Overall, the Jean Grey miniseries – now collected in the aptly titled Jean Grey: Flames of Fear trade paperback – is much better than the average comic on the shelf, even if it lacks what I was really hoping for. The first three of the four issues end up being Jean-centered What If stories. At the same time, the miniseries ties into the concurrent Fall of X stories of the X-Men’s Krakoan-Era. But most importantly, it serves to bring Jean and the Phoenix back together. That’s a lot to accomplish in just four issues.
A little background: the Phoenix has most often been intrinsically connected to Jean ever since it was first introduced in Chris Claremont’s classic run on Uncanny X-Men. For better or worse, Jean and the X-Men as a whole could never really get away from the Phoenix for long. Some creators did great things with the Phoenix – like Grant Morrison in New X-Men. Too many others sullied the Phoenix mythos in countless ways. It came to the point that Jean needed to divorce herself from the Phoenix – which happened in 2018 in the Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey miniseries.
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However, since the beginning of Kieron Gillen’s Immortal X-Men series, it seemed clear the Phoenix would be returning to the X-Men and specifically Jean. The Jean Grey miniseries is simply the way the X-Office at Marvel decided to bring about this return.
And they made a great choice by bringing back Louise ‘Wheezie’ Simonson to write the story. Simonson – based on her years editing Claremont on Uncanny X-Men as well as writing the original X-Factor – knows and understands both Jean and the Phoenix better than anyone. From the first page, I was amazed at how natural and familiar Jean’s voice, as penned by Simonson, sounds. Throughout the miniseries, Simonson is able to explore Jean’s history and psyche in a complex, yet relatable way.
Still, I was a bit let down at how this exploration played out. As I mentioned before, the first three issues aren’t much more than Jean-centered What If stories. Not exactly what I was hoping for.
The first issue is definitely my favorite. The oversized page count gives Simonson and artist, Bernard Chang, the space to pace the story well. It revolves around the idea of what would happen, if the original five X-Men didn’t lose their memories of the time they spent in the future during the All-New X-Men series.
In retrospect, it’s weird how similar the plot to Jean Grey #1, which came out in September 2023, is to The Original X-Men one-shot that came out in December. But, Jean Grey #1 is much, much better. The pacing is more exciting with less exposition. The dialogue less forced. The characters more realistic. And a comparison of those two comics really highlights the strengths of the artistic team for Jean Grey.
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Both Bernard Chang and Greg Land have a tendency to focus on the sexuality of the female form. But Chang doesn’t exploit it quite as much as Land, with a few exceptions. Chang’s images also look more natural and dynamic than Land’s copy and trace style. The facial expressions of Chang’s characters, often seen in close-up panels, display a wide variety of both strong and subtle emotions.
Many of the pages throughout the miniseries jump out with a wow factor. I have to point out the first double-page spread of issue #1. The issue is titled Mind Maze, so Chang turns the white panel borders into a literal labyrinth. Marvel should turn it into a poster or downloadable background.
A lot of the wow factor also has to be attributed to colorist, Marcelo Maiolo. Certain images and effects, like Jean’s telekinetic power, really glow. Many images pop with bright contrasting colors. He also creates near perfect shading on the already mentioned close-ups, adding to the realism of the facial expressions.
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Getting back to the story: issue #2 asks, “What if Wolverine originally hosted the Phoenix instead of Jean way back in Uncanny X-Men #99 & #100?” Issue #3 then explored a ‘What If’ involving Jean’s relationship to Madelyne Pryor during the original Inferno crossover. Unfortunately, both issues suffer from the constraints that the lower page-count places on them. The story in each just doesn’t have the space to fully form, before it has to be concluded.
All three ‘What If’ scenarios found in the first three issues explore, in one way or another, the descent into destruction and evil, when a main character uses near unlimited power to force their own, selfish, desires or ambitions. Of course, this theme is familiar to all fans of The Dark Phoenix Saga.
And so, issue #4 finds Jean wrestling both with her own psyche as well as the Phoenix, as they attempt to find a better way to live together. The issue sums up but also expands upon the major lessons of the first three issues. For me, this redefines and redeems those issues as actually having something to add to Jean’s present and future, rather than just being about the past.
Also, this final issue gets into what I was hoping the whole series would be about – the Phoenix mythos and its relationship to Jean Grey. I understand that it would probably be hard to fill a whole miniseries with this subject, but I would’ve been more interested in that than three ‘What if’ stories, even when they are told by an excellent creative team.
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In the end, the miniseries concludes exactly how we all were expecting. The problem, though, is that the story is incomplete. Due to the ties to the larger Fall of X story, the actual conclusion comes in Gillen’s Immortal X-Men #17.
I do have one more minor gripe about the collected trade paperback. Why in the world did the editor put Derrick Chew’s computer animated cover on the front of this book instead of one of Amy Reeder’s four gorgeous main covers? I mean, I know the answer. But, seriously, just look at Reeder’s covers!
In conclusion, for what it is, the Jean Grey: Flames of Fear collection is a very good miniseries held up by the strength of writer Louise Simonson and artist Bernard Chang. I was hoping for more Phoenix mythos than “What If” stories, but with these creators, I can’t complain too much.
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