Jean Grey #1 (2023) Reviews and Spoilers

[Raz]

I'm ignoring the variation in ages because that way lies madness....if Trish Tilby is old enough to be a journalist here, was she like 50 when she was going out with Hank in OG X-Factor days?

Weezie's still got it though! I really enjoyed this issue!

Some random thoughts:
- young Bobby was giving some real Bieber vibes at points!
- I now have a sudden urge to see Magneto leading teenager-ish Cannonball, Dani Moonstar, Kitty Pryde, Iceman and Angel as an X-Men team!
- I don't know what was going on with those costumes the O5 were wearing, but wooh chillay....Jean needs to stick to being a powerhouse psi and leave the fashion to Jumbo

[Devaishwarya]

Wow.



Anyways, this was a bold choice, I'll give Simonson that. And Chang and company did a great job on the art(although I didn't get the design choice for the revamped blue/black-and-yellows ). Nocenti could learn a thing or two from her old friend here. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the mini does.

Agreed.
(Who the hell is Gail?)

[Havok83]

Its crazy how Jean is shown returning to the past with her short Xmen blue haircut and then she is called into the Danger Room by Profesor X, her hair is significantly longer

[Devaishwarya]

I'm not disagreeing with you. All i'm saying is why not put it on the page if you don't want ambiguity and that is what leaves a character undefined and where interpretations are easy. that is why manga is more popular than american comics. more so than the schedule it's the consistency of current status. The art, the writer, the character. You can say this all on a forum but how many people are really reading it and not just looking at the page and going "Well damn" but if you look beyond that and at the actual audience or the general audience or the one on tik tok instead of here because there are only so many hours of the day that is just not what the story is telling us and we shouldn't have to do all that work if that is what it was trying to say. That could have been accomplished with a few captions here to make us feel jean moving throughout the journey all of us fans wanted and there is no reason it doesn't exist other than this is ultimately just to get jean out the way.

I'm still in for issue two as i enjoy it as a what if. but i'm not about to do the writer or editors work for free and that is no shade that is literally how i feel.

100.
While I didn't have the same experience as you, I totally get where you're coming from. Even though we see Jean at the very beginning standing next to Jeen and you could say that it was Jean who influenced Jeen to not wipe their minds...that "was that where I went wrong? panel with just her eyes with all the pink glow suggests that to me...Jean's mind/voice doesn't show up until the very end. So, a lot is left to personal interpretation which is all well and good and pretty normal for comics but...(as much as I love you Merc), I'm not coming here to read someone else's dissertations so that I could understand what is supposed to be on the page.

My very simple take...as far as this issue went...Jean herself instigated the What if...? She was there at the very beginning, so it stands to reason she's there throughout silently observing events as Jeen goes over the edge after making one bad decision after another, to get to her final page realisation. I could be wrong. Should that have been made clearer by the writer, if that was the case? Absofuckinglutely.

[Soulsword323]

You certainly make some good points here. And I'm about to make another, one I have made to you in appeals before: Acute stress and trauma do not work that way, especially for individuals who are unaware that they have been blighted by both. And when left unchecked, they can insidiously erode one's resolve, resilience, and sanity before one even knows it. Now throw in superhuman abilities into that mix. You'll get a combo of The Boys and Invincible, which is what Simonson delivered, albeit a lighter version of both. Ultimately, what you describe above constitutes a grounded and integrated individual, which, sad to say, I don't think Jean was during her time displacement. Your version is great and uplifting but not necessarily befitting of Jean during that time in her life.

This is what I remember about teenage Jean, being as open and vulnerable as she would and could only be with herself, shortly before she returned to the past:

Cullen Bunn's Jean is very underrated. He did a great job by both Jean's IMO.

[johnnysv75]

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.

I agree with the fan you discussed with, this Teen Jean feels like the Jeen we met in the first half of the ”time displaced era”. She grew quite a lot after that. Was she still impulsive? Yes, but not to this degree.

I get your argument, Mercury, but teen Jean felt off for me (even though I love Jean when she is scary).

I still loved the issue. A very good, interesting read. Beautiful art! I can’t wait to see what ”I felt it from the beginning” means. I read it as ”I felt my ultimate potential”, but I am not sure if Marvel is ready to go down the ”Jean IS the Phoenix itself” route just yet.

[Odd Rödney]

I loved this issue, I'm super keen to see where it all goes from here and what it means for Jean, the true heart of the X-Men. Louise Simonson knocked it out of the park, bravo!

This issue played fast and loose with the timeline, even taking Marvel time into account. For example, Sam Guthrie should only be a grade school kid yet they show him working in the mines.

Well, Kentucky is a red state.

[PhoenixStudies]

Wonder what the decision during Inferno will be? Maybe Jean will see what happens if she doesn't absorb Maddie and Phoenix? Or what if Jean dies and Maddie lives (and maybe Maddie absorbs Phoenix and Jean)?

[johnnysv75]

A minor thing, but it was wonderful to read an X-book without data pages.

[Yistaan]

I'm ignoring the variation in ages because that way lies madness....if Trish Tilby is old enough to be a journalist here, was she like 50 when she was going out with Hank in OG X-Factor days?

If Trish is 22 in this issue and Hank is 17, she'd only be 5 years older than him, meaning by her first appearance in X-Factor Hank is circa 26 and she's 31. It still works.

Well, Kentucky is a red state.

Best explanation I've heard all day.


Interesting how Hank is one of the people utterly horrified by Jean's actions towards the end of this issue, but current Beast who's basically a full blown supervillain these days would probably be cheering Jean on.

[Odd Rödney]

Best explanation I've heard all day.

Thank you, I try my best!

[Havok83]

If Trish is 22 in this issue and Hank is 17, she'd only be 5 years older than him, meaning by her first appearance in X-Factor Hank is circa 26 and she's 31. It still works.


Best explanation I've heard all day.


Interesting how Hank is one of the people utterly horrified by Jean's actions towards the end of this issue, but current Beast who's basically a full blown supervillain these days would probably be cheering Jean on.

Where do you get Hank was 17? He was at least 18 when he first appeared. I wish the timeline was more clear but I was under the impression that there was a time jump between the Danger Room scene and the group in new costumes. To me, I pinpointed it to be around circa when the ANAD would have debuted which would firmly planted all of them in their early to mid 20s. This was giving me an early XFactor vibe and thats the only way them trying to recruit the New Mutants makes any sense

[yogaflame]

Agreed.
(Who the hell is Gail?)

I think that poster just conflated Gail Simone with Louise Simonson. I knew what they meant though, and didn't make a fuss of the typo.

[Yistaan]

Where do you get Hank was 17? He was at least 18 when he first appeared. I wish the timeline was more clear but I was under the impression that there was a time jump between the Danger Room scene and the group in new costumes. To me, I pinpointed it to be around circa when the ANAD would have debuted which would firmly planted all of them in their early to mid 20s. This was giving me an early XFactor vibe and thats the only way them trying to recruit the New Mutants makes any sense

I've read every issue of Uncanny X-Men up until at least 145 or so and I've never seen anywhere locking Hank down at 18 at debut. They only say he's the oldest and Bobby is the youngest and Bobby is said to be 16.

Hank's age is definitively stated at the end of X-Men the Hidden Years to be turning 20. To maximize the amount of time the O5's adventures realistically can take place I pegged him as an older 17 year old at debut, but admittedly it's not said either way (17 or 18) as far as I'm aware. And even putting him at 17 still fudges Larry Trask's "The X-Men killed my father 3 years ago" line, which Larry says while Hank is still 19 (as per the Hidden Years again).

We have to ignore for our sanity Nicieza's bit about Hank turning 30 in the 1990s, simply because an issue of Uncanny locked down Marvel time in more recent decades as 5 years to 1 Marvel year, with Warren reminiscing about Candy Southern's death a year ago by Cameron Hodge (which happened 5 years ago exactly in the real publishing timeline).

Maybe you're right about the time jump in this Jean issue. Would explain a lot.

[Havok83]

I've read every issue of Uncanny X-Men up until at least 145 or so and I've never seen anywhere locking Hank down at 18 at debut. They only say he's the oldest and Bobby is the youngest and Bobby is said to be 16.

Hank's age is definitively stated at the end of X-Men the Hidden Years to be turning 20. To maximize the amount of time the O5's adventures realistically can take place I pegged him as an older 17 year old at debut, but admittedly it's not said either way (17 or 18) as far as I'm aware. And even putting him at 17 still fudges Larry Trask's "The X-Men killed my father 3 years ago" line, which Larry says while Hank is still 19 (as per the Hidden Years again).

We have to ignore for our sanity Nicieza's bit about Hank turning 30 in the 1990s, simply because an issue of Uncanny locked down Marvel time in more recent decades as 5 years to 1 Marvel year, with Warren reminiscing about Candy Southern's death a year ago by Cameron Hodge (which happened 5 years ago exactly in the real publishing timeline).

Maybe you're right about the time jump in this Jean issue. Would explain a lot.

Bobby is said to be 16 in the first issue and in that same issue its said he is a couple of years younger than the rest. At best Hank is 18 at the youngest. Definitely not 17 though, not that it matters bc I dont believe the O5 were teenagers in those scenes