In contrast, considering the ludicrous remit, X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong is actually pretty decent.  Rather than repeat those nested subtitles, I'll just call it Endsong and be done with it.

The remit for Endsong, by all appearances, is the return of Jean Grey.  Actually, that's exactly what happens in issue #1, but given the story direction, it's conceivable that it might not stick.  I'm not exactly holding my breath there, however.  Bringing Jean back isn't a completely unreasonable move, since Morrison clearly left the door open for her to be reincarnated, and at some point she was obviously going to be brought back for the third movie.

Of course, it's far too early to be doing this storyline.  For one thing, Jean's currently dead in the movies as well, and the third X-Men movie isn't even on the schedule, so there's no cross-promotional imperative to get the character back into circulation.  If anything, those factors ought to point to keeping her dead.  Secondly, Jean only got killed off a year or so back.  Major events, unless catastrophically ill-advised, need to stick and be seen to have consequences, at least for the medium term.  The trick is to make sure that by the time reversal comes along, it feels like forwards momentum, not backtracking.  And to do that, the new status quo has to be given time to become cemented.

Otherwise, the readers twig that nothing matters - not to the characters, not to the publishers, not to the creators, not to anyone - because it all gets undone immediately.  Quesada's "dead is dead" policy wisely acted to restore the sense that events matter.  Current Marvel management, unfortunately, don't appear to grasp that concept. 

Still, writer Greg Pak has a brave stab at the concept, and more or less carries it off.  In a remarkable and uncommon move for modern Marvel writers, he has read the Morrison run, and he has read the earlier Phoenix stories, and he has actually understood them.  This really ought to rank as basic professionalism, but in today's context, it's a refreshing change.  God knows nobody else who reversed a Morrison story seemed to bother with it.

So, recognising that Phoenix wasn't supposed to come back for ages to come, Pak actually works with that and uses it as the springboard for his story.  A bunch of idiot Shi'ar scientists want to pre-emptively obliterate Phoenix, and so they try to reconstitute it ahead of schedule, the idea being that they can eliminate it while it's still relatively weak.  Pak just about manages to carry this off without it seeming too contrived.  That leaves him with a damaged Phoenix - the cosmic being, not Jean - who returns to earth looking for a new host, and ends up literally exhuming poor Jean.  Jean promptly realises that the last thing she wants is to be stuck in a body with a mentally unbalanced Phoenix and immediately sets about trying to get herself killed.  And who knows, it's always possible she might succeed.

Much of the issue consists of Phoenix, as a firefly, flitting around the mansion dropping in on various characters.  Pak has a nice line in misdirection, as on re-reading, Phoenix's narration doesn't always relate to what's on panel - although it seems that way at first.  Pak is working here with the Astonishing X-Men cast and some of the other Morrison characters; there's no sign of Marvel Girl, the other X-Man with an obvious link to Phoenix, but given her hopelessly convoluted backstory, that's probably for the best.

Greg Land finally provides some interior artwork after months of covers.  It's good stuff, worthy of comparison with Cassaday's work on Astonishing.  His women are a bit too airbrushed, but that's really the only thing wrong with it.  It's beautiful to look at, and it makes good use of the Phoenix visuals without overshadowing the plot.

In principle, I don't really want to like Endsong, because it's not a story that they should be doing at this point.  But despite myself, I enjoyed it a lot.  The timing may be wrong, but the idea is sound enough, and the execution is impressive.  Surprisingly good.

Rating: A

back | continue