Phoenix: Endsong

[alixtii]

Squee? Okay, that was pretty awesome. (likeadeuce: I was supposed to hate it, y/n?)

Very action-packed, though. It could have used some--I think the term is "decompression"? But that's okay, there's always fanfiction for that.

The Cuckoos get many panels in this book, which is of the good. In all of these panels, they are awesome, because they are the Cuckoos and the Cuckoos are awesome. In many of these panels, they are in bed. With each other. Which is also awesome in its way. Just saying. (Actually, the implication I got from the art in this is that they all share a bed. Which I'm pretty sure contradicts Astonishing and New X-Men canon? But maybe they have three beds and sometimes they sleep separately and sometimes they all sleep together in the same bed anyway. That works for me.)

The whole thing is very, very will-to-powery. Which I guess is the point of the whole "Phoenix" storyline. It works for me.

Anyone have any clue where this fits into Astonishing?

Comments

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

From the beginning (i.e. Astonishing) Jean has been a grief-fetish object throughout my experience with the canon

Right, that's absolutely an element of the canon since -- God, I think she died the first time in 1977 or something. But Morrison was undoing that (I think you actually read the only volume of Morrison in which she's not a -- if not the -- central character). She basically ran the damn school before she died, while Emma and Scott were off playing footsie; she was Xavier's handpicked successor. She was the spokesman and leader for the X Not Scott. Not Emma. Jean.

And the original Phoenix story is very much about Jean's individuality and character, and the uneasy relationship between her self and the cosmic force. I actually think you would love issues 107 & 108 of Uncanny Xmen, which have Jean using her Phoenix power to knit up the fabric of reality (and, because it's Claremont, doing this by holding hands with her best-girlfriend and her boyfriend's dad).

So as a Jean Grey fan, it frustrates me to no end that someone could read Endsong and continue to get the impression that Jean was a pretty girl that everybody liked with no actually personality or individuality, but a mirror that reflects what's going on with everybody else. It's not the same as a series like Astonishing, which has her absence as a pre-condition for everything that happens. This is a story where she's supposed to be back but she basically isn't.

[booster17.livejournal.com]

I'm still surprised that I'm enjoying Scott/Emma so much as a couple yet, given how much I loved the previous Scott/Jean relationship so much in the past. Unfortunately, to me, Scott/Jean started going downhill after they married and all the writers could think to do was to basically treat them as one person.

I think we should make alixti read Dark Phoenix Saga, From the Ashes and Essential X-Factor vols 1 and 2. *grin* Classic Scott/Jean and Scott/Maddie.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I honestly haven't read much that took place after they were married (for some reason, I own "The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix" both in TPB and individual issues -- but I actually find it more or less unreadable). I do adore "Search for Cyclops." I wish Joe Casey and Grant Morrison hadn't decided to go so abruptly from "happy if tentative reunion" to "big flashing Marital Problems" sign.

I do agree with rec'ing "Dark Phoenix Saga," which really is an essential fandom text -- though I wish some of the earlier issues were readily available, too, because DPS works better with some background information. I've only read spottily in "from the ashes" and "X-factor," but I actually don't like the original Maddie story aside from a couple things, and I have a love/hate relationship with early X-factor.

None of this is really relevant to Alix though, so: Yes, you ought to read the Dark Phoenix Saga, if just to see what all the fuss is about.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I think I picked it up a couple of times and was turned off by the art, but if as you say in a different post that it's the first appearance of Kitty, that's almost certainly enough to push me over. (Do I get to see evil!Emma, then?)

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Oh yes.

Same issue.

And honestly, I think it's the poorly reproduced coloring rather than the actual art that tends to initially put people off of old comics trades. Maybe individual issues are the way to go. At a half decent comics store, you can probably pick them up. (Uncanny Xmen 129-131 are the Kitty issues).

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

In which case I'd add 132 for the Scott/Jean desert scene; and 107-109 for the original Phoenix story. Those are the issues I think are the must-reads.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I've seen the first meeting of Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost in the strange Pryde of the X-Men version (in which the White Queen is working for Magneto), but it'd be nice to finally see te canonical version. (Or any evil!Emma, really, since I haven't seen any yet.)

Maybe I'll check the independent comic book store I sometimes go to. I also want to pick up the individual issues for some of the New X-Men stuff so I can make scans of the Cuckoos and whatnot.

I never considered myself much of a visual aesthete, so I was shocked when I found myself turned off by the art.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I *really* think it's the bad coloring. They just kind of slap the 4 color stuff on there. If you see it closer to the way it's meant to be (in comic stores or scans -- or if you're interested enough, you can get practically the whole series on DVD for $40, which is less than 3 trades).