Warning: Spoilers for Phoenix #3! X-Men There may be countless healers on their expanded roster, but one of the original members has received a new healing upgrade that makes him more powerful than almost any other mutant. As Jean Gray sets out to explore the galaxy on her own terms, the question is how the greater Marvel Universe will react to her new status.
IN Phoenix #4 from Stephanie Phillips, Alessandro Miracolo and David Curiel, Jean Gray demonstrates the Phoenix’s ability to raise the dead like never before as she was brought back to life immediately after death.
In this issue, Jean is killed by Gorr the God Butcher, who believes she is close enough to a god to kill her. Jean is also being watched by representatives of the Galactic Council, and Gladiator and the villain Perricus claim that her new resurrection ability is proof that she is too dangerous to remain alive.. However, how either of them plans to kill her for good remains an open question.
Phoenix can now bring Jean Gray back to life
Her healing factor is the strongest in Marvel history
Jean’s story with the Phoenix and resurrection is complex. When she first became the Phoenix in X-Men #101 Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, it supposedly healed her after falling from space, and her transformation into the Phoenix is ​​seen as a symbolic rebirth.. Jean then died upon completion Dark Phoenix Saga V Uncanny X-Men No. 137 by Claremont and John Byrne.
However, the first major retcon of Jean Gray in Fantastic Four No. 286 by Claremont and Byrne showed that Jean was not actually the Phoenix, and that the Phoenix Force impersonated her. from X-Men #101 further while Jin heals. However, even though Jean wasn’t technically a Phoenix, many stories treated her as such.
Genie is one of the characters who helped popularize the idea that death has no meaning for comic book characters.
These stories were far from Jean’s last dance with death. IN New X-Men #150 by Grant Morrison and Phil Jimenez, Jean was killed by Xorn and ascended to oneness with the Phoenix in the White-Hot Room. She was temporarily resurrected in the miniseries. X-Men: Phoenix – End of the Song Greg Pak, Greg Land and Matt Ryan, but remained mostly dead for a decade until 2017–2018. Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Gray Matthew Rosenberg and a roster of rotating artists. With the start of the X-Men’s Krakoan Era in 2019, mutant resurrections have become commonplace.and Jean died several more times during X-Men missions. However, in the current status quo of From the Ashes, most mutants no longer have the luxury of resurrection.
Jean Gray literally changed the way death is viewed in superhero comics.
How can you raise the stakes if the main character can’t die?
It’s interesting to think about what Jean’s enhanced healing factor means on a narrative level. One of the reasons why death is so often present in big comic events is because it has to set up high stakes in the story. However, Jin is one of the characters who helped popularize the idea that death doesn’t matter to comic book characters because they just came back. The Krakoan resurrection was a literal embodiment of the idea that death doesn’t matter to the X-Men.and it became an exercise in storytelling about how to find the stakes when characters in a franchise can’t die.
Connected
The Krakoa model could also tell us how Phoenix the series builds its own stakes if Jean’s death is not discussed. One of Krakoa’s recurring stumbling blocks has been its relationship with the outside world, and Jean’s relationship with the wider Marvel cosmic landscape is equally contentious. Jean may not be able to die, but Phoenix and she (if there is a difference) are already hated and feared by people like Gladiator. If Gladiator and Perricus turn the galaxy against the Phoenix, then the founder X-Men member will fail even if she cannot die.
Phoenix #4 available now from Marvel Comics.