The first X-Men Origins one-shot was a rather unnecessarily complication of Colossus' back story, adding a story where none was really required.  For the second, Sean McKeever and Mike Mayhew take a crack at Jean Grey. 

Unlike Colossus, Jean already has an established origin story, in the form of a rather obscure story from Bizarre Adventures #27.  McKeever has opted simply to re-tell it, adding a coda for the sake of providing some resolution.  This is probably a better route for these one-shots to take, rather than nailing extra detail onto characters who don't need it.  Mind you, at least Jean has a halfway dramatic back story to start with.  Many of the X-Men don't, and as characters from a team book, nor do they require one.  The next book in the series features the Beast, whose existing 1960s origin story is utterly lousy.  That's going to be a challenge for any creator.

Jean's story involves her being traumatised when her psychic powers emerge while a friend dies in a road accident.  Xavier comes along and helps her, and eventually recruits her into the X-Men.  In Chris Claremont's version, there were some tentative and rather unwieldy suggestions that Xavier and Jean had some sort of hidden career as a duo before the X-Men were formed (which didn't quite make sense, given that she was the last to join the team).  McKeever ignores that altogether, and instead tacks on some new material with Jean joining the team, and symbolically coming to terms with her past by saving another girl from a road accident.

It's formula stuff, but McKeever does the best he can with the material.  Fortunately, as a character piece, it plays to his strengths.  The real selling point, though, is Mike Mayhew's painted art, which is beautiful throughout, and really elevates the material.  True, at the start of the issue, Mayhew seems a bit confused about what decade this is supposed to be.  But that quickly settles down, and the story looks great.

There's a limit to what the creators can do with this material.  After all, Claremont conceived this as background detail for an existing character, not as a full-blown origin story in its own right.  It doesn't quite lend itself to being a stand-alone story.  But McKeever and Mayhew have probably made it work as well as anyone could. 

Rating: B+

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