Jean must defend the school from John Sublime's U-Men
Originally Published January 2002
We begin on the road home from Wyoming, where Angel Salvador continues to endear herself to Wolverine, and vice versa.
Logan is about ready to leave his tempestuous new charge stranded, seemingly feeling she's more trouble than she's worth. I'm not entirely sure why, she hasn't said or done anything that an average teenager wouldn't do after discovering they were a mutant, being kicked out of their home, and abducted by cultists who wanted to forcibly amputate them.
But whatever, I guess Wolverine isn't at his most compassionate, which itself is not the cuddliest.
Closer to home, the U-Men are in one of their mobile labs, getting ready to see what's inside Scott Summers' head (anxiety and a thirst for telepaths.)
Unfortunately, in this game of three-card monte, the U-Men failed to keep their eyes on the Queen.
Outside the institute, the U-Men close in, looking to turn the student body into unwilling organ donors. Of course, a cohort of mutant teens isn't entirely defenseless, as Jean cues Emma's mysterious quintuplet students to do as their teacher instructed them.
They quickly activate their psychic defenses -- hey, did you know recent evidence suggests that the forebrain and hindbrain are two separate organs? -- Jeanie, of course, is no slouch herself when it comes to combatting the U-Men's weaponry.
When they try to continue their direct approach, Jean uses her telekinesis to cause them to refund their lunches.
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| Why is this every mutant's go-to move now? |
As Jean continues to dismantle her attackers in a quite literal sense, things start to heat up... quite literally, as we see he engulfed more and more in flames.
She expels the attackers quite decisively.
Wolverine and Angel arrive, having ridden the distance from Wyoming to New York by motorcycle in about a day. Sure. Logan is a tad bit alarmed by what he sees.
In the city, Emma Frost in on the warpath, slamming John sublime through a window so hard his toupee falls off.
As John pleads for his life, Cyclops plays the voice of reason: there have to be some non-psychotic mutants out there.
But Sublime, seemingly under the influence of disembodied brain Martha, decides that it's time to just let go.
And so, like Cassandra Nova before him, the X-Men have disposed of a villain in quite decisive fashion. And like her, it's quite clear that he will never be bothering them again.
Back at the Mansion, Jean and Logan discuss the therapeutic benefits of being fire and life incarnate...
When Hank arrives with some strange news indeed!
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Further Thoughts:
Germ-Free Generation really feels like a two-parter that was stretched out to three, based on the lite level of content that's found in these past two issues. But the truth is, there's plenty of room to have shaded in the narrative more. I really don't think we saw enough of what was going on between Angel and Wolverine; as I alluded, if the character's meant to come off as bratty or strong-headed, there's not a lot that she's done that feels very out of pocket. In the previous issue, they were attacked apropos of nothing by a mutant-hating diner-owner, and Angel's reluctance to join up with the X-Men and engage in open mutantness is pretty understandable given the circumstances.
Mind you, I've never had much patience for characters who do not want to be in a story Let them go not be superheroes, why keep them around against their wills? And what is so annoying about Angel that it gets Wolverine's goat? He used to pal around with Jubilee.
I think, calling a spade a spade, this is not Morrison's best work, with the significance and importance and level of craft of previous outings. But it is fun to read, a treat for readers who want to see the X-Men's foes get what's coming to them, specifically at the hands of Jean Grey and Emma Frost. I think at this point, if you're in on New X-Men, you'd like this issue and worry about where it falls short later if ever at all. For whatever it's lacking in material, it still promises big things are afoot -- that we haven't seen the last of Sublime and the U-Men (come on, you think a fall from a building is going to finish anybody in a comic?) and this Phoenix return is getting cooking. Bold directions and big ideas to spare here.
There's still that sense of inspiration and taste, along with the tactfully-deployed juvenile humor, which is kind of where Morrison towers over Casey. Both used the pukey jokes, but where Casey seems like a schoolboy proud to be getting away with something, Morrison seems more to be expressing their impish sense of humor beneath their often intellectualized take on the mutants. These comics are pretty clever, but they often revel in their lowbrow status, either with jokes liike that or other indulgences of base sensations: a really cerebral take on the scatological.
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| Emma's so mad she forgets she's not actually British |
At least, that's what I'm telling myself.
As for Jean becoming Phoenix again. Well look. I'm writing this from the year 2026 and I think a lot of us are very exhausted at the way the Jean Grey Phoenix knot often gobbles up oxygen and tends to poorly imitate the X-Men's past glories. I'm always keen to get away from it -- in that sense, the 90s, n which Jean was simply an often-competent bog-standard mutant running around trying to help fight bad guys and manage the drama around her felt like a gift.
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| Wolverine was so shocked he became Doop |
Even as of 2001, writers frequently tried to lash her back to the Phoenix thing. Steve Seagle was very keen to do "What if Jean is Phoenix for real??" And Claremont, in his initial return engagement, tied Jean back in with the Phoenix identity. Officially, Jean was never the Phoenix, but she also merged with it in the end of the Inferno story, whatever that means, so theoretically, the entity and its power do exist within her. So, it's not off the table as a story, and if anyone is going to play that hand to its best ability, it should be Morrison.
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