Like a Phoenix from the ashes! – review of the comic book “Phoenix Resurrection: Return of Jean Gray”

Egg brooding

Strange things are starting to happen all over the world. Weather anomalies develop, animals die in herds, the dead are seen, and strange outbursts are recorded in space. The X-Men group is sure that some mutant is behind it. So they go on a search. It quickly turns out that their old friend has just been revived!

Meanwhile, the interested person, Jean Gray, lives peacefully in a small town somewhere in the USA. She lives with her parents, meets Scott Summers, repairs Logan’s car and is completely unaware that all these people have been dead for a long time, and she has just returned from beyond the grave. The illusion of an ideal world was created for her by a cosmic entity known as Phoenix, which in this way prepares the girl to “hatch” and reunite with her.

A pleiad of mutants

The writer responsible for bringing Jean Gray back to the Marvel world is Matthew Rosenberg, who previously created, among others Uncanny X-Men . This time he apparently decided to please mutant fans and throw almost all known homo superior ones into a not too long albumand also throw in a few enemies. Has such a procedure worked? Not exactly. Yes, we can look at the heroes, but their participation is mostly unnecessary. Colossus, Domino, X-23, Angel, Longshot and Sabertooth are just the background. Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Storm, Nightcrawler, Jubilee and Magneto were brought down to say a few lines and beat up a few enemies. The Beast, on the other hand, lures his arguments, and Cable quickly shows that he is not the best telepath. The roles of Iceman and Pyro have been reduced to a few verbal scuffles which, admittedly, are hilarious. A few more of the lesser-known members of the X-Men could be named, but there’s no need. And so, all of them are mainly wandering around the world looking for Jean, and on the way they fight the illusions created by Phoenix. Only two characters (not counting Gray herself, of course) have really important roles here. The first is Emma Frost, who, although she appears in the comic only for a moment, does more than the others put together. Old Man Logan is the key to the whole story. However, I will not reveal what our old Wolverine must do.

The story of the comic’s title character is much better than that of her colleagues. At least initially. Phoenix plays with and deludes Jean with new illusions, and these are highly disturbing but intriguing images. We see Gray being manipulated over and over again and we feel sorry for her. We start cheering for her to wake up before the cosmic entity fully spreads its wings and takes complete control of her. And suddenly the adventure begins to accelerate, and the plot itself is very shallow. The author seems to want to reach the finale as soon as possible and end the story. Thus, Phoenix from a mighty deity turns into a docile pet animal, and the reader can only frown and wait for what will happen.

What too much …

Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grayit was contained in 144 pages. For such a short comic book, it has an amazing number of cartoonists. It was created by Joe Bennett, Carlos Pacheco, Leinil Francis Yu and Ramon Rosanas. Just like the plot itself, the graphic side is very uneven. We find here very well presented games, illusions in the world created for Jean and the extremely majestic Phoenix, towering over the X-Men. The covers that the publisher of the comic, Egmont, placed at the end of the notebook also deserve praise. Each of them would fit perfectly on a poster to hang above the desk. However, there are also fragments where the illustrators apparently stated that the mutants are actually not very important, so they drew them “so that they were” and actually constitute the background, and we can only recognize them by their costumes, because the faces are practically invisible. On top of all this, we were ineptly introduced to the Beast. The bluefish mutant looks bald! Isn’t that strange?

It’s good that you came back

Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Gray is a mini-event aimed at bringing the title character back to the world of the living. Of course, for fans it is very good, because after all, the famous mutant is an extremely important figure in the world of Marvel and certainly many people wanted her return. The very idea of ​​her resurrection is also nice. At times we get a really dark and somewhat psychedelic thriller. Unfortunately, not everything went according to plan. Both the plot and the drawings are uneven and the moments of delight are mixed with moments of embarrassment and shaking the head. Ultimately, however, homo superior fans should not be disappointed. After all, they will have the opportunity to see almost all of their favorites in action, and their short adventure is a preview of their greater participation in Marvel Now! 2.0.