X-MEN #35: Sunset Grace

No, "who" is correct

Originally Published August 1994

To begin with... guess who's back!

That's right, the honeymooners Scott and Jean have returned from their sojourn to the post-apocalyptic (or really just Apocalyptic) future -- which you can read all about in an exclusive post on our Ko-Fi. To them, twelve years passed while they played dystopian family with baby Nathan, but back in our time it was only a few hours when our heroes were discovered bobbing unconscious in the surf at St. Bart's. That was enough time for SHIELD to discover them, bring them to the safety of the Helicarrier, and dress their prone, unresponsive bodies in kooky alternative versions of their iconic uniforms (they were wearing swimsuits when they left.)

It was also enough time for them to surgically graft two bowling balls to Jean's chest.

They express surprise and alarm, but Nick Fury could not be less curious what they're babbling about: there's danger afoot and only the X-Men can help!

Colonel Anger shows Scott and Jean an image of some crazy space-time nonsense that's happening down on the beach that may portend the end of the world as we know it. He absolutely does not feel fine. The phenomenon is either some kind of "spatial rift," or an "interdimensional fissure" Fury doesn't know and absolutely does not consider it important enough to check.

At this point I'm kind of loving this interpretation of Nick Fury as this hard-boiled military guy who understands only the conventional tangible facets of war and espionage but due to the fact that he lives in the Marvel Universe, is constantly surrounded by sci-fi fantasy gobbeldygook that he is burdened with facing down, much to his supreme irritation. Yeah Nick, who flicking cares what it is, it's bad, obviously!

This whole thing is somehow tied to a woman Scott and Jean know as "Sunset Grace," a beach-dweller they met in their travels. Real name Grace Lavreaux, age 59 and widowed, Grace also happens to be a supremely powerful mutant. Jean suggests they call in some other X-Mens for this, but Nick says there's no time, blast it! Plus... Grace is asking for them (as the students of Charles Xavier she had met recently.)

Jean changes into a bikini top and short shorts for the trek down to base camp, then changes back into her uniform once her cleavage has been displayed for the appropriate number of panels. She then gets sucked into the space-hole, and Scott is none too pleased.

Scotty jumps into the unknown, fortunately finding a kooky and imaginative fantasy setting instead of total annihilation. The happy couple has some fun banter.

After sending the SHIELD Science team back through the way they came in, Scott and Jean catch up with Grace and she begins to tell her tale.

It seems that when Jean and Scott were wrenched out of their bodies and sent mentally hurtling into the future, Grace, who was collecting seashells nearby (ooh but how she loves collecting shells) felt their psychic scream -- that of a blissful young couple whose time together might be cut short -- and the backlash caused her own mutant powers to re-awaken after many years.

You see, when Grace was but a young Sunrise, she developed a mutant power to access a strange pocket dimension where she could do and make anything. She called it Neverneverland -- real original -- and spent her days doing what kids do, running on top of giant mushrooms and building impressive statuary.

But you know, time has a way of passing, and eventually Grace replaced Neverneverland with more adult concerns like marriage and family (yawn.)

Then one night, driving home in the rain, there was a car accident. Thrown through the front windshield (!!) Grace saw the car plummet toward the ocean, instinctively opening a portal to Neverneverland and sealing it shut, never to see her husband and son again.

Grace lost the ability to open the door to Neverneverland, leaving her alone on our pathetic, boring earth with its normal-sized mushrooms. She took years to recover, at first being unable to walk or talk, but eventually Charles Xavier -- a young man then -- came to help, putting the pieces of her soul back together but unable to help her find the key to Neverneverland.

Scott and Jean take a moment to reflect on how they were given a chance to do right by Scott's son with their recent time-traveling adventure, and compare that with Grace's loss.

But Grace soon sees that her husband Francois and son Christian have been in Neverneverland all this time. There is a tearful reunion, and, through the sheer power of catharsis, Scott and Jean are able to return home, the rift closed behind them.

They depart Neverneverland, saying "Goodnight Gracie" and leaving her with a happiness she has not known in many years.

Contemplating it later, Jean reveals that Francois and Christian did, in fact, perish in the car accident -- that those she saw today were just manifestations of her memory, where they will always live on, created by her powers. It sounds like a sad ending, but the truth is that loss is real and that the memory we have of others is the only true way to bring back those who are no longer with us.

Further Thoughts:

After this little epilogue we get a little teaser for what's to come: The Phalanx Covenant starting in the next issue of Uncanny X-Men! Sexy superhero action is back baybay!

This is one of the issues of X-Men that I have admired most in many years. On the surface it seems like a strange diversion -- not a fight with Sinister or the Acolytes or the Upstarts or anything, just a simple, sad story about a lonely older woman, about loss, the passage of time, and hope. It resonated with me because it was about something, and worked strongly on those themes. With Scott and Jean returning from their honeymoon and matters of family and responsibility at the forefront, it's the right time for this story.

A power so intense it will cause your spine to bend at 90º

It's one of Nicieza's strongest efforts, and while we're grading on the curve of 1993-1994 X-Men comics, I think he gets it pretty much exactly right. The story has a very European feel, something akin to a Sandman story set in the Marvel Universe, and the artwork of former 2000 AD artist Liam Sharp underscores that with design flourishes that are uncommon to mainstream superhero comics to sell the supernatural fantasy fairy tale theme. Though I quibble and kid with Sharp's figures -- seriously, Jean has rarely looked more like a slice of cheesecake, and that's saying something for the early 90's -- his design sense, when laying out the story and executing the fantastic setting, is top notch and really makes this feel like a special, different issue. With prolific use of full-page montage, it really doesn't do justice to chop it up to highlight x-cerpts the way I normally do.