I think we owe Mr Brevoort our thanks--at least he's been honest with us, and that means I don't have to waste any more money buying Marvels for the foreseeable future. Having said that, I wonder--not for the first time--if the people running Marvel these days are literally insane. Getting angry at their fans? Considering what the circulation figures are these days, can they afford to piss off *any* fans--even "Jean Grey cultists"? Silly me--I thought I was a Jean Grey fan, like a Daredevil fan, or a Captain America fan, or a Wolverine fan. But no, it seems that I'm a "cultist". Well, I intend to adopt that term as a badge of honor, and I hope my fellow cultists will follow me.
     The sanest reply here, not surprisingly, has come from Constance. (Hi there!) And I think she's right--we should not answer their BS with our own BS. But--as one who went through the original Phoenix sequence, and everything since--it gets difficult. They have treated Jean Grey, their greatest character, with simple contempt. And at this point it *doesn't matter* what "plans" they might--or might not--have for her. They have dissolved her history so much--destroyed what made her special--that I don't give a damn what they do now. Constance is correct. Marvel is so ****** up these days, I don't *want* them putting their grimy hands on Jean. They'd be sure to botch the job.
      I do not believe the solution is to just declare "death" permanent, and say: no more resurrections. That, I feel, would be too great a break with the established rules of the MU. And it wouldn't be sustainable. The first major character they "permanently" killed would inevitably produce a reaction from his/herfans, and sooner or later the weight of events would make them reconsider. The thing to do is make their "deaths" *mean* something, make their returns conform to their histories and the MU's ground rules, and hopefully, just make sense--logically and emotionally. Marvel, needless to say, seems incapable of doing anything of the sort now. Leaving Jean out of it, I should say that an example of a  successful resurrection would be Warren in X-Factor, many years ago. Or Madrox, in the same book, a decade later. These made sense, in terms of the characters and the stories they "died" in. An unsuccessful resurrection would be Xavier's, in #65, which was from hunger. Or almost any of the frantic resurrections they've been doing wholesale for some time now.
     It is odd, given that they *are* reviving characters wholesale, that they not only avoid doing it for Jean--who is the most famous example of all--but that they're so *angry* even discussing it. It's my hope that this is because they know, on some level, that what they did with Jean in her latest "death"--and what has happened to the X-Men ever since--was such a fiasco. Stupid, fatuous, almost suicidal for the X-Men as a concept. And even if this has *all* been a fake-out--if they've been openly lying about Jean, and the AV/X story--it doesn't matter, as I said. I feel I've been disrespected enough. Does anyone remember the FF in the 90s, when Reed "died"? For three solid years, every LP had letters begging his return, and the editors said in plain terms that Reed was "dead", and readers were wasting their time by asking for his return. The tone of these replies was very similar to those given to Jean fans today. And then, of course, Reed *was* returned and the matter was forgotten. Possibly, on a greater scale, they're playing similar games today--ie, consciously lying to us. If so, it's worked in my case. I feel that I've been around this particular merry-go-round just a wee bit too much.
     I would--again--like to second Constance's point--that Jean's well-being is up to *us*, not the idiots at Marvel. **** Quesada and Breevort. Let's write our own stories. I for one have been doing just that--a *very* long X-novel that takes place in the 1960s, and if I ever finish the damned thing I'll post it on-line. Constance has been good enough--"good" being a severe understatement--to read it a day at a time as I've written it, and I'd like to publicly thank her for that. There's a lot of good Jean-fiction out there. I'd rather read--and write--that, then wait for Marvel to do *anything* right. I'd sooner wait for Godot...