Who is/was Jean Grey?

Jean Grey was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. She has had numerous resurrections in the past 50 years, living up to her code name of Phoenix. I’m here to guide you through all the twists and turns. There will be a test later.

As Marvel Girl, Jean was one of the founding members of the X-Men in 1963. (The movie X-Men: First Class is completely wrong on the early members. The Beast is the only one the movie got right. Also, Mystique has no early history with Charles Xavier whatsoever. The movies made all that up. In the comics, they didn’t know each other at all until she attacked the X-Men. But anyway.) Jean has always been a telepath and/or telekinetic as the comics went back and forth over the years about whether she possessed either power or both. In the early days, Marvel Girl was considered the weakest X-Man, as women back then were unfortunately written, despite the fact that their powers had tremendous potential. See also the Invisible Girl/Woman.

Jean’s main love interest throughout her story has been Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops. Her passionate nature was a complement to Scott’s reserved personality. However, she and Wolverine both carried a low-level flame for one another through the years. 

After years of wacky adventures, the X-Men found themselves on a space station with an approaching solar flare about to destroy them. Jean volunteered to pilot the shuttle back to Earth, gambling that her telekinetic shield could keep the radiation out. She was wrong and the radiation started to kill her. A cosmic entity called the Phoenix Force was attracted by Jean’s passionate determination to save her teammates. Off-panel the Phoenix Force kind of powered Jean up and made her realize her full potential.

In the wreckage of the space shuttle, Jean emerged as Phoenix, an omega-level mutant with vastly more powerful telepathy and telekinesis. Shortly thereafter, she saved the universe by repairing the disintegrating M’Krann Crystal in the Shi’ar galaxy. It became clear to the X-Men that this was not just Jean in a fancy new costume. Professor X and Moira MacTaggert started running tests of how cosmically powerful Jean had become and were disturbed by the result.

Phoenix then became the target of Mastermind, in disguise as Jason Wyngarde, a member of Magneto’s old Brotherhood of Evil Mutants who was out for revenge. He made Jean believe she was psychically traveling in time and reliving the life of a wicked colonial ancestor. During a slow burn through the X-Men comics of 1979-80, Wyngarde seduced Jean into accessing the dark side of her powers. Finally, the kinky villains the Hellfire Club captured the X-Men and manipulated Jean into betraying the team. She lost control of her powers and became the evil Dark Phoenix, with a sexy new red costume and near-omnipotent powers.

Driven by a hunger for power and sensation (a metaphor for orgasm), Dark Phoenix consumed a star, which destroyed the nearby planet D’Bari and killed billions of inhabitants. Sensing that Jean was barely hanging onto her humanity, Cyclops tried to talk her down from the ledge. Professor X then created circuit breakers in Jean’s mind so she could not access the Phoenix power.

The Shi’ar then kidnapped the X-Men to make Phoenix pay for her crimes and the team fought a trial by combat. In the heat of battle, Jean again became Dark Phoenix. Realizing she could not keep the evil side at bay, Jean used a disintegrator ray to kill herself so she could not harm anyone else. “I love you, Scott. A part of me will always be with you,” were her last words. (Actually, her last word was a screamed “SCOTT!” as she disintegrated but you know what I mean.)

This story, “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” is still one of the best in comic history. Chris Claremont did not originally want to kill Jean but editor Jim Shooter insisted, realizing she had killed billions on D’Bari and had to pay a price. Her noble suicide had a tremendous impact since it was rare back then to kill a major character.

The X-Men grieved and moved on. Scott met Madelyne Pryor, a woman who looked just like Jean, and married her. Mastermind was manipulating everyone into believing Madelyne was Jean’s reincarnation but her resemblance turned out to be just a coincidence (or so they thought). Soon after, Rachel Summers, the daughter of Scott and Jean from the alternate future of the “Days of Future Past” story, traveled to the past and joined the X-Men, possessing the power of Phoenix.

However, Jean never did die. She was never Phoenix at all. The Phoenix Force took Jean’s place and acted exactly as Jean would have, placing the real woman in suspended animation at the bottom of the sea. Jean returned to the real world, with no memory of what Phoenix did in her name. In a notorious story, Scott dropped his wife and newborn son Nate (the future Cable) like a hot potato the minute he heard Jean was alive again, the first of several “Cyclops is an asshole” moments. In time, the X-Men found out Madelyne actually was a clone of Jean and Madelyne became the villain the Goblin Queen. Jean ended up absorbing Madelyne’s memories and Madelyne ceased to exist for the time being.

Jean and Scott eventually married and remained members of the X-Men, going on more wacky adventures. Years later, the two started becoming estranged due to Scott suffering the residual effects of having merged temporarily with the immortal mutant Apocalypse and Jean again being seduced by the Phoenix Force. Emma Frost, the erstwhile White Queen who had originally betrayed Jean to the Hellfire Club but then reformed and joined the X-Men, seduced Scott and they had a psychic affair. When Jean found out, Emma had hell to pay and Scott temporarily left the team.

In the “Planet X” story, Jean and Wolverine then found themselves trapped on Magneto’s old Asteroid M base as it hurtled into the sun. With Jean in increasing pain on the overheating asteroid, Wolverine granted her a quick death by stabbing her with his claws. He then carried her outside the asteroid so they could walk into the sun together, but Jean’s Phoenix powers fully awoke and she saved them. That was Jean’s quickest resurrection ever.

Back on Earth, the X-Men confronted Magneto (who was actually not Magneto but the Chinese mutant Xorn [possessed by the aerosol mutant being Sublime], who had disguised himself as Magneto — this would take an extra day to explain), who had trashed New York and started killing humans. Magneto delivered a lethal magnetic pulse to Phoenix, causing a “planetary-level stroke.” Wolverine beheaded the Magneto imposter. Again, Jean delivered some great parting words: “Live, Scott. Live. All I ever did was die on you.” She then ascended into the White Hot Room as the White Phoenix of the Crown.

That’s been the status quo for the last decade. It’s impressive that Marvel has resisted resurrecting Jean for so long. She’s been dead twice as long as she was in the ‘80s after “The Dark Phoenix Saga.”

Cyclops bounced back pretty quickly, continuing his affair with Emma and making out with her over Jean’s grave. This was actually Jean’s wish. From the future, after ascending to a higher level of consciousness, Phoenix saw that if Scott had left the X-Men, it would lead to a dystopian future, so she pushed Scott and Emma together so he would stay at the renamed Jean Grey School of Higher Learning. Cyclops later became increasingly militant on mutant rights to the point where he made Wolverine look like the peacemaker. The Phoenix Force then returned and possessed Scott, Emma, Colossus, Magik and Namor the Sub-Mariner. Under the influence of the Phoenix, Cyclops killed Charles Xavier and ended up being hated by everyone.

Jean Grey has not totally disappeared from the Marvel Universe. The teenage Jean from the early days has recently journeyed to the present along with the other original X-Men (the present-day Beast brought the team in from the past, basically to warn teen Scott what an asshole he would become in the future). There’s also future Jean, returned to the present in the guise of Xorn, the man who killed her.

Despite a few teases, there’s been no sighting of present-day Jean in the Marvel Universe, as far as I know. But I have no doubt that like her namesake, the Phoenix will again rise from the ashes and return.