This Woman, This Mutant,This Phoenix

This symbol is recognized rather easily, isn't it? Its a good design, simple, elegant, perfectly expresses the power and the story of the woman who has it.I love it.

I love Phoenix.I love Jean Grey. She's gotta be in my top 5 favorite female comic book characters.

But for a long long time, I hated her. I didn't get her story, the point of her character. I was only exposed to her from the early 90's comics and the cartoons and the movies and they all portrayed her as the gorgeous girl next door, the one every man loves and every woman wants to be friends with, and so sweet and so smart and so powerful and perfect and oh my god! In fandom, a character who is perfect,with no flaws, and who obviously is a stand in for the author/creator is called a Mary Sue. I felt Jean Grey was a Mary Sue. She was so perfect and fabulous and I didn't care. I didn't see the conflict with her, the layers, the depths.I thought she was just supposed to be the reader and the author's dream girl,the one who doesn't exist and if she did, she wouldn't love them. I hated her for taking attention away from the more interesting, more flawed characters, like Kitty Pryde, Dazzler, Storm, Magik. Ho-hum, her love story with Scott transcends time and space. Ho-hum, she's a model, the first female student of Xavier's, everybody's best friend, most powerful psychic.Ho-hum,she has an intergalactic omnipresent spirit of a god-like creature inside her. Where was the villian who could threaten her? Where was the foe that would scare her, make her fear for her survival, make her question her motives, her existence? Where was the story? How was I supposed to relate to her? She's all powerful right? Why is she still with the X-Men? Isn't she stronger then them all combined? What a good girl, to stay with the team, to be a team player, even if she was strong enough to destroy worlds.

So. For years.I didn't like her.I didn't relate to her. I didn't adore her and admire her and respect her and want to know more about her story.

Until I found out Cyclops had an affair with Emma Frost.

But wait! Scott and Jean, they were the golden pair, the perfect couple, the one that would last! He fought armies of space warriors for her, she died for him! How could he!?

And so I began to sympathize with her. She couldn't be so omnipresent, so invincible, if her husband would cheat on her. She couldn't be perfect, not with a crumbling marriage like that. She had to have layers now,to deal with his betrayal.

So I re-read my X-Men novels.Not the ones from the 90's, they don't show her in a duality type position. But the Claremont run, the books stemming from the 70's and the 80's.

I saw her before she was Phoenix, when she was new, and young, and idealistic,and-considering the times she was created-a strong and good female role,not sitting on the sidelines but engaging in battle with her team, and not as head over heels in love with Cyclops as I'd believed. She loved him, even then, but she didn't let her love blind her or make her act stupid, something I thought she would have done. She held her own with a group of men. She held her own with enemies. She was scared.She was brave. She was bold.She was shy.She was her own person. She was loyal to the team but not enough to lose her identity among them.

I read the Dark Phoenix Saga, and understood. She worked hard, she fought hard, she was still fighting, to get to where she was. She fought for her identity,she fought for Scott.For her team. She fought the Phoenix Force and she won. She won as best as a human woman could, she became one with it, but was able to remain in control of it. For someone to endure what she did, to go through what she did, and come out on the other side, still loving, still kind, still herself, still able to be herself and use this invader in her skin to benefit her team and her people... DAMN. She is one hell of a woman. One powerful woman that deserves the Phoenix.

Jean Grey, I'm sorry I didn't understand.