After her recent death, Jean Grey has taken some time to reflect on what led her there. Jean Grey #4 forces our hero to see that these posthumous meditations might be a bit more real than she once thought. Closing out the limited series are Louise Simonson, Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo, VC’s Ariana Maher, and Sarah Brunstad. Titled “Ashes to Ashes,” this final issue shows that Jean is still full of fire as she approaches what comes next.
The miniseries’ past three issues found Jean playing out what-ifs about important choices she’s made across her entire publication history. Jean realizes all too late that she’s in the White Hot Room, and she isn’t alone. Visions of Hope and Exodus confound her, and legions of other Jeans have come to confront her. In this place of pure, instinctual creation, Jean’s hypotheticals have taken on a degree of reality to the point where Jean must answer for the ways she has treated herself.
The divergent teen Jean from issue #1 berates Jean, emphasizing that trying to change her past choices betrays a deep distrust of herself. The second issue’s divergent Marvel Girl compels Jean to see that she forced each of these hypothetical selves into living nightmares. This has not been an exercise in self-reflection, but instead one of rumination and emotional self-harm. Arrogance is rooted so deeply here that Jean’s baseline assumption throughout the series has been that the Fall of X is entirely her fault, and only now can she admit that she’s been punishing herself for it since then.
On top of this, issue #3’s hypothetical Madelyne Pryor reminds our lead of all the unforeseen consequences of her choices. If she had responded to the Phoenix differently, Maddie never would’ve been alive; a woman Jean now considers a sister would simply have never come to be. Finally, Jean faces the Phoenix once more, who has also come home to roost in the White Hot Room. With her comes the reminder of the larger elements at play.
Credit: Marvel Comics
Thus far, emotional self-flagellation has brought Jean nothing but more pain, and has borne no effect against the suffering mutantkind still faces during the Fall of X. It is the passion of Jean’s love that drew the Phoenix to her, and it seems that Jean is learning that hatred of self has only ever led to more harm being done, especially when the Phoenix is involved. Jean’s future remains a mystery, but one thing is for certain: Jean and the Phoenix are one once more, and they aim to bring forth something new.
Chang and Maiolo are keenly aware that this issue is a finale, and they make the most of it. The four different full-page spreads throughout this issue are immediate standouts. Phoenix fire and doppelgänger drama is handled with expert hands in a book that is beautiful from start to finish. Again, special attention must be brought to the way these two render eyes: in the way that Simonson’s writing elevates the book’s premise, the expressiveness of Chang and Maiolo’s eye-work elevates the feelings of every scene.
If anything hinders this final installment, it is the feeling that its resolution is a foregone conclusion. There has been little to no doubt among audiences that a reunion between Jean Grey and the Phoenix would be the final climax of the limited series, and they weren’t wrong. Of course, Simonson’s writing elevates this issue and the book as a whole beyond such a simple premise, transforming it into a meaningful character study for one of Marvel’s biggest characters. That being said, the burden remains on Immortal X-Men and X-Men: Forever to really justify why these two needed to be together again.
In Jean Grey #4, Jean bonds with the Phoenix once more, rising from hellfires of her own making. She may not love every choice she’s ever made, but Jean is beginning to understand that not giving herself some grace about those mistakes would lead to even greater disaster for her and those she loves now. Jean has to trust herself; at the end of the day, that’s all she has.
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