Jean Grey #4

[Blackcyclops]

Guys…I have no idea what just happened.

[tokenBG1009]

It was pretty at least and the words made me feel nice.

[Milkshake08]

Beautiful gowns, beautiful gowns.

[das_boot]

Um.

Pardon?

[Blackcyclops]

Like did Jean just make the original Hope theory true? Lol

Also, Jean seemed to verify once and for all (for now) confirm the original Phoenix-Jean situation.

[das_boot]

I mean… we know Hope was connected to the Phoenix anyway, I’m just assuming this was maybe Jean passing the torch properly? Almost like giving Hope her blessing to have it? I dunno. Literally no clue.

I mean we know Jean’s back for the event that follows this but I honestly couldn’t for the life of me tell you what on earth I was meant to take from this series

[Milkshake08]

das, not sure if your pardon was directed at me or the issue, but my comment was a TSwift reference - when asked about her opinion on TSwift's talent, Aretha Franklin simply responded "Beautiful gowns, beautiful gowns" and I find it a funny way to say the issue was pretty but maybe lacked substance.

[Magnus]

Yeah this mini was terrible.

It kinda feels like Simonson wanted to do a historical look at Jean, and so it got minimally grafted into being a Fall of X story, but the last few pages with Hope/Exodus/Apocalypse feel very un-anchored from anything else and then the story just ends without any real resolution.

The "lesson learned" seems to be that Jean always made the right decisions over the years, and just because things aren't going well doesn't mean she screwed up, it just means other people with their own plans sometimes cause problems. Which, ok, cool?

[tokenBG1009]

In theory, I love a story where it's just "Listen, you did everything you could. Sometimes it doesn't work out, but that's not your fault" and that part of the story actually made me smile and feel good. A better Xavier could have dropped a "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."

I just don't know what the overarching point is besides making Jean feel better about it.

[das_boot]

das, not sure if your pardon was directed at me or the issue, but my comment was a TSwift reference - when asked about her opinion on TSwift's talent, Aretha Franklin simply responded "Beautiful gowns, beautiful gowns" and I find it a funny way to say the issue was pretty but maybe lacked substance.

Oh, the issue, but knowing that Aretha shaded the abominable Swift so? Makes me love her more.

[Fenix]

I think the series, as a whole, is meant to serve as a new starting point for Jean and, I think, Hickman might have had something like that planned before he left.

The fact that Jean started this era (Krakoa) wearing her 60s costume instead of ANY other costume she's worn since returning in X-Factor seemed like a statement, as if the Marvel Girl costume was the stepping stone to becoming Phoenix. Unfortunately we can't know how Hickman would have interpreted it, we only have cryptic interviews and interpretations about it.

I read this as a close continuation of Endsong, Jean is Phoenix and Phoenix is Jean, and their relationship is unique from other Phoenix Force hosts.
Unfortunately this series, while nice and with its allegories and parallels, is unclear and vague in its final stretch and doesn't really explore some outstanding plots and particularly interesting questions that could (and should) have been addressed in order to build a solid story that would serve as a hooking point for any Jean Grey/Xmen reader.

I know we've talked about this in other threads but I still think that while it hasn't been done in this series there is still a need to clarify what or who Hope really is, while also addressing the question of Firehair (Avengers 1,000,000 BC) since they both seem to be placeholders for Jean as much as Rachel or Maddie are (interpretively) to different extents and at different times.

Everything indicates that Jean is clearly NOT dead, that she's in the Hot White Room but it's not so clear to me that her return will be immediate (in Immortal X-Men) but later during the new series Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X...
And I fear, very much, that once again Jean's ascension to Phoenix means her death as a tool to defeat the Dominion.

[InsipidLust]

My read on Hope’s “Phoenix manifestation” here was that she was replicating Jean’s powers, and Jean has just re-embraced the Phoenix.

With regard to Jean and the Phoenix’s relationship - even if they are framed as separate entities, one thing I think Grant Morrison (and others - but Grant was intentional about this writing) set up was the notion of the Phoenix-Jean bond being a form of apotheosis that exists outside of time/space as we understand them.

This helps me tie up the whole “who the hell are all these red heads, not to mention the various other (utterly uninteresting) Phoenix hosts” question easily enough in that it frames Jean’s role as the Phoenix as a cosmic/metaphysical inevitability that is absolute. There can be other “hosts”, but they are more like echoes or whispers in a game of telephone.

All important characters in their own right, but if we accept the previous “White Phoenix of the Crown” notion in its original framing as an available canon to pull from, it makes sense that all other Phoenixes are almost like living re-tellings through time of a myth or one of those concepts that pop up regularly in the so-called “collective unconscious”. Like, uh, dragons or deities.

in this framing, some “living myths” are closer to the real thing than others, but there is one Bird (sorry, inappropriate fern I know but I have to complete the pun) who really rules the roost… and that’s the Jean/Phoenix combo.

To me, this actually invites some really interesting possibilities re: Jean’s role in the big Dominion conflict that has been looming as the larger container to this whole era.