Jean Grey’s Telling on Herself Again in X-Men #4

Though the X-Men’s extra bombastic melodramatics have typically pulled focus in Marvel’s current comics—just like the mutants declaring themselves the brand new rulers of Mars—there have been different, smaller particulars suggesting essential developments which have but to completely play out on the web page. Take, for instance, Jean Grey’s return to utilizing her personal Marvel Girl code title and costume that she first started sporting again within the late ‘60s.

With all that Charles Xavier and his X-Men have been getting up to as of late—espionage, throwing a gala (where Wanda Maximoff died), terraforming Mars, and so on—no one’s had the bandwidth to think about the quick oddness and potential implications of Jean shifting again into her Marvel Girl persona. Perhaps as a result of the X-Men are all making an attempt to get slightly down time in X-Men #4, from author Gerry Duggan, artist Javier Pina, colorist Erick Arciniega, and letterer Clayton Cowles, Jean’s newfound fondness for classic comes up in a narrative that explores among the deepest fears that lurk within the mutant heroes’ subconsciousnesses.

Though not fairly as a direct connection as what not too long ago introduced the Avengers to Krakoa, the occasions that play out in X-Men #4 are additionally tied to what’s been taking place with the Avengers these days. At the top of the primary difficulty of Death of Doctor Strange, the current day Sorcerer Supreme was, nicely, useless on the ground after having been abruptly attacked in a way similar to the Scarlet Witch.

While one other model of Stephen Strange from the previous stepped into the image inside moments of the opposite’s demise, the transient time by which the Earth not had a correct Sorcerer Supreme was sufficient for most of the magical boundaries between Earth and different dimensions to come back crumbling down. As a results of these boundaries breaking, it grew to become a lot simpler for beings like Nightmare of the Fear Lords to cross over into the Earthly aircraft, and after manifesting himself in New York City on Halloween eve, Nightmare pays the sleeping X-Men slightly nighttime go to.

As a robust demon who attracts energy from folks’s fears, and has a selected knack for manipulating the desires of sleeping people, Nightmare delights in having the liberty to prance about city with out the worry of Doctor Strange speeding out to place him again in his place. Though the X-Men’s Treehouse is stuffed with folks whose psyches are ripe for terrorizing, Nightmare’s particularly drawn to Scott Summers and Jean Grey’s mattress, and it’s unclear how a lot of what he sees there’s a results of his affect versus merely being what’s within the mutants’ minds.

While looking by means of Cyclops’ night time terrors, which Nightmare finds fairly stale typically talking, he witnesses numerous eventualities by which the frequent X-Men chief’s apologizing to those that love and depend on him. Despite the cordial working relationship he now maintains with Emma Frost, and the… considerably steady romantic relationship he’s established with Jean, Scott nonetheless carries anxiousness and remorse over his earlier entanglements with each ladies. On some degree, Scott’s additionally nonetheless grappling with the worry that he may one way or the other disappoint Xavier and Magneto, though he’s discovered himself decidedly at odds with each males within the waking world as of late.

Everything about Cyclops’ desires—particularly the imaginative and prescient of himself in a coffin with a “Cyclops Was Wrong” signal hanging round his neck—comes throughout as very on-brand for Scott when you think about what kind of individual he’s at all times been. It’s Jeans desires, although, that basically catch Nightmare’s consideration, doubtlessly due to how her psychic mindscape is of course extra sturdy and well-produced than Scott’s. It stands to cause that even within the deadest of sleeps, Jean would by no means be as express as Scott about what’s regarding her due to the years she’s spent build up her psychic defenses towards assault. In Jean’s desires, Nightmare first sees her coming to a mutant faculty in her authentic X-Men costume that matched Xavier’s different early college students. As Jean strikes by means of the college and encounters Emma, her costume abruptly transforms by means of the magic of dream logic into the basic Marvel Girl getup she’s been sporting since her resurrection in House of X.

Even although the trade between Emma and Jean takes place in her thoughts, and this Emma’s extra of Jean’s thought of a snob quite than the actual factor, her assertion that the Marvel Girl costume isn’t for Jean feels particularly important given the costume’s historical past, and what’s been happening with the Phoenix in Marvel’s comics these days.

Jean first began sporting her iconic, however quite impractical gown/masks/gloves ensemble again in X-Men #39, after she’d not too long ago returned to the X-Men’s faculty in upstate New York from a quick stint at Metro College in New Jersey. Jean’s new costume was launched at a time when the unique X-Men had all technically graduated from Xavier’s faculty, and have been transitioning into a brand new, extra mature section of their lives when their identities changing into much more solidified. The inexperienced gown and Jean’s Marvel Girl codename continued to be her signatures proper up till X-Men #100, the problem by which Jean sacrificed her life with a purpose to save the remainder of the X-Men throughout an emergency crash touchdown from area. By X-Men #101, the start of “The Phoenix Saga,” the inexperienced gown was gone, and Jean’s life as Marvel Girl actually got here to an finish in a metanarrative sense, as that arc went on to basically change the character’s trajectory in Marvel’s historical past.

In one gentle, Jean’s donning of her previous Marvel Girl duds within the X-Men’s present period has generally felt like her try at taking possession of an previous identification, with a purpose to re-establish who she was as an individual earlier than the world ever knew her as an avatar of the Phoenix. But on the identical time, Jean choosing an identification she first constructed again when she was recent out of childhood has been considerably suspicious, not due to something particular that Jean herself has performed, however due to Charles Xavier’s propensity for, and historical past of, manipulating his college students. There’s been one thing quite off-placing about Jean, a grown girl who’s been combating to redefine herself and her personal her autonomy, dressing up as her teenage self whereas so most of the different X-Men have been comfortably residing of their maturity. This could be bizarre sufficient even when the literal teen Jean hadn’t not too long ago determined to return to her personal previous, nevertheless it’s made all of the extra doubtful by the truth that the Phoenix has been hanging out with a brand new host following Marvel’s current Enter the Phoenix occasion.

When final Jean and the Phoenix have been on talking phrases, Jean tearfully advised the fiery burning that the 2 weren’t wholesome for each other, and it could be for the perfect in the event that they parted methods completely. In bonding with Maya Lopez, the vigilante referred to as Echo, the Phoenix gave the impression to be transferring on from its breakup with Jean and getting again to its roots by bonding with one other fist-fighter considerably just like the ancient Iron Fist it who once wielded it. Much as everybody’s grown weary of the Jean and Phoenix’s theatrics, the Phoenix coming into Echo’s life has been a quite curious improvement, given the Phoenix’s historical past of tending to empower solely those that can naturally maintain its huge energies.

In the previous, most different Phoenix Force hosts who’ve been capable of correctly use its powers have been psychics—like Jean, Quentin Quire, and Emma Frost—whereas non-psychics just like the Phoenix Five may solely preserve its may for comparatively brief intervals. In the time after Marvel break up Jean and the Phoenix, the writer put some effort into making clear that her personal innate, omega degree psionic means is what at all times made her and the flaming chook such good suits for each other, and even with out the Phoenix’s assist, Jean’s a pressure in her personal proper. X-Men #4 emphasizes this concept as Jean, now fairly awake, finds Nightmare rifling round in Laura Kinney’s thoughts, and simply drags him out into the open to let him know that he picked the flawed folks to mess with.

What feels telling about Jean’s combat with Nightmare, as she bandies him about earlier than flinging him off into the space, is how intent she appears on pontificating to him in her greatest “mutant and proud” PR voice. There’s an earnest honesty in Jean’s phrases as she initiatives the night time of the Hellfire Gala into Nightmare’s thoughts to point out him how she opened up her head to the get together’s visitors about her honest want to atone for the Phoenix’s actions. Even although Nightmare could be thought of one of many lesser demonic entities Marvel’s magic customers have confronted, the way in which Jean simply journeys the conceptual worry monger up is a formidable show of the exact same powers that first attracted the Phoenix to her.

As Jean settles again right down to the Treehouse after disposing of Nightmare, all appears proper with the world as soon as once more, however the truth the one one else appears to have been stirred by the psychic commotion, and the way in which that Jean psionically encourages everybody into deeper sleep cycles is attention-grabbing to think about. The Emma we see might have solely been a projection of Jean’s thoughts expressing an anxiousness about her style selections, however there’s additionally the likelihood that the subtext of Jean’s dream must be taken extra severely. Jean may not be the official or technical Phoenix operating round Marvel’s comics, however some a part of her doesn’t really feel fairly proper concerning the return of Marvel Girl both, and the query now’s whether or not that a part of her is one thing that Jean’s going to have the ability to hold shutting up inside.

X-Men #4 is in shops now.

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