex (See: Uncanny X-Men #172-174) who cloned Jean Grey with the expressed desire for Maddie Pryor to manipulate Scott Summers into doing his bidding and producing a genetic Grey/Summers child.

[CaptainUniverse]

I noticed you conveniently neglected to mention that it was Nathan Essex who cloned Jean Grey with the expressed desire for Maddie Pryor to manipulate Scott Summers into doing his bidding and producing a Grey/Summers' child.

Under the scenario I am poking fun at this would all be Mystery Box stuff. The characters know what happened but the audience won't...not until the two back-to-back giant sized end of run issues of Uncanny would be released in June! None of this is serious.

[Micabe]

Under the scenario I am poking fun at this would all be Mystery Box stuff. The characters know what happened but the audience won't...not until the two back-to-back giant sized end of run issues of Uncanny would be released in June! None of this is serious.

I'm sorry... When did this particular discussion turn out not to be about fictional redheads, again?

[Lukmendes]

That's the thing, though; audiences haven't actually seen the Dark Phoenix Saga (DPS) on the big screen. Rather, they've been disappointed by two films that do not resemble the original story, with the second film echoing swathes of the first. The only thing those films got right was Phoenix being an extension of Jean. (On a side note, as I've stated before, I actually enjoy Dark Phoenix [the movie], mostly because of Sophie Turner's beguiling performance. It's a good "What If...?" take on the story.)

The thing is that, proper adaptation or not, Dark Phoenix is an idea that gets a lot of adaptations, even when they miss the point of it in a way or another, so it'd be better for MCU X-Men to avoid it, at least for now.

If Feige intends to adapt DPS—something tells me he's sufficiently ambitious and enough of a comic book fan to want to—I suspect he will do so in much the same way he adapted Infinity War, i.e., he'll take his time with developing Jean, much like he did Wanda, and the story and tell it across several films. At least we know we have a hug fan and ally and potential advocate in Beau DeMayo, the executive producer and head writer of X-Men '97, who adheres to Claremont's take and has already been allowed to work on a live-action MCU project (Moon Knight).

It's worth pointing out Feige seems to prefer comics from 2000's and 2010's, which's why we have stuff like the take on Spidey (Who's a white washed Miles + that one awkward era where Stark was Spidey's boss), a "civil war" movie, Winter Soldier, Wanda going baby crazy, stuff like that.

Obviously not everything is from the 2000's, the fact Thanos is used at all and Infinity War is based on some stuff from Infinity Gauntlet means older stuff is fair game, just worth pointing out there's this preference for 2000's comics, which, I think makes Dark Phoenix a bit less likely, combine that with how Dark Phoenix got adapted a bunch of times, yeah...

Now I'm wondering if X-Men will get stuff based on 2000's, imagine the franchise starting on the Decimation era lol.

I remember that! I'll have to find the video, but he specifically stated he would build up to the Dark Phoenix Saga, which wouldn't happen until after a few seasons. He envisioned this adaptation as a television series. Interestingly enough, iirc, he proposed this before any of the MCU series had dropped, including WandaVision.

He likely suggested that when there were popular tv series like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and whatnot, so it's not too surprising to imagine X-Men having one.

Superficially, there are differences between "Clark Kent can never be Superman" and "Jean Grey can never be Phoenix," but fundamentally? Not really. I'll have to take a page from Kitty's book here and call the initial decision to have Jean "go dark" what it is: misogyny, albeit perhaps unconscious. The powers, i.e., the men that be at the time did not want a female cosmic superhero that could stand toe to toe with, never mind defeat, the likes of Thor. And this isn't just conjecture; Claremont and Cockrum have revealed as much. Not to mention, Claremont has admitted that the biggest bone of contention between Byrne and him was whether Jean should remain Phoenix.

The writers even had to show off Jean's power by proxy per se, her defeating or having a draw with Thor or Silver Surfer was out of the question, so they had to use the less popular, but still powerful, Firelord.

This isn't the only time something like that happened, Valkyrie was introduced in Defenders' comic, and she looked pretty strong early on, but got really nerfed at random, and at the very beginning of Bronze age, Superman's powers were decreased to about a third, and supposedly someone asked on the letters' page if that mean Supergirl was now stronger than him, and apparently the reply to that was "No because men are stronger than women.".

If this shit about Supergirl is true, sheesh...

Exactly. Jean has done more good than bad as Phoenix, saving Earth and her kind at least thrice (the M'Kraan Crystal incident, the New X-Men climax, and the Phoenix Endsong climax). And, as I noted above, she only went dark because she was abused, not because she couldn't control her powers without going mad.

While the other ones you mentioned happened too, I specifically was only talking the earlier issues, more so no one can claim that Marvel changed their intention about Phoenix, since earlier issues had Phoenix being heroic, and, again, Dark Phoenix was an anomaly with the conditions that made it happen.

It's interesting to me that Jean is denied the Phoenix in this era where strong Marvel women like Captain Marvel and Mighty Thor are celebrated, and it feels to me a heroic Phoenix could fit comfortably into that paradigm. The main concern seems to be navigating the Dark Phoenix Saga history, maybe there's a fear of doing it wrong. It could factor into why going hard on distancing the two and going into departures like Thor's secret mom is the easier and more frequently pursued option.

Carol's celebration is, not as good as you'd expect, reminder that she was the one in the wrong in Civil War II lol.

And despite them trying to push her as their Wonder Woman, they never really upgraded her powers, she never got her Binary powers back during that push, and there was even a situation in Hickman's Avengers where she was rather clearly outclassed by the Hulk.

Although Civil War II had her casually defeating Thanos... But then again, that was Bendis lol.

Completely agree on the Phoenix, but like others I feel like much of the good she did isn't brought up. Moreover, they are several planet busters currently in comics, or worse, I mean Beast has at least committed genocide twice.

I think the biggest problem with Jean is that she did this so early in Marvel's world, that it left a more noticeable stain on her story compared to everyone else.

Hank Pym has something similar, he slapped Janet during a mental breakdown, and that marked him as a wife beater and people shit on him constantly in-universe, even though there are characters who did worse (Spidey when having a crisis over thinking he was a clone, tried to kill Ben, MJ tried to stop him, he backhanded her so hard once that she hit a wall and started bleeding, and once realizing what he did he ran away, and MJ was also pregnant during this), or have done really villainous things (Reed and Stark during Civil War, hunting other heroes and cloning Thor), yet they're not as shit on lol.

So yeah, a reason why this is still brought up is, partially, because it was done so early, but also because it's such an iconic story, that other elements from comics before it are forgotten.

Marvel itself only makes this worse, Avengers vs X-Men talks like Phoenix is only ever a bad thing, which, completely ignores not only Dark Phoenix itself, it also ignores, say, New X-Men, which's one of the last Phoenix stories before Avengers vs X-Men, so yeah...

What? But I am just getting started! Then we would find out that Cyclops has kids with this Pryor woman (even though its only been like seven months and they are like...five years old, but whatever!) and the boy looks exactly like Cyclops! Oh and when Jean finally shows up, Cyclops irrationally and angrily lectures her about...oh, I don't know...responsibility?

I'm sorry... When did this particular discussion turn out not to be about fictional redheads, again?

He's mocking current Amazing Spider-Man, which has a timeskip and a mystery box surrouding what happened during it, and characters talk in vague ways so the reader doesn't figure out what happened during the timeskip, and the joke is how if Dark Phoenix were published today, it would happen during a time skip, and "what Jean did" as Dark Phoenix, and the newly introduced characters and the bizarre circumstances of their existence and how characters react to Jean, would be part of this mystery box.

Honestly though, he may not even be wrong about this, considering Marvel's habit of doing timeskips to establish a new status quo, though mystery boxes may or may not be involved (Cates' Hulk does a timeskip and a mystery box, F4 also did it but it already revealed what's up within six months, and Hickman's own Krakoa era did a timeskip, though without a mystery box).

Either that or a massive crossover with 50 billion tie-ins with characters only vaguely affected by Dark Phoenix lol.

[CaptainUniverse]

It's like I can FEEL what you are trying to tell me:

He's mocking current Amazing Spider-Man, which has a timeskip and a mystery box surrouding what happened during it, and characters talk in vague ways so the reader doesn't figure out what happened during the timeskip, and the joke is how if Dark Phoenix were published today, it would happen during a time skip, and "what Jean did" as Dark Phoenix, and the newly introduced characters and the bizarre circumstances of their existence and how characters react to Jean, would be part of this mystery box.

Honestly though, he may not even be wrong about this, considering Marvel's habit of doing timeskips to establish a new status quo, though mystery boxes may or may not be involved (Cates' Hulk does a timeskip and a mystery box, F4 also did it but it already revealed what's up within six months, and Hickman's own Krakoa era did a timeskip, though without a mystery box).

Either that or a massive crossover with 50 billion tie-ins with characters only vaguely affected by Dark Phoenix lol.

I knew I could count on you to get it, I just am not eloquent enough to explain...to anyone...the madness in my mind. It would probably be both, to be honest. The tie-ins would be used to give out hints as to what is happening...while also having nothing to do with the Dark Phoenix...like, obviously, the Captain Universe one-shot which would mention that Jean did...something with Slott machines or the Slingers 4-parter which would have Mister Sinister in it but have nothing to do with whatever is going on in Uncanny.

[Lukmendes]

It's like I can FEEL what you are trying to tell me:

Close enough, but I'd say this is more accurate:

I knew I could count on you to get it, I just am not eloquent enough to explain...to anyone...the madness in my mind. It would probably be both, to be honest. The tie-ins would be used to give out hints as to what is happening...while also having nothing to do with the Dark Phoenix...like, obviously, the Captain Universe one-shot which would mention that Jean did...something with Slott machines or the Slingers 4-parter which would have Mister Sinister in it but have nothing to do with whatever is going on in Uncanny. :P

Fact that I can't dismiss the idea of a timeskip mystery box combined with a crossover is, not a good thing.

Hope you're aware that if it ever happens for real, it's your fault .

[CaptainUniverse]

Close enough, but I'd say this is more accurate:





Fact that I can't dismiss the idea of a timeskip mystery box combined with a crossover is, not a good thing.

Hope you're aware that if it ever happens for real, it's your fault .

No, it is not a good thing, which knowing Marvel probably means they already have something big planned on the horizon.

These things typically are, lol.

[MechaJeanix]

Duggan was teasing the Hellfire Gala one-shot later this year on his substack. He was making comparisons to Planet Size X-men. Planet Size is one of my favorite comic books. It was so good, and I hope this year it is just as exciting. Of course I hope Jean plays a vital role, but we'll see how it goes.

I also expect Jean to do something in X-men 20 since she had a smaller role in X-men 19. I did love Jean pinging some of the other telepaths. I love it when the psychics work together.

Hopefully the stories will start to pick up soon once we start toward Fall of X.

[Daedra]

Sadly “telepaths working together” does not excite me nearly as much, I love when Jean finds herself in some predicament were she has to work alone or figure out stuff on her own and we get some thoughts bubble giving us insight into her inner thinking, it feels like getting closer to her character

[Shadowcat]

Duggan was teasing the Hellfire Gala one-shot later this year on his substack. He was making comparisons to Planet Size X-men. Planet Size is one of my favorite comic books. It was so good, and I hope this year it is just as exciting. Of course I hope Jean plays a vital role, but we'll see how it goes.

I also expect Jean to do something in X-men 20 since she had a smaller role in X-men 19. I did love Jean pinging some of the other telepaths. I love it when the psychics work together.

Hopefully the stories will start to pick up soon once we start toward Fall of X.

The biggest miss from the latest issue is including Psylocke with the rest of the telepaths. She should be dealing with her own crap with the Brood to be able to answer. But like I’ve said elsewhere, this issue was my favorite from Duggan’s second year on the book.

[Exodus]

Duggan was teasing the Hellfire Gala one-shot later this year on his substack. He was making comparisons to Planet Size X-men. Planet Size is one of my favorite comic books. It was so good, and I hope this year it is just as exciting. Of course I hope Jean plays a vital role, but we'll see how it goes.

I also expect Jean to do something in X-men 20 since she had a smaller role in X-men 19. I did love Jean pinging some of the other telepaths. I love it when the psychics work together.

Hopefully the stories will start to pick up soon once we start toward Fall of X.

Same for me. I think Planet Size X-Men is one of the best single issue comics of all time. It's so gorgeous and impactful. I read it several times. I really hope the X-books can bring some of that excitement back. For me, the concept of "mutant technology/circuits" is the most exciting thing that happened to X-books for a long time and I wished the writers will remember that and bring in new mutant circuits who really change the game for mutant-dome. It feels so spectacular Claremont but new at the same time. I need some of that magic to respark my excitement for Krakoa!

I wished Duggan's writing would reach a little bit more for the stars and becomes more ambitious. He always shines to me when he writes storylines beyond the "monster of the week" approach.

Let's see if Jean will get some new storylines pushing the character foward. I still think it is about time to let her reunite with her legacy (a.k.a. The Phoenix Force). Her new power level in relations with the mythical being could bring us exciting new storylines. I wished Jean would become the guardian of the astral plane quite similar like Doctor Strange for mystical and multiversal treats. Jean slapping Nightmare out of existence while everybody was one of my favorite moments of her in the last years.
but I also think that we will see Exodus and Hope taking control and starting a new mutant religion with it and Jean will give a speech like "Good luck with the firebird, my friends, let me know if you need some help. I will be too busy to care. Bye!"

[davetvs]

I agree, I absolutely love the circuits and the expanded teamwork this era.

[Daedra]

I agree, I absolutely love the circuits and the expanded teamwork this era.

Circuits are a fascinating concept, they allow each participant to bring something different to the table allowing for otherwise impossible feats to be performed, as long as they don’t become a crutch they are great fun, So far 99% of them were totally justified, I can only think of 2 or 3 that did not really convince me.