Jean Grey #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
JEAN GREY vol 2 #3
“Obsession”
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Bernard Chang
Colour artist: Marcelo Maiolo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. Jean Grey fights the Goblin Queen.
PAGES 2-4. Jean confronts “Madelyne”, and gets interrupted by Hope.
Okay, for once we’re going to take this a panel at a time.
Page 2 panel 1. So far in this series, we’ve been following Jean’s disembodied mind as she thinks back on her life, following her “death” in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023. We’ve already been through two possible scenarios where her life could have gone differently, but making the other choice turned out even worse. The previous issue ended with Jean turning her focus to her clone Madelyne Pryor, who ought to be familiar to everyone since she’s starring in Dark X-Men. But we’ll come to her back story in a bit shortly.
Page 2 panel 2. This is a jump pack to Jean’s disorientation at the start of issue #1, complete with fragmented images of many of the same events. From left to right:
- A fragment of a panel of the Avengers releasing Jean from suspended animation in Avengers #263.
- Jean as Dark Phoenix.
- Beast travels back in time to recruit the Silver Age X-Men in All-New X-Men #1 (2012).
- Some sort of explosion effect, probably intended to be the shuttle where Jean becomes Phoenix in X-Men #100-101.
- Dark Phoenix again.
- Jean as a child with her dying friend Annie Richardson, from the flashback in Bizarre Adventures #28 (this is where Jean’s telepathy emerges, which is why it’s a formative memory).
- The young X-Men with Kid Cable from the Extermination miniseries.
- Beast, Cyclops and Jean as members of X-Factor, apparently from the tail end of their run with the team.
- Jean in costume.
Page 2 panel 3. The desert is the (apparently symbolic) setting for the Krakoan exodus in Immortal X-Men. In Immortal X-Men #16, Exodus and Hope find a delirious Jean in the desert, babbling her dialogue from the end of the previous issue.
Page 2 panel 4. Jean’s focus shifts back to Madelyne. The real Madelyne isn’t here – as noted, she’s in Dark X-Men – so this is Jean’s memory of Madelyne asserting its control over her, or, if you prefer, Jean’s unresolved feelings about Madelyne manifesting as Madelyne herself. Madelyne’s comments about being “shackled” by Jean’s memories are to do with her lack of authentic memories of her own history beyond fragments of Jean’s history.
Page 2 panel 5. This is Hope from Immortal X-Men #16.
Page 2 panel 6. Jean seems to be briefly aware here of what happened at the Hellfire Gala.
Page 3. Again, Exodus and Hope are simply repeating their scene from Immortal X-Men #16. Jean is preoccupied with Madelyne and doesn’t pick up on the reference to the White Hot Room.
Page 4. We’ll get to the details of Inferno shortly. Note though that Madelyne – who is just an aspect of Jean – plays the narrator role for most of this issue, instead of Jean proper.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGES 6-8. Jean and Madelyne recap the original plot.
This is a basically straight recap of Madelyne’s history as it leads up to “Inferno”, the major summer crossover of 1989.
Mr Sinister. Madelyne’s actual back story as a creation of Mr Sinister is revealed in Uncanny X-Men #241, during Inferno itself.
“Awakened by the Phoenix Force.” This is also from Uncanny X-Men #241. The idea of the original story is that the Phoenix took part of Jean’s soul with it in X-Men #100-101 and tried to return it to Jean after she died on the moon. Because of the atrocities committed by Dark Phoenix, Jean rejected it, and it wound up animating Madelyne instead. “Inferno” was originally meant to be the point where Madelyne was reabsorbed back into Jean.
“I married Scott…” In Uncanny X-Men #175.
“…produced Nathan Christopher…” Nathan is born in Uncanny X-Men #200.
“…and was abandoned by Scott when he learned that you still lived.” Scott leaves Madelyne and Nathan to be with the recently-revived Jean Grey in X-Factor #1, which is a big part of Madelyne’s motivation but was widely seen as making Scott look pretty awful. Jean chips in to insist that Scott did try to return home and was led to believe that Madelyne was dead – this comes from X-Factor #13-15.
The rest of page 6 is the build-up to Inferno, during the X-Men’s Australia era.
“He found Christopher – he was cryogenically frozen, in a secret creche…” This fight with Nanny and the Orphan-Maker, and Nate being abducted by demons, comes from X-Factor #35, in the immediate run-up to Inferno. Jean’s “What If…?” turning point for this issue is “What if Jean had stopped the demons from abducting Nate?”
PAGES 9-13. Alt-Madelyne and Mr Sinister.
This confrontation with Sinister – including the stuff with the chains and Sinister challenging Madelyne to remember anything about her childhood – is an alternative version of Uncanny X-Men #241. Page 10 panel 2 is another flashback to Bizarre Adventures #27, and panel 3 is the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga in X-Men #137. N’Astirh’s reaction is different in the original story – he’s more excited about Madelyne’s uncontrollable power. Here, he’s worried that the plan is going off the rails and that Madelyne needs to be set back on track.
In the original story, two random demons attack Sinister, rather than N’astirh and S’ym, but we’re streamlining the story for thematic reasons. (As pointed out in the comments, specifically, the random demons in the original story are actually Jean’s transformed parents, but nothing really turns on that so far as this story is concerned.)
In this version, Madelyne is able to seize the techno-organic virus from S’ym (which was a big storyline about the demons of Limbo in New Mutants at the time), and turn herself fully into a non-human version of Jean Grey.
PAGES 14-15. Scott and Jean arrive back in New York.
This version of Inferno is actually quite tame compared to the original, where buildings were eating people. It seems to be mostly vines.
Ship was X-Factor’s headquarters at the time. It was a living spaceship that they liberated from Apocalypse.
PAGES 16-21. Jean fights Madelyne.
This doesn’t really fit the pattern of the previous two issues, of Jean herself going on a path which turns out to be self-destructive – instead, it’s just Madelyne being just as big a threat whether she successfully steals baby Nate or not. The key point is that the Phoenix Force shows up on page 18 to ask Jean to accept it and return to life – which fits with the idea that she’s reconstituting herself in the White Hot Room. Jean rejects the Phoenix Force altogether, and Madelyne destroys everything. The end.
PAGE 22. Jean tries again.
As she points out, she accepted the Phoenix in the real world, and over the last couple of issues she’s tried sending it to someone else and rejecting it altogether, and none of these options seem to work.
The various Jeans seen in the final panel are:
- On the far left, the hand of … well, almost any Jean that wore gloves.
- Another generic Jean who’s mostly off panel.
- Late Silver Age Jean in the green miniskirt and yellow mask.
- Dark Phoenix in red.
- Early Silver Age Jean in the black and yellow team uniform.
- 1990s Jean, talking to us.
- A burning Jean who I think is meant to be the version from “Here Comes Tomorrow”, at the end of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men. The most recent Jean here, in fact.
- Age of Apocalypse Jean Grey.
- A mostly obscured Jean who’s probably the sane version of Phoenix
- The left hand of Morrison/Quitely Jean Grey from New X-Men.
PAGE 23. Trailers. The Krakoan reads ASHES TO ASHES.
In this timeline, it’s Crotus that steals baby Cable. In the original Inferno, Crotus was guarding Archie and Leech while the baby was stolen.
If Jean wanted to prevent Inferno, wouldn’t the simplest way to be to alter things BEFORE Maddie became the Goblin Queen?
“If Jean wanted to prevent Inferno, wouldn’t the simplest way to be to alter things BEFORE Maddie became the Goblin Queen?”
She was not so much interested in preventing Inferno as in figuring out which of her past choices were wrong, as in previous issues.
Everything that led to Inferno had not been caused by her choices, but by the choices of others (Sinister, Cyclops, Illyana, N’Astirh, Maddie, etc.). The first occasion when one of his choices or actions could have influenced events is the kidnapping of Christopher.
@Midnighter- she could have, for example, confronted Scott BEFORE the Marauders attacked Maddie, found out he was married and gone to visit Maddie.
Minor correction, Paul: “E for Extinction” was Morrison’s first story arc. I think you mean “Here Comes Tomorrow.”
I read the original INFERNO. the two “random” demons who attacked Sinister were Jean’s parents, transformed by Maddie when she ran into them at Jean’s gravesite.
You’re absolutely right, they were – I’d forgotten that. It’s not really important to this issue, though – N’Astirh and S’ym are just being plugged into their role so that the plot can get to the point more quickly.
I’ll fix “E for Extinction” too.
Of all the issues so far, this one seems the most awkwardly structured. Too much exposition. It’s still fun to see everyone die in the classic “What If…?” style, but having Jean and Madelyne shout Inferno at each other for pages was kind of a slog. Love all the alt-Jeans gathered together at the end.
“@Midnighter- she could have, for example, confronted Scott BEFORE the Marauders attacked Maddie, found out he was married and gone to visit Maddie.”
Indeed. Or, if we’re really serious about finding an inflection point that would have in any way been related to Maddie/Inferno, how about when Jean rejected the Phoenix’s attempt to restore her while she was still sitting in that cocoon on the bottom of Jamaica Bay, leading to the vegetative Maddie being revived as the next-best option? It’s glossed over in this very issue, inexplicably turning instead on Jean’s “failure” to rescue Nathan Christopher? Further illustrating why these revisitations aren’t working: the checkpoints feel so random, not to mention falling short of making a compelling case for Jean botching anything (even if we’re operating on the notion that she’s driven by an undeserved sense of guilt). Why in the world would Jean blame herself for the abduction of a child whose existence she’d only recently learned about? She doesn’t make an egregious error that swings the tide against our heroes or anything. I realize that Inferno is a big deal in-universe, but how much does this really matter in the grand scheme of things? If Jean’s going to circle back on anything involving Nathan Christopher that would’ve undeniably had a major impact on future events, how about the time Apocalypse infected him with a horrific virus, leading to Scott literally sending him off to an unknown future? Again, she has no culpability in these events, so it’s not much, but her perceived “failure” to act in that case was far more meaningful than Nathan’s abduction at the start of Inferno (in which everything turned out basically fine).
So why such arbitrary flashbacks? Well, I suspect if our “What If?” did hinge on a genuine moment of truth, like cocoon Jean accepting the Phoenix with her whole heart or whatever (leaving Madelyne out of the equation altogether), that would’ve resolved the central premise of this mini an issue early. Which is to say, Jean’s pattern of “wrongdoing” has been her reluctance to fully embrace the Phoenix when the opportunity presents itself. Other than Uncanny #100 (and its associated back-up stories), in which Jean DID take that leap of faith to save the people she loved (and herself), she has historically kept the Phoenix at arm’s length. Upon her return in X-Factor, she adamantly insisted she was no part of nor wanted anything to do with the Phoenix, to the point of having a violent confrontation with a delusional Scott. Even during Maddie’s death in Inferno, Jean accepts what she previously rejected from the Phoenix only reluctantly, having no other choice. And in the aftermath, is tormented by confusion over her own identity, until purging the Phoenix/Maddie manifestation of her psyche as a literal blast of energy (at the conclusion of the oft-forgotten Judgment War in X-Factor).
That was the last word on the matter for years, aside from occasional teases (reclaiming the Phoenix codename, and later, costume), until we get to Morrison. It’s during this run that we seriously blur the lines once again between Jean and Phoenix, for the first time since the original Phoenix days, exploring the idea of an impending ascension for the mortal Jean. And yet, it still takes Wolverine’s mercy kill to get us over the finish line — implying that there was still something holding Jean back from reaching that point herself (I realize canonically this was simply in keeping with the “rule” that a Phoenix manifestation required a death/sacrifice, but work with me; the story was already playing fast and loose with the continuity as it stood).
Phoenix of course goes on to be killed in turn by Xorneto, and whatever glimpses we see of her after that for the next several years feature Jean-in-Phoenix mode (Here Comes Tomorrow, Endsong, AvX). Her status quo is not quite dead, but kicking it in the White Hot Room, trying to reconstitute all the pieces of the Phoenix (allowing for its many weird and occasionally contradictory usages in the intervening years). In other words, a direct continuation from her last, forced ascension at the hands of Wolverine.
When adult Jean finally DOES return, it’s at the behest of the Phoenix, but in a story VERY much about trying to put some distance between the two – plot-wise and metatextually. It’s a story very much about Jean reclaiming her own agency and identity outside of this cosmic entity, defining who she is absent external assumptions and expectations, and repeatedly refusing every “gift” the Phoenix offers her. In the end, she quite defiantly tells the Phoenix to go its own way without her. And part of me wishes that would be the end of it.
But like so many things, the Phoenix, and its connection with Jean, is one of those X-Men tropes that’s never going to stay in a box forever. So here we are, needing to come full circle and get back to a place where Jean embraces the Phoenix. Only it’s draped over this contrived, nonsensical premise of “what did I do wrong?” because Jean inexplicably blames herself for… the Hellfire Gala massacre? What? Where is any of this coming from? It’s there as a hook, something to hang this whole sequence of What If’s on, but one that feels incredibly forced and disingenuous to distract from the main mission of this story. One suspects editorial was always going to do whatever they needed to do to get back to a place of “Jean is resurrected as Phoenix and saves the day” in books more directly dealing with the aftermath of the massacre (like Immortal X-Men). From what I understand, this Jean mini was almost certainly conceived as an unrelated character study by classic creator, in the vein of the J.M. DeMatteis Magneto retrospective, but was repurposed as a Fall of X tie-in, however flimsily. I can’t help but think it does a disservice to the story Louise Simonson could be writing instead.
Here’s another problem- why does Jean think Hope and Exodus are dead? At the Gala, she reads Stasis’s mind, senses he’s planing on sending them to Mars, sees them pass through a teleportation gate and then dies. The X-Men don’t realize they’re not on Mars until after Jean dies. So Jean should think they’re on Mars, not dead.
Come to think of that, if the White Hot Room is an afterlife, why are they even there? Are they dead? What killed them? I guess Mother Righteous messed up the gates to send them there, but did that kill them in the process?
…and does that even matter if they’re in the resurrection room?
“(I realize canonically this was simply in keeping with the “rule” that a Phoenix manifestation required a death/sacrifice, but work with me; the story was already playing fast and loose with the continuity as it stood)”
I think that tracks. Earlier in the Morrison run, Jean seemed either oblivious to her Phoenix power-ups or actively concerned. She certainly didn’t seem fully accepting of the transformation. Wolverine’s “help” effectively removes any links to the “Jean” consciousness that’s resisting.
“Only it’s draped over this contrived, nonsensical premise of “what did I do wrong?” because Jean inexplicably blames herself for… the Hellfire Gala massacre?”
This would make a lot more sense if Jean had had a more active role during the Krakoa era. As it is she quit X-Force, quit the Quiet Council, and then quit the X-Men. She’s more notable by her absence than anything she’s actually done for the past 3 years. She’s Chekov’s Phoenix, which is unfortunate both because it underutilizes a character I like and because it’s super obvious.
“the Phoenix, and its connection with Jean, is one of those X-Men tropes that’s never going to stay in a box forever.”
Poor Jean. They wrote one really good story for her, and no one’s figured out what to do with her since. At this point, she’s either boring old Jean or boring old Phoenix. It’s time to move on.
“This would make a lot more sense if Jean had had a more active role during the Krakoa era.”
She quit X force and the Council because she felt that Krakoa was built on rot, brought back the X-Men as actual mutant outreach to the world and was taking a very active leadership role in direct counterpoint to the council,but wearing it lightly. I mean, she dragged Arakko to Mars basically on her own, she was the leader ending X of Swords, she was the main tank in AXE.
Apart from the first few months of Krakoa where she was in the stupid dress, she’s been a leader and following her own path since Morrison, through X-Men Red and through most of Krakoa.
I totally agree that at this point Phoenix is boring for her.
Interesting that Jean thinks of Nanny as “a being in egg-shaped armor” when it’s very unlikely that she’s unaware of who Nanny is, given the events of Hellions. It’s perfectly logical to assume that Simonson simply isn’t all that familiar with the details of the Krakoan era.
It seems to be a common trope — comic book writers seeming to lose interest in comics after their runs end — but since a lot of comic writers start out as fans, it just seems odd. Could be, not wanting to express an opinion on their successors; could be, disliking what was done after they left (Fabian Nicieza seems to be in this category based on interviews); or could be, loss of interest?