All New X-men #23 Lettered Preview - Teen Drama Geek Out

I’ve had my share of crazy visions when I’m asleep/passed out. Sometimes I’m riding a unicorn named Trevor through the English countryside while naked Swedish bikini models dance joyfully in the fields while pouring vodka on each other’s tits. Sometimes I’m strapped to table in my high school shop class and my former shop teacher is preparing to give a safety lesson on how not to use a table saw. It usually depends on the quality of the booze, weed, or LSD I happen to have at the time. But I imagine some people have more useful visions.

In the first two issues of the Trial of Jean Grey, Marvel’s latest effort at making crossovers feel less like a sales gimmick, the All New X-men and Guardians of the Galaxy have seen a painfully clear vision of the future. O5 Jean Grey grows up to be a woman who both pits Cyclops and Wolverine against one another in an endless dick-measuring contest and who gets drunk off Phoenix power and kills five billion aliens. Now that she’s back, albeit in a time-displaced fashion, the Shi’ar believe it’s time she go on trial for these crimes that she hasn’t technically committed. Since the Shi’ar justice system seems to be fashioned from the legal traditions of North Korea, I’m sure technicalities mean jack shit. So to save O5 Jean and possibly the entire space-time continuum, the O5 X-men must team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy to save her. It’s not entirely clear what stake the Guardians have in it other than Starlord pissing off his father in a new way. Then again, that might be reason enough.

But part of what made the first part of the Trial of Jean Grey so gripping was how the emotional drama between O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean was developed. I made it a point to highlight it in my review. These two are not operating under the same kind of puppy love that they showed throughout the early years of the X-men. And I think that’s a good thing because love-at-first-sight and puppy love became legally dead after the invention of divorce lawyers, alimony, and child support. There’s still a place for it in comics, but the love between Cyclops and Jean Grey was badly in need of depth. And since learning about how fucked their future is, O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean Grey have had some tenuous emotional moments. However, the chemistry is still clearly there. And now that O5 Jean has been abducted, those emotions promise to boil over in a way that even teenage hormones can’t match.

All New X-men #23 promises to expand on that melodrama to a point where I can’t keep using teenage hormones as an excuse. An unlettered preview was already released a few weeks back. Now a lettered preview has emerged from Newsarama that finally allows me to stop imagining how the O5 X-men would react to being on a space ship with a machine gun wielding raccoon, a talking tree, and a hot green alien chick. But I’m okay with that. My imagination is creative enough to imagine plenty of other crazy shit.

Newsarama: All New X-men #23 Lettered Preview

• Jean is on trial and it’s up to the All-New X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy to get her free.

Once again, the teenage melodrama between O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean keeps building. They’ve been avoiding all those unpleasant details about their past and future relationship since All New X-men began. Now they’re running out of time to deal with it because if they don’t, the Shi’ar legal system will deal with it for them. And that would be like a married couple letting Chris Brown handle their divorce. It’s overdue, but the implications are still unknown. Could this be a One More Day type deal or a Superman/Wonder Woman type deal? It’s hard to say at this point, but at least the drama isn’t taking a back seat to animals shooting machine guns. As entertaining as that is, there’s a place for melodrama in stories about time displaced teenagers. Just look at Back to the Future and try to ignore the incest.

In addition, the novelty of working with aliens is undeniably appealing. O5 Beast looks like he just got into a limousine with William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy, and George Lucas. He and the rest of the O5 X-men are still at an age where their experience with aliens is limited. Whereas their older selves deal with aliens at least once a month, this is a first for them. I imagine it helps that Gamora and Angela look damn good in revealing space suits. Any overwhelming situation can be made more palatable if beautiful women are involved. Nuff said!

All New X-men #23 Preview - I Heart Groot

Being proactive in this age where the average cell phone has a billion distractions is exceedingly difficult. Every college student that ever planned on cramming for an exam understands that the promise of checking Facebook, playing Angry Birds, or downloading free porn is just too enticing. I guess the Shi'ar in the Marvel universe are in need of more distractions and/or more porn because on some issues, they just have to seize the initiative. That's basically the premise of The Trial of Jean Grey. It's Terminator mixed with Groundhog Day. They're trying to stop a crime before it is committed in hopes of fixing the timeline to the best possible outcome. The only way it could be more effective is if Bill Murray was the presiding judge.

But beyond the pragmatic aspects of trying Jean Grey for crimes she hasn't committed yet, there's still the matter of exceedingly heavy melodrama. Brian Michael Bendis tends to milk that shit until the teat starts bleeding. And even after that, he keeps milking it and passes the blood off as strawberry flavoring. Since the end of X-men Battle of the Atom, there have been plenty of dramatic sub-plots that have only been sparingly developed. O5 Jean can't seem to stop flirting with other boys on her team. O5 Cyclops suddenly fancies a clone of Wolverine that has slash fiction writers jerking off like meth heads at a porn convention. But the emotions between these two are anything but resolved and now is the perfect time to pour napalm on that fire.

It has been one of those relationships that fans either love or hate. Cyclops and Jean Grey are by far the most iconic X-men couple. They are right up there with Reed and Sue or Spider-Man and Mary Jane. And therein lies the danger. Marvel fucking retconned the Spider-Man/Mary Jane relationship. Now with the Shi'ar putting O5 Jean on trial for her future crimes, what's to stop someone else from putting her on trial for her epic love affair with Cyclops?

I've stated this concern on this blog on more than one occasion and it bears repeating. Marvel loves to fuck up established relationships and if given the opportunity to do so, they usually take it. There's already a lot of tension between O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean in All New X-men. It's a far cry from the Twilight-esque love-at-first-sight shit on which their relationship was built. That's probably the point. It could either be strengthened or utterly destroyed. It's hard to say which route Marvel will go, but The Trial of Jean Grey looks like a perfect opportunity do one or the other. And in a preview released by Comic Book Resources, the melodrama teat gets suckled again.

CBR: All New X-men #23 Unlettered Preview

Jean Grey must pay for her crimes – even the ones she hasn’t committed yet! Marvel is pleased to present your first look at ALL-NEW X-MEN #23, the next blockbuster chapter of “The Trial of Jean Grey”! From the critically acclaimed creative team of Brian Michael Bendis & Stuart Immonen – the alien Shi’ar Empire has abducted Jean Grey, placing her on trial for the cataclysmic crimes of her future self. On the edge of deep space, the young mutant and original host of the Phoenix Force pleads for her life amidst alien races who would see her destroyed!

As her fellow X-Men and new allies the Guardians of the Galaxy race across the stars to her aid, will they arrive in time? Or will it be too late? Plus, an ending so shocking you’ll have to see it to believe it! Don’t miss the issue everyone will be talking about when ALL-NEW X-MEN #23 blasts into comic shops this February!

It's hard to tell what O5 Jean is telling O5 Cyclops in his concussion-fueled dream. She could be crying out for help, begging him to come save her like he ends up doing any number of times in the future. Or she could be telling him to go fuck himself and see if X-23 will give him any more hugs. That's the joy/frustration of unlettered previews. They can mean so many fucked up things and with a mind as fucked up as mine, the possibilities are pretty...well, fucked. Either way, the melodrama between O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean looks like it's going to take center stage. I'm excited, yet fearful. Or that just may be the blow talking. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the blow.

And can I just say I fucking love Groot. He's by far the most admirable character in this whole affair. He doesn't need to give fancy speeches or provide deep insight into the world of superheroes. He just says his fucking name and that's all he needs to say. O5 Jean reading his thoughts only reveals just how awesome he is. He can only help make The Trial of Jean Grey more epic than it looks to be. Between him, Rocket Raccoon, and an army of pissed off aliens, there are just too many ways for this to be awesome. Nuff said!