We Ought To Talk About Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey & Emma Frost #1

Something is wrong with Storm. Like they did long before with Charles Xavier, Jean Grey and Emma Frost enter the mind of Ms. Munroe in Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey & Emma Frost #1 by Russel Dauterman, Jonathan Hickman, and Matthew Wilson.

Nola Pfau: Well. That certainly is a comic book. I gotta say, when this book was announced, I really had no idea what to expect, and I certainly was not expecting what we got here. Dauterman’s art is giving me everything I was hoping for, but the rest? Well…

Allison Senecal: Look. I am physically incapable of disliking a Dauterman comic. He could draw the Iron Man ongoing and I would have to read it and like it. Shallowly, it’s perfect and absolutely fed my kink for Emma’s half-palm gloves.

NP: God those gloves are good. I suppose in context, it’s good that the plot of this issue was told the way it was; given the framework of these Giant Size books, and the conceit of letting artists draw their choice of characters, I don’t hate the idea of a largely silent book where the artist does the heavy lifting, story-wise. And there is some definite heavy lifting here.

New(er) X-Men

AS: I’ve definitely enjoyed Hickman’s DoX work more when the artists have been dynamic and uh, I barely had to read any of his dialogue here at least. I can not imagine how I would receive this issue with, now that I think about it, pretty much any other artist in this era, even Larraz or Silva.

NP: Yeah, Dauterman specifically imbues this sense of power and majesty into the figures he draws that I rarely see matched. It helps that he’s very, very precise with things like posture and features; you never run into issues where one character looks almost like another, or repeated posing, etcetera. Well, mostly no repeated posing.

AS: *pained noises* Jean’s lip curl. She and Emma having such different facial expressions at everything. “What the %$&#, Ororo?” “Oh no! Ororo!” At some point I will post every single panel to social media and cry, which is good, right.

NP: There is a lot of material here that’s going to make great content for crying gays. I suppose we should just dive right in, yeah? How’d you like the New X-Men riff?

AS: Oooooof, some of the obvious little detail nods were fantastic. The “SILENCE” sign in Krakoan instead of English. The huge difference in Scott and Logan’s body language. Emma’s sip of liquid courage. And then I think the biggest thing, Storm’s mindscape as opposed to Xavier’s. The baobab instead of a tower. A lot more inviting looking, but just as dangerous.

NP: The baobab was…certainly a choice? I didn’t really love that the visual imagery of Storm’s psyche so closely resembles T’Challa’s communion with his ancestors in the Black Panther movie. That said, I really like how the majority of this issue both references New X-Men #121 while also playing with expectations. Like you said, the differences in body language, the fact that Emma and Jean made the entire journey together in this one the…blessed lack of seeing Xavier’s father inseminate his mother in absurd detail…

Stormy Weather

AS: Thank you…for that. Love that reminder. AND YES. YES. Jean and Emma not getting separated for this was such a welcome change. Teamwork on maintaining the stone spiral staircase, etc etc. I also didn’t love the callback to the Wakandan ancestral plane, but not sure how Dauterman could have avoided that a bit more visually, I guess. At the very least, the choice of the baobab itself is pretty great re: Storm. Those trees can survive some gnarly stuff. But we did just (time has no meaning, I don’t remember when actually) see one in Shuri in a big way, and if I remember correctly, it was also used for communing in that context. Woulda been great to have more of a disconnect from that, agreed.

NP: Yeah, it just kinda feels like it’s becoming an easy shorthand for Marvel? I dunno. I get wanting to tie Storm back to her roots as a goddess, but there’ve got to be better ways to do that, and besides, there are so many other important phases of her life that might help to define her psyche. I suppose in the end it probably comes down to the idea of the baobab being a monolithic structure in her mindscape the same way that the stone keep was in Xavier’s. That spiral staircase though! Not just the teamwork, but the way it crumbled, tried to bury them in rubble; Storm’s own mental defenses attempting to attack them with the thing she fears most. What a touch.

AS: THAT DIDN’T EVEN OCCUR TO ME WITH HER PHOBIA. Mind blown. Yes. And yeah, I think in the end it just boils down to the baobab being a callback to the tower’s imagery. Speaking of defenses, I did love Emma’s honesty in showing an image of her and Storm scrapping instead of even trying to pull one past her for the friend test. The vague little shrug was *chef kiss*, Though, thinking on this more, is this issue directly post-Marauders? That makes the exchange a tad more heartstring-tuggy.

NP: That’s hard to say—because essentially the entire issue is a riff, there’s no contextual information to give us a time frame. Speaking of that and the rubble, that’s yet another tie back to the Frank Quitely issue; telekinetically assembling stones was how Jean crossed the void to Xavier’s keep. So too, for that matter, is Emma getting violent! For all that I don’t like the framework that gets us where we are in this issue, I really enjoy the way that the book reinterprets the events of New X-Men in ways that aren’t a straight copy. There are just enough deviations to keep it fresh.

AS: Yeah, I find the circumstances around the issue incredibly annoying, as much as I mostly enjoyed the contents of the actual issue. Like I asked, when in the DoX timeline is this? But also, when did Storm get infected by the Children? That feels quibbly, but it just seems so out of nowhere. I know we still have the Giant-Size X-Men: Storm issue to follow-up on this, but I hope her bold new story direction isn’t … a nanite infection.

NP: She really, truly just deserves so much better. I really liked that bit with her phobia, and I liked the image of her looking down over the tree as Emma and Jean approached it, like an actual goddess, but it also seems like her weaknesses are the only things that get brought up these days. When her strength is displayed, it’s almost…reactive? Like no one can seem to access that part of her without first showing her in some kind of pain. Here she’s a damsel,, subject to body horror, and it all seems a bit…much, especially given the issues with coloring her properly at the start of Dawn of X, the way she seems to just sort of follow other (white) team leaders around…I dunno.

AS: Mmmm, yeah, I was gonna mention I did like seeing that she does have psychic defenses, is strong mentally, instead of easy to just peel open. Xavier’s psyche was a given because he’s a powerful telepath. Ororo, it’s a nice touch to see her mind also attempt to rip Emma and Jean to shreds. But, as you say, that’s also reactive. Sigh. I’m not quite sure what I expected from this issue in regards to her, especially considering the solicit text, but I guess it was never going to come off not damsel-y. I really am giving the benefit of the doubt on this with June’s Giant-Size focus on her, but still, for a character who has been under-served for years.

Let Them Date, You Cowards

NP: I will say that one thing I liked about this issue is that because it plays with the layout of NXM #121, it also really shows how the characters are in different places than they were (god) eighteen years ago. I kind of wish a woman had been writing this, but I at least like that for all Jean and Emma are recognizably themselves, they’re also not catty to one another in the way that Morrison liked to write them. He really is…not great with women. I appreciate that we’re getting to a point though where people are understanding that female characters can be more than jealous, vengeful stereotypes…or, because it’s X-Men, getting back to that point.

AS: Oh, most definitely. They feel comfortable around each other in ways they mostly haven’t been, well, ever. All conveyed via Dauterman’s excellent body language skills. Emma taking Jean by the hand. Them sticking through it together. Their little faces at each other. That hesitation from Emma at the end before she also leans into the moment with Jean and Storm. I think the other important distinction in this is that we aren’t getting the glaring opposite of them being catty either. And we see that with Emma and Storm’s relationship, too. Women also don’t always have to be close friends, which is the other extreme we seem to get when men want to write girl power moments.

NP: Yes! There’s an animosity between the two of them that isn’t about a man, or some other petty thing, it goes back to some really deep conflicts. This is some of what I was hoping for when Dawn of X started; the initial HoXPoX issues felt a little too “circle around the campfire,” and it seemed like they glossed over the fact that for all that mutants are a people unto themselves, some of them just don’t get along with each other very well. Now if they’d just get around to Jean and Emma going on a date…

AS: THIS IS A GOOD WAY TO GET THERE, OK. First the beer, now this ordeal. You don’t have to be chummy to go on a date, pfffft.

Mind Bullets

That little kiss on Logan’s cheek was cute.
Logan, very short. Good content.
And Scott’s hand on his shoulder. I feel like I’m begging for scraps but I love it.
Look, also Jean and Emma reaching for each other and then the forehead touch. It’s fine. We all want scraps.
Really liked how Dauterman put so much emphasis on Storm’s cat-eyes.
Krakoan Teaser reads: NIGHTCRAWLER

Nola Pfau is Editor-in-Chief of WWAC and generally a bad influence.

Allison Senecal buys books professionally and comics unprofessionally.