We open upon Jean Grey’s funeral, Cyclops thinking
about the words he said to her not too long ago, about not being able to handle
losing her. And now he has. The rest of the attendees are equally despondent,
Scott, Iceman, Angel, and Beast on one side, Charles Xavier, Wolverine,
Colossus, and Storm on the other, in addition to Jean’s family. Scott thinks of
simpler times, when Jean first joined the X-Men, and their first battle with
Magneto. He continues to reflect on the X-Men’s history, using his relationship
with Jean as a focal point running throughout. Scott thinks of Angel, and how
he once cared for Jean as well, reflecting on his own feelings for Jean and how
he initially couldn’t handle them, choosing instead to emotionally cut himself
off.
Scott continues to trace the X-Men’s history,
reminiscing on their first battles with Juggernaut and Sentinels, and a host of
other enemies. He then comes to a significant moment in his and Jean’s shared
history, during a party for Iceman’s 18th birthday. Scott and Jean
wandered off alone, talking for hours and during this fateful night, the two
finally admitted their love for each other. Scott thinks about how not long
after, the X-Men received new uniforms and seemingly lost Professor Xavier. He
remembers more run-ins with Magneto, meeting Polaris and his brother Alex
becoming Havok. Scott reflects on Beast and his transformation, the formation
of the new team and what it really means to be an X-Man, questioning if this
could possibly be the life any of them had imagined for themselves.
He finally comes to the last number of months. Jean’s
transformation into Phoenix, their battles with the Imperial Guard and Magneto,
and the months spent thinking the other was dead flash through his mind. He
remembers the last week or so, being captured by the Hellfire Club, Jean’s
transformation into Dark Phoenix, and finally her sacrifice. Scott, filled with
pain, shares his grief with Jean’s parents, before Lilandra gifts them with a
holempathic matrix crystal of Jean, allowing them to see and feel a 3D hologram
of her any time they wish. Nightcrawler jumps down from the tree he had been
watching everything from and Scott announces that he’s leaving the X-Men.
Xavier is unsurprised and Scott admits he has a lot of things to work through
now, not knowing where life will take him, but determined to live, as a
complete human being, for Jean’s sake. We then get a small epilogue, as
Kitty Pryde arrives at Xavier’s school, wondering why no one is there to greet her,
promising a new chapter in which the X-Men will never be the same!