Originally Posted by
Del torro
Immortal Xmen issues have spotlight the character narrating the story and given us insight into their mind, motivations, thoughts and feelings.
Xaviers, Emmas, Exodus, Nightcrawler, Destinys were all very good and definitive character studys. Helping you to boil down to the core parts of what makes the character tick. They shape how most modern fans view these characters.
So when we have an Immortal Xmen book with jean on the cover and supposed to be the narrator, people are expecting to have a character study or atleast narration that gives insight into jeans mind.
She doesn't even have to be an active player. She could be physically incontinent on panel, while her mind can still give narration to the readers and showcase her thoughts and feelings.
If you check, other people have noted disappointment that Jean did not do much in her own issue. That it focused too luch on xavier and others. Having the narration be a confused jean mumbling bits and pieces of old dialogue that barely strings into a vague narrative of some connection to the phoenix doesn't build or develop jeans character. It doesn't tell us much what her thoughts on the situation (FoX, MR plans, the WHR situation with mutants) and doesn't do anything to make you feel like jean is a 3 dimensional character and not just a plot device.
Yes, the story is about mother righteous using jean as an object to obtain power, but jean fans that will buy the book to read her voice, will obviously be disappointed. Having jeans coherent narration would have atleast given her a form of functionality/agency.
Imagine reading all the previous issues and getting character breakdowns for all these Xcharacters, then its your favourite characters turn and the writer just gives you, "she's babbling and incoherent again"
And notice i said again, because it's a problem that jean always has with writers. Endsong, here comes tomorrow, phoenix Resurrection, the recent jean grey solo.
We go through multiple issues of jean being not in sync, out of her mind, incoherent or not being able to function properly as a character, then a finale issue of jean as a character with minimal character work being done(also notice how its always in phoenix stories). Its why i love the teen Jean grey solo, new xmen, revolution era xmen, Xmen red and the Judgement day issue. Jean is given agency, able to talk and convey her thoughts clearly, and grow as an Interesting character.
Yes, i get it. They are waiting for the big finale for jean and phoenix to do something. They are not giving jean action now because they are waiting to use her later as a big gun. That is the story they are telling and i get it.
But that's not my main point. I am annoyed at jean being only a plot device or tool in her Spotlight issue.
The Xavier issue is my favourite Immortal Xmen issue. It didn't have charles running around,saving the day. No, it had the xmen hunting sinister and taking him down.
All Xavier did was provide narration that gave insight into who he is, his motivations, his fears, the reason he formed the xmen, his arrogance and his self hate. Heck gillen did it again with Judgement day preludes, having the characters and plot move forward with the mysterious voice of the unborn celestial watching and commenting without actively interfering.
He did it in some issues of Eternals where the Machine narrated the issues and gave insight to his feelings while the characters and plot did their own thing (a reason why the death/rebooting of the Machine into a monotonous A.I at the end of Judgement Day really hurt)
When Gillen said he did a deep dive into Jeans history and would be doing an Al Ewing style issue for Jean (Ewing being someone who is great with character work and tying threads of a characters disjointed history into a coherent tapestry), I was expecting a story or narration that would open a door into jeans mind and tell us "this is what makes jean grey tick, this what makes her who she is".
So i think its quite understandable to be disappointed that what i got was quite less than that.
I love the issue, the stuff with xavier, hope, exodus and sinister. But jeans function as only a plot device left me disappointed. I was expecting a 10/10 issue and got a 8/10. Gillen is one of my top Xmen writers and i get what he was going for with Jean, he did something similar with dark phoenix scotts mind going in and out of time in AvX and narrating his thoughts as the final battle happened. But even that still showcased scotts personality and gave insight to the way he was feeling then netter than this issue did for Jean. Plus, like i said, with the standard set by the previous issues of Immortal Xmen, I was already expecting a character study on Jean.