Jean Grey / Phoenix Appreciation 2021

[Havok83]

Love this, GS! Is this from Hidden Years?

Again, the biggest character developments for Jean that we got were how she feels currently about the events of the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix storylines, that she questions how she chooses to present herself - a big development, IMO - and that she can handle "a nigh-omnipotent, nigh-omniscient and nigh-omnipresent [Demon] entity who rules the Dream Dimension." That's enough for me!

No this took place after Sara died in Phalanx Covenant. Jean went to go visit her family. Im not sure of the issue number but Im pretty sure it took place in X-men v2

[Phoenixx9]

Don't forget the influence of Sara (who was a hero in her own right - and I *love* that she was not a mutant exactly because of that) in Jean's life and how important that promise was to our young hero:

This is beautiful---where is it from?

Oh---and I thought Jean's family did not know that she was a mutant---either the day Xavier first met Jean nor on the day she left for the School? I remember reading something that stated, "Xavier explained to Jean but not her parents that she was a mutant" when he first met her.

[Mercury]

No this took place after Sara died in Phalanx Covenant. Jean went to go visit her family. Im not sure of the issue number but Im pretty sure it took place in X-men v2

I need to know! I'm pissed I didn't know about it to include it in my thread about Sara and the Greys:

https://twitter.com/Jean_RED_Grey/st...94583221800974

You see, GS? You are needed in here!

[Omega_DCD]

I need to know! I'm pissed I didn't know about it to include it in my thread about Sara and the Greys:

https://twitter.com/Jean_RED_Grey/st...94583221800974

You see, GS? You are needed in here!

It's Uncanny X-Men #322 (Who Stopped Juggernaut)...it leads to X-Men 42 (Fall of Avalon) with them driving and Amelia Vought teleporting to get help and Jean and Scott (and car) get caught in the teleportation rift and end up in the conflict between Exodus and Holocaust

[Mercury]

It's Uncanny X-Men #322 (Who Stopped Juggernaut)...it leads to X-Men 42 (Fall of Avalon) with them driving and Amelia Vought teleporting to get help and Jean and Scott (and car) get caught in the teleportation rift and end up in the conflict between Exodus and Holocaust

Again, I'm stunned by your memory recall. Thank you, love! You always come through :P

[Havok83]

It's Uncanny X-Men #322 (Who Stopped Juggernaut)...it leads to X-Men 42 (Fall of Avalon) with them driving and Amelia Vought teleporting to get help and Jean and Scott (and car) get caught in the teleportation rift and end up in the conflict between Exodus and Holocaust

oh yeah that was back when UXM and Xmen were basically the same book

[Omega_DCD]

Again, I'm stunned by your memory recall. Thank you, love! You always come through :P

No problem It helps that before smartphones and whatnot, I used to read and re-read these issues during my commute to/from school, so this era is very ingrained in my memory

oh yeah that was back when UXM and Xmen were basically the same book

Yeah the whole Gold & Blue team thing really blurred early on. Heck some of Jean's best 90s moments happened in the "Blue Team" book

[MechaJeanix]

I know my girl.

Not the denial stuff again. No one understood what Claremont did in Inferno, but this always happens and it even happened with Morrison-fans try to correct them by using the retcon. The Phoenix retcon is so ingrained, the nuances are often left out. Ah, well. Doesn’t change the fact part of Jean was there and she has the memories.

[Tank]

Not the denial stuff again. No one understood what Claremont did in Inferno, but this always happens and it even happened with Morrison-fans try to correct them by using the retcon. The Phoenix retcon is so ingrained, the nuances are often left out. Ah, well. Doesn’t change the fact part of Jean was there and she has the memories.

This tweet is kinda moot since Jean claims she was Dark Phoenix while at the hellfire gala, not in a dream or nightmare. Duggan shouldn’t have even responded and it looks like he did just to get that guy off his back.

It’s embarrassing for the tweeter to tweet at creators with such disrespect.

[Mercury]

I remember reading this now! I can't believe I forgot it. I'm so damn fickle.

[Mercury]

This was an excellent article. I suggest you all read it, especially Omega_DCD:

https://gizmodo.com/jean-greys-telli...tm_content=io9

[Mercury]

It’s Jean's dreams, though, that really catch Nightmare’s attention, potentially because of how her psychic mindscape is naturally more robust and well-produced than Scott’s. It stands to reason that even in the deadest of sleeps, Jean would never be as explicit as Scott about what’s concerning her because of the years she’s spent building up her psychic defenses against attack. In Jean’s dreams, Nightmare first sees her coming to a mutant school in her original X-Men costume that matched Xavier’s other early students. As Jean moves through the school and encounters Emma, her costume suddenly transforms through the magic of dream logic into the classic Marvel Girl getup she’s been wearing since her resurrection in House of X.

Even though the exchange between Emma and Jean takes place in her mind, and this Emma’s more of Jean’s idea of a snob rather than the real thing, her assertion that the Marvel Girl costume isn’t for Jean feels especially significant given the costume’s history, and what’s been going on with the Phoenix in Marvel’s comics lately.

Jean first started wearing her iconic, but rather impractical dress/mask/gloves ensemble back in X-Men #39, after she’d recently returned to the X-Men’s school in upstate New York from a brief stint at Metro College in New Jersey. Jean’s new costume was introduced at a time when the original X-Men had all technically graduated from Xavier’s school, and were transitioning into a new, more mature phase in their lives when their identities becoming even more solidified. The green dress and Jean’s Marvel Girl codename continued to be her signatures right up until X-Men #100, the issue in which Jean sacrificed her life in order to save the rest of the X-Men during an emergency crash landing from space. By X-Men #101, the beginning of “The Phoenix Saga,” the green dress was gone, and Jean’s life as Marvel Girl really came to an end in a metanarrative sense, as that arc went on to fundamentally change the character’s trajectory in Marvel’s history.

In one light, Jean’s donning of her old Marvel Girl duds in the X-Men’s current era has sometimes felt like her attempt at taking ownership of an old identity, in order to re-establish who she was as a person before the world ever knew her as an avatar of the Phoenix. But at the same time, Jean opting for an identity she first constructed back when she was fresh out of childhood has been somewhat suspicious, not because of anything specific that Jean herself has done, but because of Charles Xavier’s propensity for, and history of, manipulating his students. There’s been something rather off-putting about Jean, a grown woman who’s been fighting to redefine herself and her own her autonomy, dressing up as her teenage self while so many of the other X-Men have been comfortably living in their adulthood. This would be weird enough even if the literal teen Jean hadn’t recently decided to return to her own past, but it’s made all the more dubious by the fact that the Phoenix has been hanging out with a new host following Marvel’s recent Enter the Phoenix event.

When last Jean and the Phoenix were on speaking terms, Jean tearfully told the fiery burning that the two weren’t healthy for one another, and it would be for the best if they parted ways permanently. In bonding with Maya Lopez, the vigilante known as Echo, the Phoenix seemed to be moving on from its breakup with Jean and getting back to its roots by bonding with another fist-fighter somewhat similar to the ancient Iron Fist it who once wielded it. Much as everyone’s grown weary of the Jean and Phoenix’s theatrics, the Phoenix entering Echo’s life has been a rather curious development, given the Phoenix’s history of tending to empower only those who can naturally sustain its vast energies.

continued...

[Mercury]

In the past, most other Phoenix Force hosts who’ve been able to properly use its powers have been psychics—like Jean, Quentin Quire, and Emma Frost—while non-psychics like the Phoenix Five could only maintain its might for relatively short periods. In the time after Marvel split Jean and the Phoenix, the publisher put some effort into making clear that her own innate, omega level psionic ability is what always made her and the flaming bird such good fits for one another, and even without the Phoenix’s help, Jean’s a force in her own right. X-Men #4 emphasizes this idea as Jean, now quite awake, finds Nightmare rifling around in Laura Kinney’s mind, and easily drags him out into the open to let him know that he picked the wrong people to mess with.

What feels telling about Jean’s fight with Nightmare, as she bandies him about before flinging him off into the distance, is how intent she seems on pontificating to him in her best “mutant and proud” PR voice. There’s an earnest honesty in Jean’s words as she projects the night of the Hellfire Gala into Nightmare’s mind to show him how she opened up her head to the party’s guests about her sincere desire to atone for the Phoenix’s actions. Even though Nightmare might be considered one of the lesser demonic entities Marvel’s magic users have faced, the way Jean easily trips the conceptual fear monger up is an impressive display of the very same powers that first attracted the Phoenix to her.

As Jean settles back down to the Treehouse after disposing of Nightmare, all seems right with the world once again, but the fact the no one else seems to have been stirred by the psychic commotion, and the way that Jean psionically encourages everyone into deeper sleep cycles is interesting to consider. The Emma we see may have only been a projection of Jean’s mind expressing an anxiety about her fashion choices, but there’s also the possibility that the subtext of Jean’s dream should be taken more seriously. Jean might no longer be the official or technical Phoenix running around Marvel’s comics, but some part of her doesn’t feel quite right about the return of Marvel Girl either, and the question now is whether that part of her is something that Jean’s going to be able to keep shutting up inside.

He gets it.

[Omega_DCD]

This was an excellent article. I suggest you all read it, especially Omega_DCD:

https://gizmodo.com/jean-greys-telli...tm_content=io9

Thanks for that...I just hope the actual story beat is satisfying and logical. I remember some interview with Hickman(I don't follow him as a personality so I don't know if this is his baseline kind of snark or whatever) early on in the HOX/POX era debut, and he says something to the effect of (regarding Jean's MG dress choice, and other things) "Well there's a story there, and we don't tell stories for free"...and that whole "Free thighs for a free nation" cypher written in Krakoan thing

Well after 2 years and fleeting cameos of Jean's other outfits, we're still no closer to getting an in-story explanation...and the longer it plays out, the higher the standard the explanation has to live up to. The obvious "it was a simpler, more pure time in Jean's life" is surely part of it...but I hope that's not the WHOLE of it

[Grinning Soul]

This is beautiful---where is it from?

Oh---and I thought Jean's family did not know that she was a mutant---either the day Xavier first met Jean nor on the day she left for the School? I remember reading something that stated, "Xavier explained to Jean but not her parents that she was a mutant" when he first met her.

In the original stories back in the 60s, they didn't know indeed. But I think when CC created Jean's background and Annie's accident, it became harder to explain how her parents wouldn't know Jean was a mutant. I don't know exactly when they dropped that, though, but it was certainly retconned at some point.

I need to know! I'm pissed I didn't know about it to include it in my thread about Sara and the Greys:

https://twitter.com/Jean_RED_Grey/st...94583221800974

You see, GS? You are needed in here!

Sorry I didn't reply before, Mercury. I was watching a Star Trek movie.

I'll post pics when there's something relevant that I can add. But I just don't have it in me to deal with some opinions and discussions that go on in here anymore.

It's Uncanny X-Men #322 (Who Stopped Juggernaut)...it leads to X-Men 42 (Fall of Avalon) with them driving and Amelia Vought teleporting to get help and Jean and Scott (and car) get caught in the teleportation rift and end up in the conflict between Exodus and Holocaust

Thanks for replying Omega. I should've added the issue in the message, but I was in a hurry and I forgot.