Jean Grey

• 1. Introduction

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  Jean Grey is a Marvel Comics character who has died and returned many times. Her tie to the cosmic force that defines her keeps being rewritten. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created her, and she first appeared in The X-Men #1 in September 1963. She belongs to the mutants, a subspecies of humans born with superhuman abilities, and her gifts are psionic, meaning powers of the mind. She is a caring, nurturing figure. Yet her most famous story set off arguments among editors, writers and fans that have lasted for decades. Who decided how that story had to end? Was the Phoenix a separate being, or was it always her? And why does the series keep finding a way to bring her back?

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• 2. Origins and Marvel Girl

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  Annie Richardson, Jean's best friend, was struck by a car, and that moment is where Jean's powers first appeared. Jean linked her mind to the dying girl, felt her slowly slipping away, and nearly died too. The experience left her in a coma. Her parents, John and Elaine Grey, sought out Charles Xavier, a powerful mutant telepath, and he brought her back to consciousness. Xavier then blocked her telepathy until she was old enough to control it. That left her with telekinesis alone.

  Jean Elaine Grey was the second daughter in her family, with an older sister named Sara Grey-Bailey. Her father, John, was a professor at Bard College in upstate New York. Portrayals of her childhood show a stable and loving home. In 2008, writer Sean McKeever retold the moment of Annie's death in a one-shot called X-Men Origins: Jean Grey. Michael Austin of Comic Book Resources called it a must-read. In his view, it shows how she became so powerful and what lingers in her mind.

  The X-Men #1 introduced her under the codename Marvel Girl, alongside Cyclops, Beast, Iceman and Warren Worthington III. They were students of Professor X, and their first opponent was Magneto. She was the original team's only woman, and the male characters often voiced their attraction to her. After several missions, Xavier removed her mental blocks, so she could use telepathy. Years later, writers recast that power as a suppressed mutant ability. In the mid-1960s, writer Roy Thomas built a subplot around what he framed as a "melodramatic unrequited romance" between Scott Summers and Jean. Then, in the early 1970s, the series stopped printing new stories and ran only reprints of earlier issues.

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• 3. Claremont's Cosmic Heroine

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  Len Wein and Dave Cockrum revived X-Men in 1975 with a new international team, and Jean was not part of their plan. Wein had already decided that she was leaving. Chris Claremont became the primary writer with issue #94 in August 1975 and stayed for the next sixteen years. When he became sole writer with issue 97, he brought Jean back and upgraded her powers significantly.

  Neal Adams penciled issue 56, the first X-Men comic Claremont saw after joining Marvel in 1969. Adams's portrayal left Claremont enamored of Jean Grey. Working with Cockrum and then John Byrne, he turned her from the team's weakest member into its most powerful. Claremont said that his and Cockrum's goal was to create "the first female cosmic hero." They hoped Phoenix would become an immensely powerful member of the X-Men, much as Thor had been added to the Avengers. In X-Men issue 98, Jean initiated her first kiss with Scott, though Cyclops sometimes competed with Wolverine for her attention. When she became Phoenix, Cyclops expressed fear and insecurity about her power.

  On an emergency mission in space, the X-Men found their shuttle damaged. Jean piloted it back to Earth and was exposed to fatal radiation. Dying, she called out for help, and the Phoenix Force answered. This cosmic entity, the sum of all life in the universe, was moved by her wish to save her friends. It built a duplicate body to house her psyche, and the copy was so exact that the Phoenix Force believed itself to be Jean. It placed her dying body in a healing cocoon later called a Phoenix Egg. The ship crashed in Jamaica Bay with the other X-Men unharmed. Fans later named the storyline in The Uncanny X-Men #101-108, from 1976-1977, "The Phoenix Saga." The cocoon sank to the bottom of the bay unnoticed. It would be found only after the Phoenix had played out a far darker story.

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• 4. The Editor's Verdict

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  In The Uncanny X-Men #129-138, published in 1980, a man named Jason Wyngarde, who used the name Mastermind, set out to corrupt Jean. Cyclops competed with him for her affections and destiny. Overwhelmed by her first taste of evil, Phoenix became Dark Phoenix. Byrne explained the idea this way: "If someone could be seen to corrupt Jean, rather than her just turning bad, this could make for an interesting story."

  Jim Salicrup and Byrne felt that Phoenix had grown too powerful and drew too much focus in the book. Byrne worked with Claremont to remove her from the story, first by taking away her powers. Then, in issue #135, Byrne had Dark Phoenix destroy an inhabited planetary system. That scene, together with the planned ending, worried editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. He felt that letting a mass murderer live was morally unacceptable and also a weak ending. In a 1984 roundtable, he said that sparing her was "the same as capturing Hitler alive and letting him go live on Long Island."

  The original ending was gentler. The Shi'ar would give Jean a psychic lobotomy that permanently removed her telepathic and telekinetic powers. Claremont and Byrne planned for Magneto to offer to restore her powers. Jean would refuse, so that Dark Phoenix could never return. Shooter ordered a rewrite of issue #137 to give the story a consequence equal to the enormity of her actions. In the finished story, Jean's personality took control, and the Phoenix died by suicide, using a disintegration ray to protect the universe.

  The team had argued over a deeper question. Was the Phoenix's descent into evil inherent to Jean, or was the Phoenix an entity merely possessing her? Salicrup and Byrne later said they saw the Phoenix as a being that had entirely possessed Jean and absolved her once driven out. The team ultimately agreed that the Phoenix was an inseparable part of her, so she was fully responsible. At a 2012 public signing, Claremont spoke of the late 1970s and the end of the Vietnam War. That history, he said, made her genocidal actions hard to redeem. When the first trade paperback of the saga appeared in 1984, Marvel also published a 48-page special, Phoenix: The Untold Story. It contained the original version of issue #137, the one Shooter had sent back.

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• 5. Resurrection by Committee

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  Kurt Busiek, a fan of the original five X-Men, was displeased by Jean's death. He shaped several storylines that would satisfy Shooter's rule and still let her return. Marvel had by then decreed that she could be revived only if she were absolved of her actions in the saga. Busiek told his idea to writer Roger Stern, who mentioned it to Byrne, then writing and drawing the Fantastic Four. Meanwhile, Bob Layton and Jackson Guice were developing X-Factor, a team of former X-Men, and had not settled on a fifth member. They had considered Dazzler. Layton chose Jean instead, and he and Byrne took the idea to Shooter, who approved it.

  Jean's revival became a crossover between the Avengers under Stern, the Fantastic Four under Byrne, and X-Factor under Layton. Busiek learned his idea had been used only through Layton, and he was credited in Fantastic Four #286 and paid. He maintained that he had merely shared ideas with friends and never formally pitched anything. Fans were divided. Some welcomed her back, and others felt it weakened the ending of the saga.

  Claremont was unhappy with the decision. In 2012 he said: "We'd just gone to all the effort of saying, 'Jean is dead, get over it,' and they said, 'Haha, we fibbed.' So why should anyone trust us again? But that's the difference between being the writer and being the boss." In a 2008 interview, Byrne still called Busiek's method "brilliant". He agreed, though, that in retrospect the character should have remained dead.

  The Uncanny X-Men #168, from April 1983, introduced Madelyne Pryor, a woman mysteriously identical to Jean Grey. Cyclops married her and had a child with her. Claremont said the resemblance was meant to be coincidence. Madelyne was a way for Cyclops to move on and leave the series. Editors instead wanted him in a new book, and that book was X-Factor, launched in 1986. Jean's return meant Cyclops left his wife and child to lead the reunited original X-Men. Claremont said this tarnished him as a decent human being. Layton took inspiration from the film Ghostbusters. The team posed as mutant hunters but worked to rehabilitate and educate the mutants they found. After five issues, Layton was replaced by Louise Simonson, who introduced the villain Apocalypse in X-Factor #6, from July 1986.

  Mister Sinister, a geneticist who sometimes works with Apocalypse, first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #221, from September 1987. He turned out to be the creator of Madelyne, a clone of Jean made to produce genetically superior mutants with Cyclops. When she learned the truth, Madelyne went mad, became the Goblin Queen, and planned to sacrifice her son, Nathan Christopher Summers. During the "Inferno" crossover, Jean survived their confrontation by absorbing the remnant of the Phoenix Force housed in Madelyne. That gave her both Madelyne's memories and the Phoenix's memories from the saga.

  Rachel Summers first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #141, from January 1981. She was the daughter of Cyclops and Jean from the alternate timeline of Days of Future Past. When the two finally met, Jean rejected both Rachel and Cyclops's proposal, because they seemed to prove her life was predetermined. Later, she made peace with Rachel and proposed to Cyclops herself. The 1992-1993 story "X-Cutioner's Song" revealed that Cable was Nathan, grown up in a future timeline. Jean and Cyclops then married in X-Men volume 2 #30, from March 1994. On their honeymoon they were thrown 2000 years into the future, took the names Redd and Slym, and raised Nathan for twelve years. Rachel had sent them to protect him. At her request, Jean took the codename Phoenix again, so that it would stand as a symbol of good.

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• 6. Powers and the Phoenix

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  Jean Grey is an Omega-level mutant, a category introduced in the six-issue miniseries X-Men Forever, written by Fabian Nicieza, for mutants with unlimited potential. At her peak, fully merged with the Phoenix Force, she was able to defeat even Galactus. Her telepathy is vast. A Marvel handbook calls her an alpha-level telepath. She can read minds, project thoughts and form psychic links. She can stun opponents with bolts of psionic force, cast near-flawless illusions and send minds onto the astral plane. She can fully possess only one mind at a time, and only when she is physically present. She can speak with intelligent animals such as dolphins, dogs and ravens, and she has an eidetic memory.

  Her therapy sessions with the comatose Jessica Jones gave Jessica immunity to the mind control of the Purple Man, even though his powers are chemical. When Jean absorbed Psylocke's specialized telepathy, she could manifest a psionic firebird whose claws damaged body and mind. She briefly lost her telekinesis in that exchange, but it later returned at a far stronger level. Her telekinesis can levitate matter, build force fields and produce concussive blasts. At one point she lifted about fifty tons of rubble, with some strain. She is also an empath, able to feel and manipulate other people's emotions and make them feel the pain they inflicted.

  The teenage Jean brought to the present by an older Hank McCoy found a new technique. She harnesses ambient psychic energy and channels it into blasts powerful enough to overpower Gladiator, a magistrate of the Shi'ar, with relative ease. Her whole body glows pink while she does it. Under Psylocke's training, she also learned to build psionic weapons that wound the body or the mind.

  The Phoenix Force itself has been portrayed in many ways since the Phoenix was recast as a separate entity. Jean has been one of many hosts, a unique host, or one with the Phoenix. A later account says she is the only one who can hold the title "White Phoenix of the Crown." She once ripped the Phoenix out of Emma Frost and imposed it on herself. Young Jean kept her psyche anchored in the Phoenix's mind after it killed her, then forced it to resurrect her. When she uses its power, it appears as a bird of cosmic flames that burns even in the vacuum of space. The fire is said to burn away what does not work, and it leaves no ash. Storylines in 2024 revealed that Jean is the human manifestation of the Phoenix Force and its mother. Her connection to it has often brought her into conflict with the Shi'ar empire, which massacred most of her family.

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• 7. Dying Again

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  New X-Men #150, from February 2004, was the issue in which Jean Grey died again. Grant Morrison's run, which began in June 2001, had narrowed the team to Jean, Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, Emma Frost and Charles Xavier. Cyclops grew alienated from Jean as her powers and responsibilities at the school grew, and their marriage began to fail. In the woods she confided her distance to Wolverine, and he shut down any interest in a relationship. Scott sought consolation from Emma, and Jean walked in on a telepathic seduction. Later she learned that Emma loved him and that nothing physical had happened.

  Xorn, a traitor at the institute posing as Magneto, killed her just as she gained full control of the Phoenix Force. She told Scott "to live." In a dystopian future threatened by the bacteria Sublime, she returned as the White Phoenix of the Crown. She defeated Sublime and reached back in time to tell Cyclops to move on. She then ascended to a plane called the "White Hot Room." In 2005, Greg Pak's X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong examined her bond with the Phoenix Force.

  At the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, editor Nick Lowe was asked about her return. He answered, "She's dead." Marvel said her return was a story it did not want to rush. In 2007's X-Men: Messiah Complex, a mutant girl named Hope was born. She had red hair, green eyes and immense power, and she served as a substitute for Jean. Hope returned as a teenager in "X-Men: Second Coming" in 2010, along with the Phoenix Force. After Avengers vs. X-Men, Beast brought a teenage Jean and the other original X-Men to the present in Brian Michael Bendis's All-New X-Men.

  On the 27th of December 2017, Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey brought back the adult Jean. Matthew Rosenberg wrote it, and Leinil Francis Yu drew it. The X-Men found her coffin empty. The Phoenix Force had already resurrected her, but she had forgotten her life and could not tell reality from fiction. Old Man Logan helped her remember, and she persuaded the Phoenix Force to stop bringing her back. It left for space, and she began starring in X-Men Red in 2018. She then briefly led the X-Men's Red Team until the Krakoan Age.

  Her resurrections come in several forms. During the Psych Wars, young Jean forced the Phoenix Force to restore her after her body was vaporized. After a Poison devoured her body, a surviving fragment of her mind destroyed the Poison Hive from within and rebuilt her body. That left her wondering whether she was still human. Once she even brought herself back from clinical death without the Phoenix. In their most recent meeting, she told the Phoenix Force that she should have died on the shuttle.

  In the Krakoan Age, Sentinels crushed Jean's escape pod during a mission near the sun. She was resurrected into a cloned body. She sat on the Quiet Council, Krakoa's provisional government, and briefly joined X-Force before resigning in protest of Beast's actions in Terra Verde. After Cyclops was resurrected, she reconnected with the Phoenix Force and left to travel in space. She told Cyclops she would not stay away forever, and she later returned to fight beside the X-Men.

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• 8. Legacy and Screen Life

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  Famke Janssen played the adult Jean in the 20th Century Fox X-Men films from 2000 to 2024. Sophie Turner played her as a teenager and young adult. Catherine Disher voiced her in X-Men: The Animated Series, which ran from 1992 to 1997. Jennifer Hale voices her in the 2024 revival X-Men '97. Phoenix Resurrection #1 was the 3rd best-selling comic of December 2017, according to Diamond Comic Distributors.

  Critics disagree about what she was before the saga. Screen Rant's David Caballero argued she served no important purpose in the team's early days, existing as a love interest and a mother figure. The Dark Phoenix Saga then lifted her to the top of Marvel's power ladder. Sara Century of Syfy wrote that fans relate to her in specific and personal ways. Many of her most avid advocates, she noted, are LGBTQIA people.

  The rankings run high. IGN placed her 6th on its list of the top 25 X-Men and her Dark Phoenix persona 9th among the top 100 comic book villains. Slashfilm and The Mary Sue both ranked her the most powerful X-Man. IGN's Hilary Goldstein and Richard George said her first death remains the most significant. In their words, she chose "to die as a human than live as a God." The rapper Jean Grae took her stage name from the character.

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