All New X-men #22 Preview - Cosmic Trial

I admit I don’t know much about laws that don’t pertain to public intoxication, public urination, and various drug laws. And several district judges and state troopers will back me up on that. But even I know that no rational court of law can convict someone for a crime they were going to commit. That would be like a state trooper arresting me on my way to the bar and giving me a DUI while I was completely sober. That’s not just patently wrong. It gives the state police in my area a terrible idea.

But that’s exactly what is about to happen with O5 Jean Grey. Marvel has been teasing it for months now. As part of their ongoing effort to let Brian Michael Bendis mix and match every one of his ongoing title while hyping up another movie, All New X-men is going to crossover with Guardians of the Galaxy. So not only will the O5 have to stop the Shi’ar for convicting Jean Grey of a crime she hasn’t even committed yet. They’ll have to do it with a hot green woman, a living tree that only knows three words, and a raccoon with a machine gun. I’m not saying that’s going to be a detriment. I just feel the need to say it out loud because it sounds like something I would only see in a bad LSD trip.

And before we can even get to the trial, the Shi’ar have to do the same thing the DEA does to pot dispensaries. They have to bust in and actually arrest O5 Jean Grey for crimes not yet committed. They also have to do this at a time when the team just got a new member in X-23 and there is still a lot of unresolved melodrama from recent events. It’s like CSI meets Jerry Springer. It may not have any strippers or crack whores, but it will have pissed off aliens and teenagers. I’m pretty sure that’s just as entertaining. And thanks to Newsarama, we have our first lettered preview to offer insight into that ongoing melodrama.

Newsarama: All New X-men #22 Lettered Preview

ALL-NEW X-MEN #22.NOW
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W)
STUART IMMONEN (A/C)

“The Trial of Jean Grey”
The arrival of the original X-Men in the present sent shockwaves through the Marvel Universe, but we’ve only seen the effects on Earth. When alien races learn that Jean Grey, host of the destructive Phoenix Force, is back on earth, they do something about it. Now it’s up to the rest of the All-New X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy to save Jean Grey from twisted intergalactic justice! Don’t miss two of Marvel’s biggest franchises crossing over for the first time!

So despite O5 Cyclops “fancying” X-23 and O5 Jean fancying pretty much every other member of the O5 X-men at this point, they still can’t stay away from each other. They’re still concerned about who they end up becoming and what they end up doing. It’s hard to believe, but it’s not something they’ve actively discussed since this series began. They’ve actually been avoiding it, which is part of why it seems so frustrating. And I can’t help but feel sorry for O5 Angel because he’s stuck in the middle of it.

I try to avoid making predictions at this point because my track record at this point is worse than the drafting of the Cleveland Browns. But this crossover event looks like it’s going to shove O5 Jean’s future right into her face to the point where she won’t be able to avoid it. And part of that future is what will happen between her and Cyclops. I’m not sure if she still has a copy of that wedding invitation he gave her earlier in the series, but that may take on the same meaning of that picture of the tombstone in Back to the Future III. It leads me to believe that Marvel will use this to retcon something in the past. I’m just too drunk to contemplate what it might be.

They could effectively One More Day the relationship between Cyclops and Jean Grey, which would be a dick move of cosmic proportions. Or they could change the way the Shi’ar handled the Phoenix Force, which would only fuck up the timeline even more. It’s impossible to say, but I predict that something is going to get retconned by the end of this crossover. Some part of Marvel’s history is going to be tweaked. It may end up tearing another asshole in the fabric of space and time, but at this point I think everyone at Marvel has stopped giving a shit about that. Nuff said!