Plenty of people mention Jean. Xavier mentioned her in Astonishing. Emma does it constantly. Her parents mentioned her. Magneto mentioned her. Psylocke mentioned her. She even has cameo appearances and had an entire mini last year. Despite being temporarily gone, Jean is never quite forgotten since her presence is always a essential driving force behind the X-Men. Look at Betsy...she died for 3 years and no one even uttered a word after her death. Rachel was gone for like 10 years and the X-Men didn't give a crap. No search for Rachel or even a though. Same with Colosuss. Etc etc So Rachel isn't the only one and Jean is hardly forgotten. Despite being out of commission you can currently read about Jean in Ultimate and THe End. She has tons of products coming out featuring her. Unless Rachel gets her own indentity and imagery, she'll always be in Jean's shadow, and speaking to the Rachel fans, why would you want that if you like her? Wouldn't you rather she develop as her own character? (the whole I'm not phoenix thing doesn't count since she's still using the imagery). Like I said it's just a thinly veiled cover. Like a gay man saying "I'm not gay, I just like men."


Everything these characters go through is a result of the writer. Therefore, the writer decides that Rachel is going to be a replacement Jean. Of course they're not going to tell you in the story that Rachel is just a replacement for Jean. But that's essentially what she is. Despite all the "oh, I'm not Jean...I'm blah." And "I did it because I'm honoring her blah blah." it still doesn't change the fact that she's esentially Jean.

Many of the essential things that make up a fictional superhero character:
1. powers
2. power signature
3. core personality -in this case fiery, emotional, passionate, hardheaded
4. costumes
5. code name
6. plot points

ALL of which Rachel has in common with Jean. She's a walking xerox pretending not to be one. And that's where it gets annoying.

Even the characters themselves comment on the similarities.

Rachel recently said that she shares her mom's fiery personality. (Understatement of the year little *****)

In Deadly Genesis Rachel acts up on the Vulcan. Surprise suprise...exactly the same thing Jean would have done. Cyclops even commments on it. "Jean would have done the same thing."