8 Reasons To Look Forward To Phoenix Resurrection: The Return Of Jean Grey

This December, Marvel Comics will be bringing back one of their more popular characters in the form of Jean Grey... and not as a time displaced teenager in a frustratingly confusing and convoluted time travel plot this time!

Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey sees the adult version of the X-Men's most powerful telekinetic and telepath return from the dead, having been killed at the end of Grant Morrison's legendary New X-Men run. It's been a fairly lengthy absence for the character, and she's perhaps one of the most missed and sought after aspects of the X-Men among fans.

Matthew Rosenberg and Leinil Francis Yu will bring the story of how the adult Jean comes back, and she seems to be bringing the cosmic super-entity the Phoenix in tow. What can this mean for the X-Men, or her teenager self currently running around in the Marvel Universe?

Whichever way you look at it there are plenty of reasons to be excited for the upcoming series, and what it may mean for the future of Marvel and, more importantly, the X-Men in particular.

Mutants and the Phoenix often means one thing: Space!

The Phoenix itself is a cosmic entity, the manifestation of Life itself in the universe, encompassing all the creation, destruction, death and renewal that that entails. It is worshipped by the Shi'ar Empire, though it is a universally known being, and is at times viewed as a great thing and at other times a thing to greatly fear (it's mainly been the latter in the last decade).

As such, even since the very first introduction of the Phoenix Force, it has often meant that the X-Men are getting shot into space.

These stories with the X-Men in the stars are often about as high sci-fi as the series gets, and has led to some incredible storylines and additions to the X-Men and the greater Marvel Universe.

And it's probably not entirely accidental that the Phoenix is returning when the next X-Men movie will be all about the Dark Phoenix. While true Marvel and the movies don't often connect directly, you can almost count on characters appearing in a major film leading to them returning to the comics around the same time. And that new X-Men movie is rumoured to be involving space a bit too, so we could be getting an interstellar outing for at least part of this series.

Or if not the X-Men going to the stars, why exactly is the Phoenix Force, an immensely powerful cosmic force, making it's way back to Earth again?