It's Coming. - From Marvel

[sherkahn]

It's Coming. ComicbookResources has the teaser image of what that is, but no word as to who is involved.





The return of the Phoenix. And all that implies.

Comments

[auggie18]

...why exactly is Jean a Mary Sue? I see that so much online and I've never really understood it. She's a nuanced character who has been developed up the wazoo. What about her makes her a Mary Sue?

[abriel]

The fact that she's always written as perfect. Mary Sue might be the wrong term since she's not a wish-fulfillment for the various writers...at least I hope not. But in every single arc she's been in, no matter who the writer, she's the center of the X-Universe. Everyone loves her. No one can find any fault in her. She's so perfect it's sick. The other female characters in the X-Men get shoved off to the side as the spotlight shines on her. Almost every major storyline features her getting the focus in some way. Phoenix, fine. Cool. Whatever. But Inferno? X-Cutioner Song? The recent crap over Hope, another redhead who might be the reincarnation of Jean?

She just gets rubbed into X-book readers' faces over and over again and, well, some of us have just gotten really sick of her and with all due respect to her fans I would rather she stay dead. She should have stayed dead in the first place. Marvel is flogging a dead horse (or bird in this case) by bringing this up over and over again. Far be it for anyone to come up with anything original or Heaven forbid put the focus on another powerful X-lady for a change.

But it's mostly the perfect thing. Jean is written consistently as this perfect flawless goddess whom the X-World revolves around. For me it's like BLAH enough already. Yes we get it...the Phoenix saga was the biggest X-story ever. It had major implications. It was epic. It was a well-put together story by Claremont and Bryne. Why do we need to keep flogging it again and again? And just for once can we have a character who can not like Jean without getting painted as a disrespectful catty shrew like Emma was during Morrison's run? Speaking of which yes I am aware that Morrison did his best to give Jean some personality flaws but by then it was a tad too little too late, at least for me.

So those are my issues with her basically.

[auggie18]

Flawless perfect goddess? When? Granted, I didn't read the X-men during the 90s, but in the other stuff I've read Jean's fallen pretty short of perfect. The original X-men stories, where she's consistently portrayed as the weakest member of group and she leaves to X-men to go college? The X-factor run, where she's short-tempered and impulsive? Grant Morrison's run, where she's getting disconnected from humanity as a whole?


Yeah, there was a lot of focus on her. Also a lot on Scott and Hank. They were founding members of the X-men and are big names in the mutant world. And, yeah, when the spotlight shined on her, other characters got pushed to the side. The same thing is true for every other character the spotlight shined on. Every time you got a Storm story or a Rogue story, other characters would get less attention.

Storm fits a lot of the same points you bring up. Everyone falls in love with her. Nobody can dislike her without being put in a negative light. She's more the primary X-lady than Jean, particular seeing as she's actually lead the team multiple times.

Ugh. Whatever. I'm just a little sick of the whole Jean's a Mary Sue because she's well-liked and powerful thing.

[abriel]

In the original X-Men stories, those were written in the 60s when there wasn't a single female character who wasn't written as weak and served the sole purpose of being the damsel in distress whom the male members of the group had to save. Jean just fulfilled the same role for them that Sue Storm did for the FF back then, that Wasp did for the Avengers, and so on.

X-Factor got together in the first place because of Jean. Heck Scott Summers even left his wife and infant son in order to be her.

And I already gave Morrison credit for trying to give Jean flaws but in my view it was too little too late.

Rogue and Storm do get the spotlight but not as often as Jean. Storm at least has changed and while she could be considered more the primary X-Lady, especially considering that she could very well be just as powerful as Jean if not more (without the parrot of course), she still doesn't get a lot of focus put on her. Looking at the X-Men stories she's basically been furniture for the past decade and probably will be so even more when Bendis gets ahold of her.

And gee, God forbid that I should have an opinion and express dislike of a character without someone jumping down my throat. This is often why I keep my mouth shut. Everytime I have the audacity to say that I can't stand Jean I end up with legions of Jean fans tearing into me. I mean really....I have a few favorites of mine whom I see consistently get attacked on message forums and such, even here. But at least I don't lose my shit. There are some characters some people are going to like, and some people are not going to like. Jean happens to be one I don't like. So excuse me.

[auggie18]

Look, I didn't want to make a thing about thing about this. Everyone's entitled to an opinion and I don't expect you to change yours. Jean's one of my favorite characters and I have a tendency to get sorta defensive of her because of the massive amount of fan-hate she gets. I'm sorry if I jumped on you.

[abriel]

I understand about getting defensive and I'm sorry for losing my temper. Like I said I have my favorites too.

[kenn_el]

Oddly enough, Jean's first HUGE flaw occurred accidentally. In the original series, Professor X was seemingly killed off in order to bring drama to the series, and for a couple of issues the team went solo, then came back together, though still thinking Charles was dead, and rather devastated at the loss. Just before the end of the run, Charles was brought back as a last ditch effort to save the title, with the revelation that it was all a ruse, and someone else had been buried in his place. As it didn't make sense for Jean not to be aware of the trick, it was also revealed that she knew all along and LIED to Scott and the others, faking her own bereavement. It's why I never understood the team's reactions when she went sort of 'dark' as Phoenix before going all out 'Dark Phoenix'. There was precedent.

[kenwyn89]

When's the last attempt at an X-Ladies title or has there ever been one? There *are* a lot of strong female characters (personality as well as power wise)- Storm, Jean Grey, Rogue, Kitty, Jubilee, Dazzler, Psylocke, Emma Frost, etc... I would read that.

[brooms]

but in every single arc she's been in, no matter who the writer, she's the center of the X-Universe.

i have a problem with this, too, tbh. i have no beef with phoenix-less jean grey, but the messianic nature of the grey-summers family in general grates.

this insistence of a mutant messiah figure also furthers isolates the x-men from the rest of the marvel universe, which i really don't think is a good idea.

[abriel]

That's one of the reasons I stopped buying the X-Books. I don't like how the X-Men seem to be in their own little universe to the extent that they might as well be published by another company since they don't interact with the rest of the MU much at all. I have a problem with a mutant messiah figure thing too. To me it kind of pushes the idea that mutants are a separate species and that they need a messiah to, I don't know, get elevated? I mean what exactly is the mutant messiah supposed to do? It just seems to me that the idea seems contrary to the whole "living in peaceful co-existence with normal humans" thing. Which of course the X-Men have been embracing for quite a number of years now.

They also keep going with the insistence that they are so oppressed because of their powers. What about other super-powered beings? The average person wouldn't be able to tell a mutant apart from someone who got their powers from exposure to cosmic rays or trained in magic for years....so wouldn't non-mutants have to fear oppression as well? The only difference between the two groups after all is that mutants are born with their abilities. But no the X-Men just keep insisting that mutants are somehow more special and need a messiah and such.

It's just mind-boggling to me. I finally got frustrated and with the exception of X-Factor which thankfully doesn't dwell on it I dropped the X-books.

[auggie18]

They had a scene in Generation X where a guy is yelling at Angelo because he didn't want a mutant saving his life. Angelo says "I'm not a mutant, I was bit by a radioactive elephant" and suddenly the guy is cool with him.


It's a pretty funny scene.