It's time for Jean Grey to move on.
As an X-Men fan, I'm used to feeling disappointment, but that hasn't done much to ease the sting of Phoenix Resurrection. This miniseries takes a development fans have been waiting for for nearly 15 years and fails to capitalize on on that excitement and anticipation. Issue #5 at least succeeds in making up for lost time, but it's still a case of too little, too late in the end.
Phoenix Resurrection #5 only further supports the argument that this book has too many extraneous characters. The vast majority of the X-Men are mere background players in the finale, with only Old Man Logan, Young Teen Cyclops and Jean herself receiving any real attention. One of the big failings with this series has been its reluctance to really dig into those close personal ties Jean has with her fellow X-Men. It robs the story of its significance and makes it feel like just another Phoenix storyline.
But again, writer Matthew Rosenberg does address those problems to some degree in his final issue. This chapter opens with the long-awaited reunion between Jean and Logan before pivoting to the first encounter between the adult Jean and the teen Cyclops (a sublimely surreal pairing only the X-Men franchise could conjure). In both cases, I wish we had gotten more out of these scenes. But they both serve to create the sort of emotional weight that previous issues failed to generate.
In any case, at some point this issue becomes more about Jean herself and her connection to the Phoenix Force. What does Jean actually remember about her old life? What does the Phoenix Force want from her? This issue manages to answer those questions satisfactorily enough. And for all that this book has annoyed and disappointed, a cohesive theme does emerge in this issue - that it's time for Jean to move forward and stop being defined by an Uncanny X-Men storyline that happened nearly 40 years ago. That sentiment is greatly appreciated.
Issue #5 brings back two artists from earlier in the series - Leinil Yu and Joe Bennett. The story abruptly shifts from one to the other mid-stream, which isn't ideal, though colorist Rachelle Rosenberg manages to create a certain tonal consistency. Nor is Yu given much room to stand out here, as his gritty, textured style doesn't thrive in dialogue-driven scenes. He draws a mean Wolverine, but that's about it. Bennett, however, leaves a much stronger impression than he did in his previous issue (suggesting all the more that he was working on a very tight schedule there). His figures have a clarity and an emotional range that's lacking in Yu's pages.
The Verdict
On;ly at the very end does Phoenix resurrection begin living up to its potential. Issue #5 carries the emotional weight that was almost entirely absent in the first four chapters. It's still disappointing that this issue doesn't devote as much time to the Wolverine and Cyclops scenes as it could, but in general this issue juggles Jean's complex, painful history well and sets the stage for her more unpredictable future.
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