2. Jean Grey #11
Written by Dennis Hopeless. Art by Victor Ibanez.
This was kind of disappointing to me, but was by no means bad. Felt like an unfulfilling end to a series that has, overall, been very entertaining. It leaves a sour taste behind, yet almost every issue leading up to this was extremely enjoyable. It made me quite sad, actually, as I assumed this would have been the cathartic, emotional highlight of the week.
The plot doesn't really follow up on the key points of interest from both the previous issue and Phoenix Resurrection. There were questions that went unanswered and this makes my overall image of this book poorer. This is sad, as I have adored almost every issue leading up to this, but part of that enjoyment came from following this mystery. Without a good resolution to that, I can't see myself going out to buy the trades for this series despite my previous interest. This series will end up as a footnote of X-Men history, rather than something significant and beloved, I think.
The story follows Jean in what feels more like an epilogue than a finale, where very little takes place in any kind of home or tangible reality. There are good moments and characterisations, with Ibanez's art being as you would expect from his previous high quality work on this series, a highlight being Magik's small appearance. Hopeless has shown his capability in writing a lot of X-Characters that have become periphery of later years. Hope Summers, Emma Frost, Magik, Doctor Nemesis, Colossus and Domino have all been done right by his pen, so I'd like to see him given another chance on a team-based X-Book. All-New X-Men, his previous series, had too much baggage and little room to allow the story that Hopeless seemed more interested in; his post-Apocalypse Wars, pre-IvX issues being the only ones that seemed to deliver on his intended X-Men road-trip. I was not a fan of the All-New X-Men series, but Jean Grey (and his other work) has shown that Hopeless is a clear asset to the X-Office and should not be let go so easily.
The issue revisits previous Phoenix hosts, but gets muddled in that we have already revisited some of these characters in this series, making those who don't show up here feel missed, and that, with Jason Aaron's Legacy one-shot, there was a new Phoenix host retconned into history. These are minor appearances, but several minor appearances that come to form the majority of the book. They all feel wrong. But nothing quite feels so off as the final page.
Spoilers follow.
The resurrected Jean Grey welcomes young Jean back to Madripoor. It's nice to see Madripoor in the book again, as I'm a firm believer multiple books should be used to develop the context of the line, but this just doesn't feel like a finale. It very clearly isn't. Yet, where will this be picked up? In X-Men Red? It doesn't seem like it. Jean tells her younger self they need to talk, likely to explain the many missing pieces of information from this storyline, but we have no idea when and where that talk is going to happen.
It worked as an issue in and of itself, but failed within its wider context. This can be tolerable, but there was too much riding on this issue. Both the Jean Grey series and the Phoenix Resurrection event are weaker because of this book. The preceding issue 10 was a tour-de-force, the real pinnacle of the series. In many ways, that should have been the finale, rather than this decent, but unsatisfying close.
1. Phoenix Resurrection #5
Written by Matthew Rosenberg. Art by Leinil Francis Yu.
This final chapter really did a lot of work in reconciling the slow pace of previous issues, making this one of the better instalments of the mini-series. I think part of that is to do with Yu's art, which feels of a higher class than the other creatives who worked on this book, but it is also due to Rosenberg's respectful approach to a reader's emotional investment in this series. While Old Man Logan being here dates the series and makes it feel less relevant to the grander X-Men franchise than it should (Old Man Logan is a character with a time limit), the focus on Jean, and her emotional relationship with the Phoenix, is good pay-off to the previous issues' slow burn.
Both books this week suffer from poor explanation, I don't understand what the Phoenix did in PR and I don't understand what the mirage of older Jean was in Jean Grey (though I can take some guesses). There is no liberating moment where the reader gets the solution to the mystery, leaving both books feeling emptier and shallower than I'd like. Where Phoenix Resurrection edges out though is in its emotional climax. We finally get Jean back and it feels good and there's another more resonant moment that I'll talk about below a spoiler warning. Jean is the star of the book, at long last, and her return, while explained in a less than satisfying way, is a welcome one.
This issue was both a highlight and a disappointment. It's one of the better issues of the series, but it also leans to heavily on audience expectations of what an X-Story should be. It raises the overall standard for Phoenix Resurrection though and is a fulfilling conclusion, emotionally, if not logistically.
Spoilers follow.
Scott Summers gets to return to life, briefly, as the Phoenix resurrects him to torment Jean, hoping she'll embrace the power offered in order to save her loved ones. It is a tender, heart-wrenching moment that, while situated in Jean, felt very satisfying as a Cyclops fan. It does, unfortunately, retread a classic X-Men moment, Jean holding back Scott's optic blasts, and the reruns of classic X-Men moments in this series does get somewhat tiresome.
Without a doubt, one of my biggest takes from this mini is Scott Summers new last words. "I'll always love you, Jean Grey." has far more of a kick than his M-Pox riddled begging to Emma Frost on Muir Island and hopefully this new Phoenix-gifted corpse will be allowed a more meaningful resting place, perhaps even a memorial at the institute. I have some problems with the depiction here, but this feels true to both the wider history of the franchise and the PR story itself, which has been fundamentally Jean's story.
Regardless, all of this has me incredibly excited for X-Men Red and I feel blessed that I only have to wait a week for that first issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment