I would have included the fight with the Imperial Guard, but it would just be the X-Men fighting characters I hate. I decided to concentrate on the important moment instead.
So after thirty six issues of stating, pretty unequivocally, that Phoenix is actually just Jean's power pushed to its utmost ("the ultimate expression of her abilities as a psi!"), suddenly it's The Phoenix, and a separate entity who's been lodging inside Jean all along, and apparently no-one noticed before.
Oh and apparently the Phoenix is something the Shi'ar knew all about, but apparently didn't feel the need to tell the X-Men at any point before the fight. But then, they're Shi'ar.
But it's alright, because this wasn't actually Jean, just the Phoenix pretending to be Jean, but having imitated her so perfectly it forgot it wasn't Jean and therefore was acting exactly as Jean would have. So Jean's innocent of Phoenix's crimes, except she isn't, except she is, except she isn't and... Could've just not had her wipe out the sodding broccoli people, and we could have avoided this whole stupid, sorry mess.
It's case of trying to have your cake and eating it too gone insanely out of control. And forty years of middling to terrible adaptations followed...
("Down with stuff!")
And another occasion where Claremont's need to over-narrate ruins the moment. Jean (or whoever) sacrificing herself to save everyone and die while still herself? Poignant. Scott then rambling for several panels more and a whole page of Uatu then butting in and spouting off some guff explaining this for the thick kids in the class? Ruins it. Just let the damn moment stand on its own.
(... still think the 90s animated version of this was better. But then, not like it's got a lot of competition.)
This one still holds up pretty well, despite everything that happened after. It's a high point in the careers of Claremont and Byrne...and also Jim Shooter, who was right to insist on karmic justice for genocide.
I've always been amazed at the editorial goings on with this particular story. A major change like that, at the very last minute... it's a miracle it turned out even remotely okay, let alone one of the most memorable X-Men stories.
I'm not 100% sure I agree with Shooter's declaration that Jean had to die, since it was a case of "went mad with power" rather than "coldly and deliberately and willfully murdered people", but destroying an entire planet is pretty hard to come back from. (And then Claremont and Byrne would start getting into it with each other with the Trial of Galactus and its lead up).
But the one thing I do know is, as much as I liked X-Factor, and as much as Scott and Jean are my big X-ship... she should have stayed dead. The stark finality of this shouldn't have been broken.
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Oh and apparently the Phoenix is something the Shi'ar knew all about, but apparently didn't feel the need to tell the X-Men at any point before the fight.
But then, they're Shi'ar.
But it's alright, because this wasn't actually Jean, just the Phoenix pretending to be Jean, but having imitated her so perfectly it forgot it wasn't Jean and therefore was acting exactly as Jean would have.
So Jean's innocent of Phoenix's crimes, except she isn't, except she is, except she isn't and...
Could've just not had her wipe out the sodding broccoli people, and we could have avoided this whole stupid, sorry mess.
It's case of trying to have your cake and eating it too gone insanely out of control.
And forty years of middling to terrible adaptations followed...
("Down with stuff!")
And another occasion where Claremont's need to over-narrate ruins the moment.
Jean (or whoever) sacrificing herself to save everyone and die while still herself? Poignant. Scott then rambling for several panels more and a whole page of Uatu then butting in and spouting off some guff explaining this for the thick kids in the class? Ruins it.
Just let the damn moment stand on its own.
(... still think the 90s animated version of this was better. But then, not like it's got a lot of competition.)
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I'm not 100% sure I agree with Shooter's declaration that Jean had to die, since it was a case of "went mad with power" rather than "coldly and deliberately and willfully murdered people", but destroying an entire planet is pretty hard to come back from. (And then Claremont and Byrne would start getting into it with each other with the Trial of Galactus and its lead up).
But the one thing I do know is, as much as I liked X-Factor, and as much as Scott and Jean are my big X-ship... she should have stayed dead. The stark finality of this shouldn't have been broken.
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