Jean Grey has that dream again where she hasn’t prepared for a pop quiz, and it’s worth 33% of the entire world’s grade in A.X.E.: X-Men #1, written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Francesco Mobili, colored by Frank Martin and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Karen Charm: Just when I think it’s going to be a brisk autumn, the Phoenix shows up and melts all my pumpkins. I can barely see my keyboard from all the sweat in my eyes, which means we’ve made it to the White Hot Room … wait a minute, that was last week’s comic! This is 2022, and Jean Grey isn’t host to the Phoenix anymore and, depending on whom you ask, never was. Someone should tell the Progenitor!
Mark Turetsky: Hear me, readers! No longer am I the man you knew! I am Fire and Life incarnate! Now and forever — oh hey, Karen! Good to see you again!
Broke into the Old Apartment (This Is Where We Used to Live)
Karen: This issue picks up at some point after A.X.E.: Avengers, which I enjoyed quite a bit more than I expected for a Tony Stark story (Frederico Vicentini’s art is fabulous). Stark, along with a couple of mutants and a couple of Eternals, is sneaking through the Progenitor Celestia in hopes of shutting it down before it wipes out any more of humanity. To draw out the inevitable conclusion of this event, our heroes have continued to be visited by the Progenitor’s judgment visions. This gives Iron Man hope that there’s still a chance for them, and it gives Kieron Gillen a chance to take a swing at doing capsule character studies of some of the heavy hitters, most of whom haven’t gotten properly judged until now. Jean Grey, who gets the spotlight this issue, is able to get a limited signal from the outside world that everything is still terrible but, telepathically speaking, she’s only getting one bar at the most.
The art here is somber and somewhat static, and I’m not sure I’m picking up the emotional cues I should. I wish I connected with Mobili’s art a bit more than I do. There are some really nice moments throughout, though. I particularly like the two panels when Makkari chokes Sinister at the intimation he wants to refurbish some of the Celestial at the end of their mission. It seems fair to not believe Sinister anytime he says “just joking.” I was already thinking back to all the Moira clones he’s had in Immortal X-Men, and his mention of the scientific method seems pointed in that direction as well.
Mark: I know at the end of our last Defenders: Beyond review, I pledged that I wouldn’t make any more references to the Bible in our reviews (I very didn’t), but in some cases, the allusion is inescapable. As the ragtag group of Eternals, mutants and, well, Iron Man make their way through the Progenitor’s body, they reach a power station, a miniature sun, which Jean parts, just like a certain Moses did. It’s not the Red Sea, but a sea of red fire. It’s kind of an apt analogy, and an inroad to thinking about Jean. Moses doesn’t part the Red Sea, God parts the Red Sea, acting through Moses. Here, Jean Grey is long separated from the Phoenix, but we can ask how much of what Jean did as the Phoenix was the Phoenix acting through her, and how much was it Jean herself, using the power of the Phoenix.
Karen: Do you mean here in this issue? Because I feel like that question has kind of been put to bed by now. Maybe having Jean surrounded by fire is an obvious nod to the Phoenix that we should be reading into, but I don’t know if I’m convinced it’s more than a cool-looking visual cue. We’re not in the X-Men ‘92 universe after all, and Jean’s omega-level powers are pretty miraculous. In any case, parting the Red Sun requires a lot of concentration, and it would be a real shame to get judged right then.
It Depends on What the Meaning of “Now and Forever” Is
Mark: It’s a question that’s been put to bed quite often, but that doesn’t stop that mean ol’ Celestial from bringing it up!
Karen: Is the Progenitor’s compulsion to bring up Dark Phoenix and D’bari IV the same thing that makes every X-writer use the same catchphrases in every single issue? Mark, I can’t. I just can’t with “surviving the experience,” and “Professor X is a jerk” all the time. I’ve already turned in my “fun at parties” card, there’s nothing more you can take from me. Maybe a neat compromise would be to have a little Claremontian “to coin a phrase” thrown in there as a prefix? Anyway, I’m OK. As far as meta-jokes go, it is pretty funny (and sad) that Xavier has Jean sit out the Danger Room exercise in the flashback.
Mark: Karen, I mention that Professor Xavier is a jerk every chance I get. Just look at my Immortal X-Men reviews.
Karen: Oh right. Well, no offense.
Gillen describes his approach to writing continuity-heavy characters in a recent episode of his Decompressed podcast (in conversation with Leah Williams). If I recall correctly, he goes to the earliest moments, the most recent and the most iconic — which seems to be what we get in this series of visions. It’s a fair primer for who a character is and why they’re important, but perhaps less convincing as a dark-night-of-the-soul situation where someone has to stare down their deepest regrets. The scene in the Quiet Council where Jean’s hands are nailed to the table is the most effective for me. Hey, how’s that for biblical references, a little stigmata? Care to unpack this one for us?
Mark: Well, I’ve never claimed to be a Christian person, but I think one of the central stories rather famously has someone having nails stuck through their palms. And then dying and coming back and maybe at some point in the future judging the world and, depending on who you believe, maybe ending things altogether. And while the voting scene in question didn’t happen in that way, Jean did absent herself from the council, removing her own power over such decisions.
Karen: It’s a pretty brutal line, positioning “doing the right thing” against “helping to save the world.” Professor Xavier really is that kind of jerk. At least Wolverine thinks so as he busts into Jean’s psyche, claws flying and Sinister’s guns blazing. I do love how Sinister has so many guns in this issue, it’s kind of weird, and we’re to understand their metaphorical import.
Mark: Sinister and Wolverine psychically bursting in is a great, and really apt, moment. They’re characters with enormous history with Jean. Wolverine with his long-unrequited feelings for her, Sinister with the whole Madelyne Pryor thing. They’re the perfect character witnesses for Jean’s trial. The image of them floating in front of the mangled eye of the Celestial is quite striking.
Karen: The Gillen-flavor Sinister is so bitchy to everyone indiscriminately that I almost forgot that he has that special connection to Jean. This scene was pretty interesting to me because of how it’s in conversation with Gerry Duggan’s recent X-Men series. The end of Duggan and Pepe Larraz’s exceptional first year on that title read like a definitive last word on Jean and the Phoenix, with Grey finally evening the score for the Phoenix’s sins. Gillen does bring that up here, but almost instantly negates it. Now, it’s coming from the Progenitor who has proven to be pretty inconsistent, if not unreliable, but it does feel like one step forward and two steps back.
After Care
Karen: The love we see between Logan and Jean is really sweet throughout this issue. Logan’s maybe a bit more protective and defensive than he needs to be — she’s a grown woman — but I don’t know if their relationship has ever been this healthy. If Krakoa has given these kids nothing else, it’s the time and space to do lots of processing.
Mark: I love Ajak’s standing up to Iron Man in Jean’s defense, even after the Progenitor Failed her. “She is a significant being and deserves respect.” That’s putting it mildly. And yes, the scene with Wolverine comforting her demonstrates a certain maturity to their relationship, whether it’s a romantic one or merely a close friendship (that shares adjoining bedrooms without doors). But then Jean starts to cope with the failing grade and gets mad. Like, omega-telekinetic mad, and shreds some of the Progenitor’s antibody creatures that begin attacking them.
Now, tell me if this doesn’t make any sense, but … do you think the Progenitor failed her to elicit this reaction? It’s not like it’s bad at predicting how things will go; just a few weeks ago it created a simulation of what would happen if it asploded and psychically projected it to everyone on Earth. Is it passing and failing people not because they deserve it, but to achieve some end? Just compare Jean at the beginning of the issue: struggling, walking on two feet, putting forth some real effort, and her at the end, floating through the Progenitor’s body like an avenging angel, eyes perma-glowing now, effortless. I kinda get the impression that the Progenitor could easily make this team’s heads explode if it wanted to. Is it, perhaps, getting them to commit an A.X.E.-assisted dei-suicide?
Karen: There could very well be something to that, especially with how it relates to Jean — ”I think you are like me.” It’s a toss-up at this point, though. Any rubric for the Progenitor’s judgments changes from issue to issue, but the original order was to “justify yourselves.” It makes sense that anyone with enough self-doubt would be unable to justify their actions — even the justifiable ones — and fail. It is a bit weird how malleable the Progenitor is to people’s self-image, but I guess that’s generally how people relate to one another socially. Is the Progenitor a beta?
The further we get into this event, I want to understand the Progenitor more and more, but I don’t know whether we’re going to go there. Jean is fired up now whatever its intentions, and we have another week or so to wait and see how this mission resolves itself. Will it have been worth it? Will A.X.E. pass its own test?
Jury Box
- Oh hey, it’s Sersi and Namor’s sex bathtub.
- They’ll need a plaque commemorating it when they open the place up for tours.
- I know I’m a Jean Grey fan, but can we see some receipts of her being a “violent bully?” She just seems like a normal person to me, idk. [KC]
- I think the violent bully stuff is in reference to how she acted as Dark Phoenix. [MT]
- That, or the time she psychically assaulted Emma Frost, which, fair. [KC]
- I’m always happy to see Clayton Cowles on lettering.
Karen Charm is a cartoonist and mutant separatist, though they’ve been known to appreciate an Eternal or two.
