Jean Grey #1 (2023) Reviews and Spoilers

[Will Evans]

Who was the young telepathic mutant that accidentally caused the destruction when his powers emerged, and the O5 tried to save him?

[davetvs]

I hope we get an issue in the Morrison era <3

[Devaishwarya]

If the rest of the series go accordingly...it's Jean questioning whether or not she made the right decisions at the pivotal times and would events have played out differently if she chose otherwise with the Phoenix possibly being the constant deciding factor of the outcomes as it was in this issue.

For example....I can extrapolate to the Rosencanny era where she outright rejected the PF...she may question whether or not that was the right decision in the moment and then see what might have occurred if she had said "yes" instead of "no" and watch that story play out. She's basically going over the movie reel of her life looking for a particular still shot.

It's will be very interesting to see what exactly went wrong and where, and what she ultimately does to fix it.

[Phoenixx9]

You're welcome, love! Never stop being you! ::big hug::

Aw, you luv bug. :BIG HUG: :BIG SQUEEZE:

[jwatson]

Love the art. And once i realized i should just forget everything i know about teen jean or jean or phoenix it was actually quite pleasant. Wasn't really a fan of Scott having to remind jean she is a telekinetic. The voice of Jean didn't sound like any jean i've read except dark phoenix, but if they one in the same i guess it makes sense. it seems to flow as i imagined with Jean peering into possible outcomes.

As for Jean not sounding like Jean, i don't know what would have changed her, with the fact that she had all of her memories and teen jean never would have went to some of those extremes. So without letting go of that it just wasn't believable to me that Jean would be willy nilly changing minds and what not. But i guess one could make the argument she did it to nova. But this just had a whole different vibe. I'm taking this as exploring AU's so i'll most likely get issue 2 but i don't think the series was worth taking Jean off the board so far even though that was the plot. 7/10 for me. This feels like filler because Jean is nowhere else.

[vbeacon]

The way in which Jean is going through the motions of what absolute power, insight, and responsibility can do to a person...could have done to her...makes me think...

Instead of Jean returning to save all the mutants and kicking Orchis' butt, I think we're going a different direction with Jean's resurrection this time. And anyway, Jean single-handedly destroying Orchis with absolute power is totally against what Immortal Xmen is trying to discuss about unchecked authority and why Jean left the council in the first place to work on a team again.

Back to my main thought. What if, by the end of this journey, Jean finds it in her power (and the Phoenix) to forgive Moira for all she's done and allow her to be reborn or transformed into "normal Moira," a version of Moira herself wishes she could be? What is Jean's ultimate power if not the ability to redeem, to renew, like a Phoenix? Especially because Moira is the one who killed her, Jean can be the one to free her from the pain of centuries of living, failure, desperation, a scale of pain that only someone like Jean could understand?

She gave Cassandra the gift of empathy. Maybe Jean is the key to taking down Orchis by salvaging whatever is left of Moira's soul.

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

I hope we get an issue in the Morrison era <3

I noticed they left the Morrison era out of the memory collage.

[whitecrown]

I noticed they left the Morrison era out of the memory collage.

Good, no one wants to revisit that era. There are plenty of creative high eras for Jean without returning to that period that fridged her for fourteen years for Mutant Hitler and a fake blonde. I don't see Simonson as being interested in that period and I'm curious if this series will cover any periods from after Simonson's run.

I'm enjoying this series as a bunch of What If? issues that showcase how many times things could have been drastically different for Jean if she made a slightly different decision. Although the next two issues are about Jean on the shuttle and Jean making a different decision in Inferno, something I'd liked to have seen set in between those two issues is a version where when the part of her that became Phoenix was killed on the moon and tried to recombine with the Jean in the psychic cocoon, Jean didn't reject those Phoenix energies and thus Madelyne Pryor was never born. I'd love to see what would have happened to the X-Men, if Jean had been restored to them right after Dark Phoenix's death rather than years later.

Another version could be upon Jean's return in FF #286, her not listening to the FF and Avengers about not contacting the X-Men but Angel instead. How would things have been had she rejoined the X-Men then instead of starting X-Factor? And if, immediately upon her return, she encountered Madelyne instead of in Inferno. Sinister got rid of Maddie because he feared that upon Jean's return, she'd instantly recognize Maddie for what she was so would Inferno have never occurred if Jean and Maddie had immediately met upon Jean's return?

Kelly and Seagle's run also intended for Jean to give birth to 616 Rachel. That would be a neat story point as well, a version where Jean did give birth to Rachel, either in this era or when Scott and Jean first consummate their love on the butte in New Mexico where Rachel was supposed to be conceived.

Another potential What If? I'd like to see is if Jean had accepted Scott's marriage proposal in X-Factor. Originally they were supposed to be wed in X-Factor with Apocalypse crashing the wedding.

[Mercury]

If the rest of the series go accordingly...it's Jean questioning whether or not she made the right decisions at the pivotal times and would events have played out differently if she chose otherwise with the Phoenix possibly being the constant deciding factor of the outcomes as it was in this issue.

For example....I can extrapolate to the Rosencanny era where she outright rejected the PF...she may question whether or not that was the right decision in the moment and then see what might have occurred if she had said "yes" instead of "no" and watch that story play out. She's basically going over the movie reel of her life looking for a particular still shot.

It's will be very interesting to see what exactly went wrong and where, and what she ultimately does to fix it.

I'm too excited to see where this mini goes. The framing story, which centers on Jean "dying" yet is also set in an undisclosed location she seems to recognize, serves to anchor us, the readers, in the current era. On the other hand, the alternate timeline vignettes act as mirrors for both the readers and Jean herself, reflecting both shards of her past and her current outlook on them, while also giving us an intimate look into her current development and rebirth. This process of unfoldment and evolution began during her first encounter with Nightmare in X-Men #4 (2021), continued on through Judgment Day (2022) and Dark Web (2023), and seems to be culminating with this story, and during Fall of X.

Frankly, Simonson's work here is kaleidoscopic, i.e., colorful, vibrant, transfixing, perplexing, and illuminating. There is much to unpack from this series, its overall premise, and what it will ultimately say and is already saying about Jean as a character and, dare I say, a metaphysical being. It's also deceptively complex, i.e., it can easily be perceived or miscategorized as a harmless series of imaginings or fever dreams, which ignores its stated and actual purpose and impact on Jean and the Fall of X. As I mentioned before, it is at once a mystery, character study, and contemplative piece wrapped in the guise of "a series of 'What If...?'s." And I love that it's kept me wondering.

Love the art. And once i realized i should just forget everything i know about teen jean or jean or phoenix it was actually quite pleasant. Wasn't really a fan of Scott having to remind jean she is a telekinetic. The voice of Jean didn't sound like any jean i've read except dark phoenix, but if they one in the same i guess it makes sense. it seems to flow as i imagined with Jean peering into possible outcomes.

As for Jean not sounding like Jean, i don't know what would have changed her, with the fact that she had all of her memories and teen jean never would have went to some of those extremes. So without letting go of that it just wasn't believable to me that Jean would be willy nilly changing minds and what not. But i guess one could make the argument she did it to nova. But this just had a whole different vibe. I'm taking this as exploring AU's so i'll most likely get issue 2 but i don't think the series was worth taking Jean off the board so far even though that was the plot. 7/10 for me. This feels like filler because Jean is nowhere else.

You bring up a valid point regarding teenage Jean's comportment, one which I recently discussed with another fan who shares your sentiments about her seeming about-face. He wrote, "I thought she learned her lessons about misusing her power," to which I responded:

"We have all repeated mistakes we once vowed not to make again after lessons learned. It is part of human nature and particularly common among adolescents. Add to that the fact that teenage Jean, an atypical teenager, was continuously thrust into extraordinary circumstances and subjected to acutely stressful and traumatizing experiences—all of which heightened her fight-flight responses—and her regression seems natural and understandable, particularly from a psychological perspective. After all, acute stress and trauma can render wisdom and experience useless in adults, never mind teenagers. (I hate to admit that I know this all too well.)

As a result, this story and the sharp turns Jean makes throughout it feel natural and relatable to me. Ultimately, I see her as having a delayed post-traumatic breakdown, as if returning to her proper time and place allowed her to finally exhale and attempt to regress to the relatively innocent teenager she had been before her time displacement. However, that innocent teenager no longer existed, and Jean was woefully unprepared to reconcile her future with her past in a healthy manner. She wasn't properly equipped to remember and process all that she had seen, learned, and experienced in the future while continuing to develop in her present if that makes sense. She needed to forget.

The way in which Jean is going through the motions of what absolute power, insight, and responsibility can do to a person...could have done to her...makes me think...

Instead of Jean returning to save all the mutants and kicking Orchis' butt, I think we're going a different direction with Jean's resurrection this time. And anyway, Jean single-handedly destroying Orchis with absolute power is totally against what Immortal Xmen is trying to discuss about unchecked authority and why Jean left the council in the first place to work on a team again.

Back to my main thought. What if, by the end of this journey, Jean finds it in her power (and the Phoenix) to forgive Moira for all she's done and allow her to be reborn or transformed into "normal Moira," a version of Moira herself wishes she could be? What is Jean's ultimate power if not the ability to redeem, to renew, like a Phoenix? Especially because Moira is the one who killed her, Jean can be the one to free her from the pain of centuries of living, failure, desperation, a scale of pain that only someone like Jean could understand?

She gave Cassandra the gift of empathy. Maybe Jean is the key to taking down Orchis by salvaging whatever is left of Moira's soul.

This is such a great idea or theory. I can totally see something like this happening, and the parallels would be great.

[JB]

X-Men Monday Call for Questions: Louise Simonson for ‘Jean Grey’!
https://aiptcomics.com/2023/08/23/x-...son-jean-grey/

"Jean Grey has returned! But… she has a habit of doing that. The real news is legendary writer Louise Simonson is writing Jean again in the new Fall of X series Jean Grey. It’s an occasion worthy of celebration, so that’s just what X-Men Monday at AIPT is going to do. But before Louise makes her triumphant return to X-Men Monday, she needs your questions, X-Fans."

Deadline: Saturday, August 26 @ 5 PM EST

[jwatson]

Good, no one wants to revisit that era. There are plenty of creative high eras for Jean without returning to that period that fridged her for fourteen years for Mutant Hitler and a fake blonde. I don't see Simonson as being interested in that period and I'm curious if this series will cover any periods from after Simonson's run.

I'm enjoying this series as a bunch of What If? issues that showcase how many times things could have been drastically different for Jean if she made a slightly different decision. Although the next two issues are about Jean on the shuttle and Jean making a different decision in Inferno, something I'd liked to have seen set in between those two issues is a version where when the part of her that became Phoenix was killed on the moon and tried to recombine with the Jean in the psychic cocoon, Jean didn't reject those Phoenix energies and thus Madelyne Pryor was never born. I'd love to see what would have happened to the X-Men, if Jean had been restored to them right after Dark Phoenix's death rather than years later.

Another version could be upon Jean's return in FF #286, her not listening to the FF and Avengers about not contacting the X-Men but Angel instead. How would things have been had she rejoined the X-Men then instead of starting X-Factor? And if, immediately upon her return, she encountered Madelyne instead of in Inferno. Sinister got rid of Maddie because he feared that upon Jean's return, she'd instantly recognize Maddie for what she was so would Inferno have never occurred if Jean and Maddie had immediately met upon Jean's return?

Kelly and Seagle's run also intended for Jean to give birth to 616 Rachel. That would be a neat story point as well, a version where Jean did give birth to Rachel, either in this era or when Scott and Jean first consummate their love on the butte in New Mexico where Rachel was supposed to be conceived.

Another potential What If? I'd like to see is if Jean had accepted Scott's marriage proposal in X-Factor. Originally they were supposed to be wed in X-Factor with Apocalypse crashing the wedding.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on the issue. What if is definitely a better word.

[jwatson]

I'm too excited to see where this mini goes. The framing story, which centers on Jean "dying" yet is also set in an undisclosed location she seems to recognize, serves to anchor us, the readers, in the current era. On the other hand, the alternate timeline vignettes act as mirrors for both the readers and Jean herself, reflecting both shards of her past and her current outlook on them, while also giving us an intimate look into her current development and rebirth. This process of unfoldment and evolution began during her first encounter with Nightmare in X-Men #4 (2021), continued on through Judgment Day (2022) and Dark Web (2023), and seems to be culminating with this story, and during Fall of X.

Frankly, Simonson's work here is kaleidoscopic, i.e., colorful, vibrant, transfixing, perplexing, and illuminating. There is much to unpack from this series, its overall premise, and what it will ultimately say and is already saying about Jean as a character and, dare I say, a metaphysical being. It's also deceptively complex, i.e., it can easily be perceived or miscategorized as a harmless series of imaginings or fever dreams, which ignores its stated and actual purpose and impact on Jean and the Fall of X. As I mentioned before, it is at once a mystery, character study, and contemplative piece wrapped in the guise of "a series of 'What If...?'s." And I love that it's kept me wondering.



You bring up a valid point regarding teenage Jean's comportment, one which I recently discussed with another fan who shares your sentiments about her seeming about-face. He wrote, "I thought she learned her lessons about misusing her power," to which I responded:

"We have all repeated mistakes we once vowed not to make again after lessons learned. It is part of human nature and particularly common among adolescents. Add to that the fact that teenage Jean, an atypical teenager, was continuously thrust into extraordinary circumstances and subjected to acutely stressful and traumatizing experiences—all of which heightened her fight-flight responses—and her regression seems natural and understandable, particularly from a psychological perspective. After all, acute stress and trauma can render wisdom and experience useless in adults, never mind teenagers. (I hate to admit that I know this all too well.)

As a result, this story and the sharp turns Jean makes throughout it feel natural and relatable to me. Ultimately, I see her as having a delayed post-traumatic breakdown, as if returning to her proper time and place allowed her to finally exhale and attempt to regress to the relatively innocent teenager she had been before her time displacement. However, that innocent teenager no longer existed, and Jean was woefully unprepared to reconcile her future with her past in a healthy manner. She wasn't properly equipped to remember and process all that she had seen, learned, and experienced in the future while continuing to develop in her present if that makes sense. She needed to forget.



This is such a great idea or theory. I can totally see something like this happening, and the parallels would be great.

My problem with that is as the story said, Teen Jean faced far worse and never did the things she did but when placed in a time where those around her were weaker, as you say, look at what teen jean faced, Galactus, finding out her parents were killed, the shiar, venom, and she never once did that with those strong opponents where the obstacles were potentially higher. It would have been stronger if we saw a scene with her hugging her parents or seeing them or smelling them and thinking "i can't lose them again" and that being her drive rather than the safety of mutant kind. i don't want to see jean's core personality dragged through the mud just to fit in on immortal and that is the feeling i'm getting right now. Jean essentially became a bully if she kept her memories and that was her character because she did it before she called on the phoenix and many times and to friends. That to me feels like so far we cleaning up the phoenix because jeans seems like the corrupter now.

But maybe that is the point. Maybe this ends with jean apologizing for corrupting the phoenix and then denying it (the entity) and eventually telling it she will do better.

[5cents]

Back to my main thought. What if, by the end of this journey, Jean finds it in her power (and the Phoenix) to forgive Moira for all she's done and allow her to be reborn or transformed into "normal Moira," a version of Moira herself wishes she could be? What is Jean's ultimate power if not the ability to redeem, to renew, like a Phoenix? Especially because Moira is the one who killed her, Jean can be the one to free her from the pain of centuries of living, failure, desperation, a scale of pain that only someone like Jean could understand?

I like this. This could be a powerful moment and a turning point for Moira. Moira could even help take down Orchis.

[Havok83]

Back to my main thought. What if, by the end of this journey, Jean finds it in her power (and the Phoenix) to forgive Moira for all she's done and allow her to be reborn or transformed into "normal Moira," a version of Moira herself wishes she could be? What is Jean's ultimate power if not the ability to redeem, to renew, like a Phoenix? Especially because Moira is the one who killed her, Jean can be the one to free her from the pain of centuries of living, failure, desperation, a scale of pain that only someone like Jean could understand?

She gave Cassandra the gift of empathy. Maybe Jean is the key to taking down Orchis by salvaging whatever is left of Moira's soul.

I hope not. I love Jean's compassion and forgiving nature but she's too nice at times and after all Moira has done, this isnt the time to go all Care Bear with her. Moira is on the same level as the Scarlet Witch post-M-Day. She should not get an easy redemption like that if ever and I definitely dont want to see Jean be responsible for giving it to her.

And Moira has no soul. That character died. What we have now is an A.I that is using her face and likeness but shes a machine. Rogue destroyed her but she will likely be back bc Orchis can just rebuild her. This version shouldnt be accepted as real. The Phoenix needs to eradicate the files so that she cant be used as a weapon against them ever again.

[jwatson]

I hope not. I love Jean's compassion and forgiving nature but she's too nice at times and after all Moira has done, this isnt the time to go all Care Bear with her. Moira is on the same level as the Scarlet Witch post-M-Day. She should not get an easy redemption like that if ever and I definitely dont want to see Jean be responsible for giving it to her.

And Moira has no soul. That character died. What we have now is an A.I that is using her face and likeness but shes a machine. Rogue destroyed her but she will likely be back bc Orchis can just rebuild her. This version shouldnt be accepted as real. The Phoenix needs to eradicate the files so that she cant be used as a weapon against them ever again.

It still males absolutely no sense to me why robot moira even exists. I think the whole concept of moira was ruined by the sinister clone project and was still the original dig on resurrections imo. Moira power brought her consciousness back into the past with her, so if written true imo the true death of the real moira should ruin sinisters plan because all of the consciousnesses should have been drawn in or at least the consciousness of robot moira should have been sucked back into her body because moira kept going back to before she had her x-gene and even had her memories in the womb so if any mutant should have been nigh impossible to clone it should have been moira but we know what happened there.