35 years after their Inferno first ensorcelled us, Weezie & Maddie are out of Limbo and back in the thick of it. Will a demon-infested New York survive the experience? Jean Grey’s not the woman she used to be — but neither is Madelyne Pryor. Jean Grey #3 written by Louise Simonson, drawn by Bernard Chang, colored by Marcelo Maiolo, and lettered by VC’s Ariana Maher.
Anna Peppard: I was looking forward to this issue for a bunch of reasons. Because I’ve been enjoying this series a lot. Because hanging out with Adam is the best part of any day. And because I’m fresh off listening to the Battle of the Atom New York Comic-Con Super Special, which includes Bernard Chang doing his darndest to warm my heart gushing about Louise Simonson’s unique connection to Jean Grey, and how he’s “drawing the book for [her].”
But despite some great individual moments and how badly I want to be fired up about this latest greatest descent into a canonically psychosexual hell on earth, I’m feeling a bit lukewarm. How’s your hotness, Adam? (About this issue — I’d never dream of weaving any double entendres into my very serious prose.)
Adam Reck: Well, hello. Fancy meeting you here. After last month’s fiery Phoenix throupling, knowing we were headed into Madelyne Pryor territory, and having talked to Bernard Chang of his undying loyalty to Queen Weezie, I was red hot heading into issue #3. And of course there’s nobody I’d rather be fighting off hordes of demons with than you, my dear. Alas, while my expectations for this issue may have been higher than Inferno’s Empire State Building, the issue itself leaves much to be desired in comparison to its many predecessors. I still found more than a few things to enjoy here, so let’s gather up the mutant babies, open up a portal to limbo, and dive in!
A Whole Lotta Recappin’
Anna: The original Inferno event is… a lot. In an essay for this very website about why 1988’s Uncanny X-Men #239, “Vanities,” is his Best X-Men Story, my friend and frequent collaborator J. Andrew Deman characterizes it as a 52-issue storyline spanning 13 Marvel titles, making it arguably “the longest and most cohesive story arc in the history of X-Men comics.” Sure, Inferno is partly about giving artists free reign to draw some super-rad Heavy Metal surrealistic hellscapes. It’s also about seeing exactly how much BDSM imagery and underboob the Comics Code would let you get away with.
But as Andrew’s very fine essay gets into, the Jean and Madelyne parts of this story are also informed by some deeply affecting psychological complexity that at least plays with gender tropes even if it doesn’t fully subvert them. Simply put — it’s a lot to live up to! And even though Weezie was one of the central architects of the original event — I’m not sure this issue quite gets there.
Thoughts on our context, Adam?
Adam: Look, is Andrew wrong? No. But did Chris Claremont also maybe get real angry about Jean being resurrected and then see Ghostbusters? Zack and I recently revisited the core story of “Inferno” for our 300th episode of Battle of the Atom (“The ReRankening”) and even after reconsideration, it’s still sitting at #89. I am on the record as preferring the New Mutants part of this story. For as wild a swing as “Inferno” is, it’s still a story about cartoon demon mailboxes that centers around the character assassination of the incredible Madelyne Pryor trying to kill her own son for what feels like way too long.
Speaking of way too long, Weezie waits far too many pages before dropping this issue’s “What If” scenario. And frankly, I’m not sure why this What If would change… anything? After two issues of incorporating other eras and making some substantial changes to previous arc’s status quos, Jean Grey #3 spends lots of pages recapping the Madelyne origin story that we all already know, and not enough time getting to the fun, altered world stuff.
Anna: Agreed. Lotta recapping here. And while we’ve had similar recaps in previous issues, I’m not sure this one adds as much as the ones we’ve seen before. In theory, I’m here for Jean reconnecting with Madelyne, in any and all ways. In anger. With forgiveness. With regret, empathy, or righteous indignation. Any reconnecting is better than nothing, because for a very long time, Maddy was just… gone. And that sucked because Maddy’s absence — the fact she was, for a time, virtually erased except as a fearful specter of weaponized female sexuality — was bad because it reduced “Inferno” to tropes it originally challenged. When we erase Maddy, Jean becomes the good/pure woman who lives, while Maddy is the bad/corrupt woman who dies to prove and preserve that purity.
In Jean Grey #3, there are moments of exchange between Jean and Maddy that I enjoyed, and others that intrigued me. I was particularly interested in the fact Maddy blames Jean for “Inferno” — that was a nice touch, giving Maddy agency and underscoring the fact that hey, it was a confusing time, when some folks were hiding from their friends in the Australian Outback and everyone was sweaty and also forgot how phones work. Within that crucible of poor communication, bored horniness, and hurt feelings — mistakes were made. However, it does feel like this version of the Jean/Maddy relationship maybe walks back some of the ways this relationship has evolved in recent comics.
Adam: We’ve seen a canonical version of Jean vs Maddy as recently as January of this year, in Dark Web: X-Men #3. That event may have been incredibly dumb, but I enjoyed the X-Men mini, first because it involved a demon-possessed Rockefeller Christmas Tree and more importantly because in its final issue, Gerry Duggan, Rod Reis, and Phil Noto have Jean and Maddy fight until Jean just… stops and surrenders. She then gives Madelyne back all the memories of Nathan Christopher as an infant. We also learned that it was Jean who pushed the Quiet Council to approve Maddy’s resurrection. To have a trio of men tell a story about a woman’s anguish isn’t ideal, but credit where it’s due, that story did work really well.
Weezie seems to be approaching this particular china shop with a smaller hammer. She does start breaking stuff, but it takes longer. She seems very interested in regaling the history of Maddy. This is, after all, playing not just in her editorial sandbox, but now in what she actually wrote. I have no issue with taking a victory lap, but I would have preferred we jumped right into where the story goes instead of dwelling. Part of this is also because this issue also has to tie directly to Gillen’s Immortal X-Men #16, where Hope psychically reaches out to Jean Grey and realizes that (Spoiler Alert) they’re all in the White Hot Room. But with that out of the way, we transition into the fun part of the book, What If Maddy had a techno organic nose ring?
Jean, Her Clone, The Wife & Their Lover
Anna: In this issue, the What If seems to be: “what if Jean saved baby Nate from the demons who were trying to take him to Maddy, who at that point had become the Goblin Queen and wanted to use her own child to help her open a permanent portal between Earth and Limbo, effectively creating a Hell on Earth that she would subsequently rule with her Goblin Prince and an army of demons by her side.”
Am I wrong in feeling like this is a substantially subtler twist than others we’ve encountered so far? Like you said above — it’s hard to imagine why this would substantially change anything.
Adam: Our twists so far were “What If The All-New X-Men Didn’t Forget?” and “What If Wolverine Became Phoenix?” You’re calling the twist subtle, but honestly, it barely felt like a twist at all? Since Scott and Jean have Nathan Christopher after the conclusion of Inferno we’re talking about the difference of about four issues.
Anna: It’s basically like, “What If Scott and Jean remembered they shouldn’t leave a baby unattended while battling hordes of demons?” While I’m happy they’re finally learning this important parenting lesson, I think it might be fair to say it’s a slightly less impactful hook.
Adam: I’m also just unclear on what Jean’s motivation here is. By saving Cable, ahem, Nathan Christopher Askanison [Ed. Note: Charles Dayspring] Summers, it should theoretically stop Maddy from opening the portal to Limbo with the mutant babies. But it doesn’t stop the slow demonization of New York, because that starts before the portal opens anyway. Stealing Nathan away instead of having a demon deliver him to Maddy doesn’t seem to have much in the way of substantial change to the larger plot of the original story.
Anna: I felt like Jean’s decision to save the cuddliest Cable might be more personal than rational? After all, a lot of her choices throughout this series have been manifestations of guilt. But that reading might work a bit better with more of what we got last issue, namely, privileged access to Jean’s internal passions.
All of that said, this issue really does have some great individual moments, and for me, most of those moments involved Madelyne absolutely wasting N’astirh, S’ym, and Mister Sinister. Among a certain subset of very discerning X-Men fans, there’s a reading of Inferno where Maddy was wronged (and maybe even did nothing wrong!), because if you think about it, she’s not really a villain — she’s a victim.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s not a villain here; she does kill her husband, try to kill her own child, then actually destroy the world, which is all, you know, pretty villainous. But it’s still fun seeing her lash out so very ruthlessly and effectively at the men who made her a victim (or tried to). Madelyne Pryor may not get justice in this comic, but she sure gets revenge.
Adam: You’re getting at the thing that, upon reread, is pretty interesting about this issue. And that is that Maddy is given equal billing as narrator. It’s not just Jean’s take, but the Maddy in Jean’s memories is speaking and taking her revenge on being subjugated and used as a toy. She’s not going to be second fiddle to D-list villains like N’astirh and Sym. And not even to A-list villains like Mister Sinister. She’s gonna waste them all and look punk as all get out doing it.
Anna: You’re making me rethink my comment above, about how we have less access to Jean’s thoughts in this issue. Of course we have less access, because we’re primarily paired with Madelyne. Which in turn raises interesting questions about Jean and Maddy’s relationship. Is Jean empathetically embodying Maddy here, or is she reconstructing Maddy’s thoughts based on her own deeply empathetic understanding of those thoughts? Either way, this issue brings them closer, and I do enjoy that.
At Sea for the Showdown
Anna: Since you just talked to Bernard Chang about this, what did you think about Maddy’s new look, the techno-organic bits I guess she borrows from S’ym?
Adam: Chang’s priority was that whatever he was designing still had to feel true to the X-Men and their history, and I think he really achieved that with this neo-Maddy (No, not the Neo). He talked about how much of this mini is being done old school Marvel house-style with Weezie scripting over his artwork. Here, Weezie has challenged him to incorporate both the Goblin Queen and Techno-Organic Virus aspects and what we get is a spiky, circuit-y, blood red Maddy. If anything, I think he could have pushed the design even further, but what we get is still really fun.
Anna: It’s a look, that’s for sure! As a feminist academic who specializes in issues of gender and sexuality in superhero comics, I feel like I should have something to say about this climactic battle where a woman and her vengeful clone engage in a violent battle over who gets to save or kill a baby that sort of belongs to both of them. But I kind of… don’t? It’s not the type of scene that inspires me to talk tropes, good or bad.
Visually, the showdown at sea is well-rendered. The landscapes feel appropriately cinematic, and Jean and Maddy feel similarly but differently powerful, with Maddy’s anger feeling as convincing as Jean’s ultimately helpless determination. But similar to some of what we were saying above — I’m just not sure if this retelling does as much to productively reframe the original story as other issues in this series have done.
I’m no damsel but I’m not too proud to admit I sometimes need a hand. Help me, Adam — help me help us give this climax its due.
Adam: I mentioned in our review of the first issue that many writers forget to take advantage of the fact that Jean Grey’s consciousness is made up of so many different entities and versions of herself. The context of this scene is not Jean just fighting Maddy, but rather the memories of Maddy that still inhabit her consciousness. Not only is she trying to save Scott and the boy who would become her son, but she’s fending off the Phoenix who basically shows up to say, “Hey, you wanna team up and set this chick on fire?”
Jean fends off that temptation, only for Maddie to incinerate Scott and send an Ultimatum Wave into the city, presumably killing every single person who lives there. So on the one hand, part of Jean is saying no to wanton destruction, while another part of her is unleashing that same force onto innocents (and this time they’re not Broccoli people).
Anna: That works! And tellingly, the Phoenix warns Jean this will be the result every time, unless she can learn to “accept me as I am — my darkness and my light.” The Phoenix is talking about itself but of course smartypants readers like us know it’s also talking about the character of Jean accepting herself and us accepting Jean, in all her messy complexity.
Adam: We close the issue with Jean coming face to face with many of those versions of herself I was just talking about, and I wonder if perhaps Jean Grey #3 will read better later as a transition into #4. Only time will tell!
Anna: Which reminds me — clock’s ticking on these reviews, Adam. Which is a shame, we make such a good team.
Adam: Hopefully we can find a way to prolong our partnership.
Anna: No What Ifs about it.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- If you want to hear CXF contributor Andrew Deman talk lots more about representations of gender and sexuality in comics like Inferno–great news! As of yesterday, his book The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men, is available wherever fine books are sold!
- The baby theft in question originally happens in X-Factor Vol 1 #35-36, written by Louise Simonson and illustrated by her husband Walt. By X-Factor Vol 1 #40, Nathan is essentially Scott & Jean’s kid and remains so until Scott sends him to the future in X-Factor #68.
- Chang’s version of Times Square features a “Weezies” logo instead of a Coca-Cola sign.
- What Weezie fails to mention in Maddy’s origin story is the non-canon way that Sinister got Jean Grey’s genetic material in the first place, thanks to Grifter in WildC.A.T.s/X-Men the Silver Age! (That’s not a joke, that happened)
- I’ve read that but I only remember the Nightcrawler parts. (“Great kisser, terrible aftertaste!”)
- This is the third iteration of Maddy we’ve seen in Marvel comics this year, as the resurrected Madelyne Pryor can be seen leading the Dark X-Men while an antagonist in that title has been revealed to be none other than the timeline jumping Goblin Queen from Battleworld: Inferno — and her pet dragon Nightcrawler!
- The White Hot Room originally appeared in Classic X-Men #8. It exists beyond the Far Shore of the Marvel Universe, and Jean has visited it multiple times and returned to life. This bodes well for mutantkind.
- The final panel shows various versions of Jean Grey, including one she should have no memory of: Age of Apocalypse Jean Grey.
- And the arm in the foreground is wearing the Morrison/Quitely era costume…
Anna Peppard
Anna is a PhD-haver who writes and talks a lot about representations of gender and sexuality in pop culture, for academic books and journals and places like Shelfdust, The Middle Spaces, and The Walrus. She’s the editor of the award-winning anthology Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero and co-hosts the podcasts Three Panel Contrast and Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow!
Adam Reck is the cartoonist behind Bish & Jubez as well as the co-host of Battle Of The Atom.
