Uncanny X-Men #101

[iamrman]

JEEEAAANN!!

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

Imagine, if you will, a world in which the whole Phoenix storyline had not been written, and we’d been spared the enormous weight of its never-ending legacy…

[nyadnar17]

One of the best stories every written.....and not a year goes by when I don't question if maybe it shouldn't have been.

[obsidianwolf]

Yeah the PHoenix story arc is one of those stories that despite IMO still being a pretty good read is forever tainted cause folks just can't let it go. First with the retcons to bring Jean back and then every additional retcon piled on top again and again. Writers can't just settle on a status quo for PHoenix and live with it every writer has to try their hand at using the PHoenix in some grand way.

Then to make it worse they try to adapt the original Saga to film/tv/ultimate universes/etc and ignore most of the story in a mad dash to get to the Iconic ending resulting in not just a terrible adaptation but stripping the story of it's redeeming features and leaving the most annoying aspects front and center.

[beyondthefringe]

Exactly. There's been SO much baggage tacked onto the Phoenix -- hosts, cosmic mythology, its reason for existing, eighteen different entities billed as anti-Phoenixes--that it's become ridiculous.

I mean, Jean as Phoenix was the gold standard. Rachel as Phoenix was good. But everything else? The Phoenix Five? Echo? Old Man Logan? Quentin Quire?

Nah. The problem with a continuing universe is that every good story will inevitably be mined by writers down the road and most likely diluted or ruined with repeated visits. And the X-Men have a ton of those, like Days of Future Past... there's another X-story I wish would be allowed to rest.

[obsidianwolf]

Yeah I mean I get why it happens I get why it happens protecting trade mark, attempting to mine nostalgia for profit, fans who get the gig finally getting to do their own take on their idea of how it should have been.

it just results in me sometimes wishing for more of a split model with comic universes. An Evergreen(to borrow a toy term) one to maintain the Iconic Status quo of the characters and limited series set in their own universe to really explore an idea.

I mean take the Krakoa era if that was a set of Maxi Series set in their own version of Marvel that wasn't preemptively doomed to reset to the Status quo I think I would have liked it a lot better simply because it could have mattered long term and not just for a few cycles of change the mold and then go back to basics.

Of course then I think about all the headaches that would cause and how Marvel(and DC) are simply too big for it unlike Archie.

[mastermahan]

Ooh, a trip to Ireland! I just hope this doesn't get silly and/or kind of racist!

Have to appreciate Cockrum's face work making Disguised Kurt look like Errol Flynn rather than just Human Nightcrawler.

[cainofdreaming]

Ooh, a trip to Ireland! I just hope this doesn't get silly and/or kind of racist!

That would be the proverbial pot of gold of the wee folk at the end of the rainbow, yes.

[scorntx]

Of all the things in Claremont's long and... ... storied career, the Phoenix is probably his biggest mistake.
And poor Jean's never managed to get out from underneath it.

Also like how the issue gives no damn explanation whatsoever for how Jean is alive when she should be a Jean-sized pile of radioactive jerky.
"How'd she survive?"
"She just did!"
"But-"
"SHUT IT."

(gah, early Wolverine's a creep. And this is the start of the whole stupid love triangle nonsense.
Which is not a patch on the Phoenix in 'big missteps' stakes, but something I could personally live without.)

Now, I'm sure NASA had some very serious questions for Dr. Corbeau about that space shuttle of his he borrowed, the fact it got damaged and then sunk in Jamaica Bay, with the rest of the crew missing.
Pretty sure NASA takes losing their space shuttles pretty seriously, even without the substantial monetary cost.
... although I'm also sure Dr. Corbeau was easily able to explain his way out of things.
(Also he's apparently a medical doctor. Is there anything he can't do?
Rhetorical question; we know there isn't.)

We hadn't gotten to Muir Island yet, had we? Otherwise it's odd Moira didn't volunteer to let them crash at her facility.
Instead they have to go to Banshee's leprechaun filled deathtrap.
Maybe she just didn't want them to know she was keeping her evil and insane son locked up in the basement.
Plus, the only neighbour around in Reverend Craig, and he'd ruin any holiday.

[full_metal_ox]

Also like how the issue gives no damn explanation whatsoever for how Jean is alive when she should be a Jean-sized pile of radioactive jerky.
"How'd she survive?"
"She just did!"
"But-"
"SHUT IT."

“Somehow, Jean returned!”

[xammax]

Look the first two to three times are hacky, after that it's good fun.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I mean, you don't want to play all your cards in the first round there...

[rolzup]

I thought that the implication in the early issues -- and this has always been my headcanon -- was that Jean was so powerful that she was able to literally bring herself back to life, either rebuilding or healing her own body while also whipping up an objectively great costume.

[obsidianwolf]

Yeah IIRC that was the original idea. I believe it was even mentioned somewhere that Xavier said as she died all the mental blocks holding back her potential were removed and that's why she was able to rebuild herself and when she did she left the limiters off.

[tcampbell1000]

So many little details here I'd forgotten, ranging from the ridiculous to the ridiculously awesome.

Cyclops threatens Nightcrawler with death and it's fine. It's fine! Hey, give him a break, how often do you see your girlfriend die or apparently die? If you're Cyclops, the answer is about to be all the time, starting now. Only Daredevil might exceed his tally slightly, but only because he spreads himself around more over the years.

"HEAR ME, X-MEN, I AM FIRE AND LIFE INCARNATE, NO LONGER THE WOMAN YOU ONCE KNEW! LET THE WHOLE WORLD TREMBLE BEFORE MY AWESOME POW--[lapses into a coma]."

"A simple enough matter to use my powers to re-polarize the unstabled molecules of my costume into a Starcore uniform," says Storm. "What a plausible application for my electricity-adjacent powers! I think I'll do this all the time."

The X-Men wreck the Kennedy Airport twice in five issues.

The sassy-assed narrator clowns Wolverine so much that it might qualify as his archnemesis. "Not this time, bub. What, didn't you realize that friends hang close by when their friends are in hospitals? Oh...right...you never had any friends. Ha ha, wow! You utter loser."

That one panel of reactions, ranging from orgiastic joy to overwhelmed relief to Wolverine trying to fist-bump the air because at this point, he's not very used to expressing happiness without obnoxious sneering at somebody.

[scorntx]

-Cyclops threatens Nightcrawler with death and it's fine-
In fairness, early Claremont X-Men Nightcrawler's threatened with death, like, every issue.
That angry mob, the Frog-Guy, Wolverine, Kierrok the Damned, Wolverine, Juggernaut...

People just wanting to kill poor Kurt apropos of nothing is kind of His Thing right now, like getting beaten up is Colossus's thing.
He's probably got used to it by now.
(I'd say he eventually gets the consolation of a girlfriend, but A: She's his stepsister, and B: She only followed him to America to... stop their mother trying to kill him.)


There is hardly anything that out-sasses the Claremont Narration.
It goes for the throat, every time.

[tcampbell1000]

Oh, and how could I forget the sort-of-casual acknowledgment of Xavier's crush on his own student, that little wrinkle of Stan-and-Jack X-history that makes all of Claremont's kinks look vanilla by comparison? He does cushion it by saying "I thought I loved her at one time," but STILL.

[mplily]

Jean's dramatic poses are a blessing. Ascending in a streak of flame like the goddess she's become, fire and passion and power... and then swooning and fainting like a Victorian lady who just got a letter informing her that her faraway lover has died of tuberculosis.

[blues32]

Previously, on X-Men...

[zylly]

Other people have already said plenty upthread, so I’ll just say how uncomfortable all the casual mind wiping Chuck used to do is. I know that was typical of comics in general, and I know I remember Alex calling him on it at least once, but boy does it not come off good in present day.