Jean Grey... LIVES!
Originally Published October 1976
When we last saw our friends, the All-New, All-Different X-Men, Jean Grey was sacrificing herself in a guaranteed suicide mission to ensure they could return safely to Earth in Peter Corbeau's badly-broken space shuttle. Let's check in on her progress:
The shuttle sinks to the bottom of Jamaica Bay (which is in Long Island, not the Caribbean) but the X-Men manage to escape in time, except for Jean.
That is, until something uncanny happens...
After emerging from the water with a spectacular Dave Cockrum-designed look and a penchant for Claremontian declarations, Jean falls unconscious and is brought to the Hospital. The mystery of what Phoenix is, exactly, will have to wait for her awakening - if it ever occurs.
At the hospital, the X-Men fret over her health, none moreso than Cyclops who decides that the purpose of his life is not to lead the X-Men, but to love redheads, and that he may truly be lost without her.
However, he is far from alone in his concerns, as Professor X makes reference to the most regrettable panel in X-history to express his worry...
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| Och, Charles, ye knoo we preten' tha' ne'er happened! |
That's actually a really savvy panel, despite the lamentable reference to that accursed subplot. Here, Charles is explaining that he can't reach out to her telepathically because lately every time he tries to, he flips out and catches visions of his crazy space hallucination. It also quickly establishes that Charles either loved, or loves, Moira, which might be news to Banshee.
Also personally concerned is Wolverine, who went to the trouble of buying flowers for the first time in his life for a "frail," thinking such a nice gesture would give him a moment to really talk to Jean for the first time, and you know what Rilo Kiley says talking leads to...
He ditches the plan when he realizes that his gesture isn't special and that literally everyone he knows is already sitting vigil for Jean. You read that right - Wolverine is a "nice guy."
Eventually they get the news that Jean is going to make a full recovery soon. Professor decides he can't have all the X-Men hanging around the hospital until that happens, and commands them to take a group vacation. As it just so happens, Banshee has just been informed that he has inherited his ancestral home, Cassidy Keep, an insanely cool castle in Ireland.
So Banshee, Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler and Wolverine make the trip, but we see that something is amiss, as the mysterious Black Tom - whom we'd seen, partly, a few issues earlier - has already seized the castle with "Treachery" and has ill plans for the X-Men - as does his mysterious "friend" whose identity we also don't know.
Tom wastes no time making his move, waiting for the X-Men to be wandering down the right hallways on their way to dinner and...
Now, two of the X-Men can fly, one can teleport (vertically, I assume,) and two probably have the strength to stop themselves on the wall, but instead of bothering with this, they let themselves plummet into the lap of Black Tom and his friend...
The frickin' Juggernaut, yo!
And as if they didn't have enough trouble, Storm is reminded that they are in a confined space and has a claustrophobia attack! Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Further Thoughts:
Top to bottom, this is probably the best issue so far of the new Claremont-Cockrum regime (I assume I'll be saying that over and over again) beginning with that incredible, iconic resolution to last month's cliffhanger. The Phoenix reveal is so striking and ostentatious it leaves the reader begging to know what it means that Jean Grey is now "Phoenix" (besides being fire and life incarnate etc etc.) but it doesn't feel like a copout that she has to get sidelined in the hospital for a while.
Following that, the scenes at the hospital are given the exact appropriate amount of length and weight - we hear from the X-Men all grieving and worried, but are told soon enough that everything will be fine with Jean, eventually. No need to drag it out - we savvy comic readers know they wouldn't kill off another character already (would they??)
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| Did you know that when Wolverine retracts his claws they go 'snakt'? It was either that or 'tkins' I suppose. |
The issue spends not a panel more than it needs to on this, but the quick resolution don't downplay the gravity of the situation or diminish our interest in the fate of Jean - it kind of respects us as readers to not drag it out. It does, however, offer a change of pace as the X-Men in Ireland have a chance to get very lighthearted before being entrapped, bantering about the quality of Irish roads, and Nightcrawler showing off what his image inducer can do...
All in all, the individual issue shows what would end up being the strength of the early All New, All Different X-Men: the ability to craft lengthy, serialized stories that keep you coming back, but also imbuing each individual part of the story (you know, the 20-page comic you were holding that month) into a worthwhile read in itself, not burdened with padding.
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| Sad Wolverine is not padding! |
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