Jean should break-up with the Phoenix

By HexThis January 9, 2011 2 Comments

 

 

 I said it. Jean is one of my favorite characters and I think what distinguishes her from other heroes is that she doesn't actually seem to fit well under her alter-ego, she's predominantly been identified as Jean Grey which is something that beautifully contradicts the superhero genre in a way I'm unwilling to let go of. She's been Marvel Girl and she's been The Phoenix but being that the Phoenix has infested a number of different hosts over the years, it's too fluid to be sustained within Jean. And I know, I know, I know, it was said that Jean is the Phoenix and the Phoenix is Jean in "Endsong" but frankly that doesn't hold water. 
 
The Phoenix is not unlike a parent of Jean's, it can take credit for her creation but not who she has come to be at all. It literally is in her genetic makeup to be a host for the Phoenix BUT the whole reason Jean exists as a separate identity at all is because the Phoenix shattered into a million pieces and as such Jean is a product of the Phoenix's failure to manage it's own power. As a fragment of the Phoenix force, she's a part of it but I'm afraid the division of the Phoenix force has also given Jean an entirely different identity than the Phoenix force itself. She's established relationships, meaningful bonds, morals, principals, convictions- these aren't the traits of a god, they're the traits of a human and they've all accumulated through Jean's existence and experience as a human being. That can't be undone, the Phoenix Force could consume Jean again to retrieve it's sense of humanity but being that she's already forfeited so

much of her life to its existence doesn't that mean she's entitled to a life of her own at this point? The Phoenix force is all-powerful and it can't even grant the very heart of it's being with the freedom to live on it's own? Surely it could just relinquish Jean's life and body, give it back to the world and take from her all the power it instilled within her. The Phoenix should pour everything Jean was as a person into a new vessel (Hope, maybe?) and withdraw itself from constant intrusion in her life. 
 
Because, let's face it, the Phoenix Force has been the source of all Jean's turmoil for a very long time. It's forced Logan to torture her repeatedly by stabbing her in the gut, it forced her to explode herself into a million pieces after the Shi'ar trials, her whole family was killed to prevent the Phoenix force from living again, and it has taken away from

years upon years of her life. How could anything responsible for all this mayhem have no appreciation for the suffering it's indirectly forced upon a piece of it's own being? And would removing Jean from the picture and having her serve it for all time really provide such a great alternative anyways? Those memories of Jean's life were all creations of Jean's, not some celestial force that went about it's way without her. She owes it nothing but the Phoenix Force owes Jean everything. 
 
Also, from an almost editorial standpoint, the Phoenix's inclusion in the X-men/MU mythology may be exciting but it's not terribly interesting. "The Phoenix Saga" and it's main appeal actually has nothing to do with the Phoenix, I'm so disappointed we've all lost sight of that, it's about Jean and her struggle with power, her indecision about sacrifice, the centric role she had established as a founder of the X-men. Jean was a character before the Phoenix force even entered the picture and plenty of who she established as in the beginning has been disregarded. Her trauma over losing her best friend and subsequent catatonia, her relationship with Scott and how dependent he was on her to get him out of his shell, and the struggle to maintain her powers in a way that still was metered back enough to keep her from liberally invading minds and spreading telepathic influence- whenever any of these concepts are explored it always ends with Jean being maimed, killed, tortured, or exploded into oblivion in the name of the Phoenix force. Has she no other pathos? Even after the Saga, she lost her sister and after "Endsong" she lost her entire family...so why on earth could any of us readers really care about inter-dimensional timeline reconstruction and cosmic scales in need of balancing past any humanly comprehension? The rich, bustling with potential character of Jean is always snuffed by this. 
 
I'm sorry but if Marvel or the fans or anyone at all wants Jean back, the only guarantee, the only plausible way that can happen is without the Phoenix force because she certainly isn't around now because of it.    

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