The Dark Phoenix Retcon

Perhaps one of the greatest X-Men stories of all time is the Dark Phoenix Saga. I'm sure everyone knows the basics, but just in case: Jean Grey, corrupted by the power of the phoenix becomes an uncontrollable menace and destroys a solar system, killing billions in the process. Originally, the plan was to just have her powers removed and that was it, but Editor Jim Shooter said this was basically the equivalent of removing the German army and leaving Hitler in power. Part of the reason is the writers didn't make Jean possessed by the Phoenix force, she was merely corrupted by it. While her good-natured side didn't make these decisions, she ultimately did make them. After a significant amount of debate, they finally decided the only solution was to kill off the character. In the end of the story, Jean sacrifices herself to save the galaxy from herself.



Years later, Marvel wanted to create an X-Factor spinoff, which would feature the original X-Men lineup. Of course, in order to do this, they would need Jean Grey. In order to get around Jim Shooter's editorial mandate that required Jean to be blameless, they completely retconned the story. Jean Grey was never the Phoenix. Instead, every moment from the point Jean Grey saved everyone in the plane (including her saving the universe with the M'Kraan crystal to tender moments between her and Scott) were done by a separate entity that copied Jeans form. Therefore, the evil was committed by this entity instead. Obviously, this was one of the biggest retcons in X-Men history (I'd say bigger than the many Wolverine has had given its importance to the story and the characters).



So what do you think? Was Jim Shooter right? Was the only way to resurrect Jean Grey to keep her blameless? Could/should she have been allowed to live free (de-powered) after what she had done? Was the retcon ultimately the right way to go or did it cheapen the original story? Is there a large group of fandom that refuses to accept the retcon?