X-Fever: Sometimes they come back

Terry Morrow of Scripps Howard News Service writes about Phoenix and when (If? No, when) she's coming back in the pages of X-Men, drawing parallels to her film revival:

The Dark Phoenix storyline in the comics is the inspiration for the movie "X-Men: The Last Stand," in theaters Friday. In the film, the presumed-dead Jean returns as the Dark Phoenix, a threat to humans and the mutants.

"When issue No. 137 came out, readers' heads popped off," says Greg Pak, who wrote the Jean Grey comic-book miniseries "Phoenix: Endsong" in 2004. "That's when Jean Grey (committed suicide), and it was a stunner."

Marvel has been tempted to revive the character recently. "X-Men: The Last Stand" brings Jean back after she was presumed dead in the last X-Men movie.

But X-Men editor Mike Marts says he isn't quite ready to bring her back:

"She is such a popular character, but part of the reason you keep a character dead is that the death scene was such a great moment in comic book history," Marts says. "To bring back the character would diminish the moment if you do it too soon.

"After all, there's no guarantee that she'll be back."

Yeah, right.