Jean Grey
| Jean Grey | |
|---|---|
 Jean Grey. Greg Land, artist. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | X-Men #1 |
| Created by | Stan Lee Jack Kirby |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Jean Grey-Summers |
| Team affiliations | X-Men, X-Factor |
| Notable aliases | Redd Dayspring, Marvel Girl, Phoenix (IV) |
| Abilities | Telepathy, telekinesis |
Jean Grey is a comic book superhero in the Marvel Comics universe. She has used the code names Marvel Girl and Phoenix during her career and is a member of the X-Men. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, she first appeared in X-Men #1 (1963).
Jean Grey is a mutant born with the abilities of telepathy and telekinesis.
Character history
Origin
Jean Grey was born to Dr. John Grey and Elaine Grey. She had an older sister named Sara Grey and they lived in Annandale-on Hudson, New York where Dr. Grey worked as a history professor at Bard College. Her father, mother and sister were all humans but Jean turned out to be a mutant.
Jean's mutant psionic powers first manifested at the age of ten when they were prematurely triggered when her best friend, Annie Richardson, was hit by a car. As Annie lay dying, Jean instinctively linked to her mind and the trauma of experiencing her friend's death nearly killed Jean as well. The incident left Jean in a coma.
For three years, her parents sought the expertise of specialists to rouse Jean out of her catatonic state but only one, Professor Charles Xavier, was able to help. He realized that Jean's young mind could not cope with her telepathy yet so he decided to mentally block her access to this ability, allowing it to evolve at the natural pace it would have save for Annie's tragic death. Even though Jean continued living with her parents until she was a teenager, she had many training sessions with Xavier.
When she became a teenager, she left her parents and began attending Xavier's "School for Gifted Youngsters" and joined the X-Men under the name of Marvel Girl. She was the only female founding member of the team. At first, Jean could only use her telekinesis to lift an equivalent weight to what she could lift physically. Exceeding this limit would result in strain that would culminate in her loss of consciousness.
Romance
Jean and Scott both had a crush on each other, but neither were aware of the other's feelings. Cyclops was afraid to get close to anyone, lest his powers hurt that person. He also felt that he was no match for Warren, aka Angel, whom Jean was dating at the time. Once Jean had a date with Warren, but insisted on taking Scott along which confused and frustrated both men.
Jean eventually left the school to enlist in Metro College where Johnny Storm, the Human Torch also attended. She would continue to assist the X-Men on a regular basis, but did not continue living at the X-Mansion. The theme of her seeking tertiary education would provide a number of later X-Men subplots. Jean would later design new uniforms for the team.
Warren decided that Jean was not actually interested in him and started a relationship with his old friend Candace "Candy" Southern. Jean and Scott later admitted they were in love with each other and started dating openly.
Leave of absence
Requiring seclusion while he prepared to deal with a forthcoming invasion of Earth by the alien Z'nox, Xavier had the mutant Changeling impersonate him in order to supervise the X-Men in Xavier's absence, telling only Jean of his plan and swearing her to secrecy. However, the Changeling, as Xavier, died heroically in action and Xavier felt obliged to continue the pretense of his death.
Fred Duncan, the X-Men's FBI liaison, considered the united team to present an easy target for "the ever-growing population of evil mutants" and felt the X-Men would be more effective acting as individuals and spread across the United States. At the same time, Professor X's will confirmed that his estate would serve as a charitable trust with each of the five active X-Men a trustee, to ensure that they would need to stay in contact with each other. Jean and Scott remained in New York while Hank and Bobby relocated to California. Warren remained mobile across the United States. The X-Men would later reunite.
Jean later completed her college education and found employment as a model. Her first assignments were swimsuit presentations. At this time, Jean was introduced to Lorna Dane(Polaris) and they soon became friends. Jean was also introduced to Alexander "Alex" Summers, Scott's younger brother, who was just graduating from college. He would soon serve with the X-Men as Havok. Lorna and Alex also began to date.
Xavier was later revealed to the others to be alive, as he had them help them defeat the Z'Nox.
Phoenix
Many months later, after Xavier had recruited a new team of X-Men to help save the others from Krakoa, most senior members left as did Jean, who involuntarily found herself attracted to new member Wolverine. Cyclops, however, refused to leave the X-Men or rather found that he simply couldn't once again feeling that because of his power, he would never be able to actually lead a normal life for fear of hurting someone. He genuinely felt that the X-Men team was the only place he really belonged, which upset Jean. She still remained in contact with the X-Men and became best friends with the new teammate Ororo Munroe aka.Storm.
Later while meeting with Scott, Jean was abducted by Sentinels along with Wolverine and Banshee. They were taken to a space station in orbit around Earth. The other X-Men later came and rescued the three from the Sentinels.
During the destruction of the space station, the X-men and some astronauts managed to take a shuttle in order to escape. The shuttle was damaged breaking away from the space station. It left it largely unshielded except for the interior of a space probe in the shuttle's cargo bay during one of the worst solar storms in history. A decision was made that someone would have to stay at the controls and pilot the ship. Knowing that the astonauts were human and would not survive long enough to pilot, Jean absorbed Dr. Peter Corbeau's piloting knowledge thinking her telekinetic shield would give her the best chance of survival. Cyclops attempted to stop her and she used a mental bolt to stun him. Wolverine took the unconcious Cyclops after one last look at the woman he has come to care for and joins the others in the probe. Jean valiantly piloted the ship until her telekinetic shields started to give way under the onslaught of the intense radiation. Jean would have died were it not for the intervention of the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix force.
The creature was lured by Jean's last desperate telepathic cries and her immense will to live. The shuttle crashed into Jamaica Bay. Jean seemingly emerged from its remnants, imbued with vast cosmic powers announcing, "I am Phoenix." It was later retconned that Jean was actually placed into a coma in a cocoon in the depths of Jamaica Bay and the Phoenix adopted Jean's identity as a heroine. The Phoenix was so convincing as an imposter that not even Professor X could detect the difference.
Phoenix believed herself to be Grey while continuing her relationship with Cyclops. She lost control of her powers after being manipulated by Mastermind and eventually committed suicide in the Blue Area of the Moon. The Dark Phoenix Saga, the lengthy story of the decline and fall of Phoenix, by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, is regarded as one of the best comics stories of all time.
Return
Grey's survival was revealed when the original X-Men formed X-Factor. The Avengers had detected unusual energy readings at the bottom of Jamaica Bay. They sent Prince Namor, The Sub Mariner to investigate. He found a strange pod lying on the bottom of the bay. The Avengers sent the pod to the lab of Reed Richards, the leader of the Fantastic Four. During Richard's analysis, the pod cracked open and Jean emerged. Jean seeing differences between the members of the Fantastic Four she knew versus the ones before her attacked them not knowing that several years had passed. They eventually convinced Jean to calm down. The former members of the X-men were contacted and she reunited with most of them.
Cyclops, in the meantime, had moved to Alaska to be near his grandparents and met a pilot who looked exactly like Jean. The woman's name was Madalyne Pryor. They later married and had a son Christopher Nathan. When Scott heard Jean was alive, he left Pryor to find out if it was true. Cyclops then joined Jean and the other founding members of the X-men to create a new team X-Factor. He called Madelyne to try and persuade her and their son to come to New York. When he recieved no answer he assumed that his wife had left him.
In truth Madelyn and their son had been kidnapped by the villian Mr. Sinister. It is revealed that Mr. Sinister had created Madelyne from the DNA of Jean Grey. His clone was perfect except that she did not become conscious until the Phoenix's death on the moon sparked the clone's mind. Mr. Sinister then named her Madelyne Pryor because she had a prior existence as Jean Grey. His reason for creating her was so that she and Cyclops would have a child together. His plan was then to take the child and he would have a genetically superior mutant.
With her purpose fulfilled, he turned Madelyne over to his minions the Marauders to dispose of. She was then rescued by the X-Men and joined them where she was presumeably killed in Dallas defeating the Adversary. Roma, the celestial gaurdian, resurrected Madelyne and the X-Men. Wanting to rescue her son from Mr. Sinister, Madelyne made a pact with the demon S'ym from Limbo. The goblins used her despair to make her the Goblin Queen. Because of her deep mental depresson from before, the transformation drove her over the edge. Deciding to use her newly recovered son, Madelyne attempted to sacrifice him in a ritual that would bring the demons of Limbo into our reality thus bring about a permanent Inferno. The joined forces of the X-Men and X-Factor fought the Goblin Queen. Madelyne died in a climatic battle with Jean after she, becoming suicidal upon the discovery of her being a clone, linked their minds together and killed herself hoping the link would kill Jean as well. Fortunately it didn't but Jean gained all the memories of Madelyne and the Phoenix.
As a result, Cyclops and Grey were able to resume their relationship and eventually married. During their honeymoon, they were taken into the future to raise the baby Cable during the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries. Shortly after returning, she resumed using the name Phoenix as an attempt to redeem both the entity and herself in her mind and also to honor her "daughter" from a future parallel world, Rachel Summers, who at the time was believed to be dead.
The list of the Twelve had both Phoenix and Cyclops on it. They decided to help the X-Men in this turning-point battle. In the end Cyclops apparently perished as he merged with the villain Apocalypse. During this time Phoenix and Psylocke switched powers, with Jean adding Psylocke's shadowy telepathic powers to her own telepathy, while loosing her telekinetic powers to Psylocke. Phoenix had to deal with having to rely on her fighting skills to handle enemies who were immune to telepathy. But then Jean learned that Cyclops was alive, so she began a search for her lost husband with her son Cable. They found him and Jean used her newly increased telepathic powers to separate Cyclops from Apocalypse's spirit.
Marital problems
A combination of Jean's new duties as headmistress, her re-emerging Phoenix powers and Scott's temporary merger with the evil mutant Apocalypse drove a wedge between the couple. Scott and Jean started to have marital problems; Scott tried to show Jean that he needed to talk about his feelings of boredom with his own personality after being possessed by Apocalypse, though he didn't know how to talk to her. Their relationship became further strained when Jean began showing signs of the Phoenix Force, which Cyclops thought would lead to another disaster.
Scott then turned to Emma Frost to talk. Emma seduced Cyclops and began to have a psychic affair with him. When Jean walked in on the two in bed, a psychic battle erupted between the two telepaths with Jean using the full extent of her powers on Emma. This led to Cyclops briefly walking out on both Jean and the X-Men. When Cyclops rejoined the team to help them fight Xorn, in the guise of Magneto. In the storyline Planet X, Xorn mortally injured Jean by transferring a large amount of electro-magnetic energy to her causing a fatal stroke. As Jean died in Scott's arms, she told him to live.
Here Comes Tomorrow
Jean was then resurrected in the last arc of New X-Men: "Here Comes Tomorrow," which takes place 150 years into the future bearing the Phoenix entity once again. This time a secondary mutation had allowed her to evolve to the extent where she could command all the cosmic power of the Phoenix Force without being corrupted by it. This future timeline grew out of Scott Summers refusal of Emma Frost's offer to re-open Xavier's Institute. As a result, Hank McCoy took up the burden of re-opening the school and under the pressure, begins taking the drug “Kick”. "Kick," however, is revealed to be the aerosol form of the villain John Sublime, who possesses Hank McCoy and drives him insane. 150 years later, the near-immortal Beast tried to ressurect and use the Phoenix force to destroy the world, only to be defeated by Jean. She then transcends into the “White Hot Room,” an unexplained higher plane of reality, with all the other Phoenix hosts, but not before healing the timeline by sending her husband Scott Summers a mental push to accept Emma Frost’s offer and affections.
Somehow knowing her fate before she died, Jean made a holoempathic imprint of her full essence and everything that she was, for her daughter Rachel "Grey" Summers. She did this so that no matter what happened to her body, her soul would always be with Rachel.
Endsong
Recently, the Shi'ar resurrected the Phoenix entity in hopes of destroying it while it was relatively weak. The entity managed to escape and fled to Earth, where it needed a host to sustain itself. After possessing a firefly and running into Wolverine, the entity resurrected Jean and bonded with her once more.
Jean realized that the Phoenix was resurrected too early and as a result was mentally unbalanced. She had a confrontation with the X-Men before teleporting Wolverine to the North Pole, where she had him stab her several times, leaving the Phoenix entity weakened and allowing her to once again gain control. Jean then plunged herself through the ice, freezing instantly. When the X-Men arrived, Wolverine told them that "Jean is dead. Or as close as she can get." When the Phoenix entity returned from the ice, she possessed Emma Frost as the new love to Scott Summers' life. Emma, however, was unable to control or contain the Phoenix at all, as she was not an Omega-level mutant and it consumed her. As the Phoenix prepared to destroy the world, Scott, left with no other choice, fired his optic blasts at the ice encasing Jean. She immediately rose out of the ice into the sky.
The revived Jean psychically assaulted the Phoenix possessed Emma, forcing her to the ground. When the Phoenix Force asked how Jean was able to take her down without the power of the Phoenix, Jean explains, "I am you. Don't you remember?" Jean then exorcised the Phoenix out of Emma, telling the Phoenix she'll understand everything once all their pieces are together in the White Hot Room. Essentially, Endsong declared that Jean Grey is the original Phoenix, as Jean told Wolverine, "I'm always Jean and I'm always Phoenix". This is also confirmed as Jean's Omega-level mutation makes her the closest thing the Force has to a real body.
After Jean once again bonded with the Phoenix Force, the X-Men discovered the true reason for her return: she felt alone and unloved. Emma called out telepathically to her Stepford Cuckoos and focused the empathic impressions of all Jean's dearest friends. She felt their love for her and this allowed Jean and the Phoenix to achieve a perfect balance between them before returning to the cosmos. Parting from Scott, she asked one last request before leaving: to see his eyes.
Jean is currently in search of the missing fragments of herself that were scattered through space by the Shi'ar in order to bring them all back to the White-Hot Room in order to make herself whole again.
Powers and Abilities
Jean Grey is an Omega-Level Mutant. Jean Grey's dual psionic potential gives her the mutant gifts of telekinesis; the power to affect objects with one's mind and telepathy; the power to read, project and manipulate thought. Her telekinetic ability can be manifested in many ways, some of which include levitating herself or other persons or projecting a telekinetic shield capable of withstanding missile blasts. By focusing her mental energy at a specific target, she can release devastating force blasts. Her telepathy allows her to read the thoughts of others, project her thoughts into the minds of others to influence desicions, manipulate or change memories, place one under her telepathic command, cast her mind into the astral plane or fire stunning "mental bolts" capable of knocking out or turning someone brain-dead. When Jean Grey absorbed the specialized telepathic powers of fellow X-Man Psylocke, her own telepathy was increased to the level where she could physically manifest her telepathy as a psionic firebird; whose claws could inflict both physical and mental damage. Phoenix also learned that by using her amplified telepathy to increase the speed of neurual signals in the brain, that she could increase another mutant's powers to incredible levels but the effect was only temporary. She also developed a psychic shadow form like Psylocke had but instead of a red tattoo over her right eye, Jean had a gold Phoenix emblem. Jean Grey is considered to be one of the Earth most powerful telepathic minds, even stronger than Professor X.
Jean's Phoenix powers manifested later and significantly boosted her mental abilities allowing her to rearrange matter at a molecular level, to fly un-aided through space, create intense heat and thermal energy by stimulating molecular activity, manipulate the voluntary and involuntary responses in the human body. She manifested a "telekinetic sensitivity" that let her feel the texture of objects she had a telekinetic hold on, feel when other objects came into contact with them and probe them at a molecular level to identify alien materials or feel when two things she "held" were similarly composed. In addition to this, when the power of the Phoenix force in engaged, she is surrounded in a flame-like energy corona that takes the form of a large bird of fire.
Jean can also (though she never did this) revive, kill, absorb, rechannel and preserve any kind of lifeform, preferably humanoids. Other hosts of the Phoenix force in other alternate universes have been using that power throughout the comic since the Phoenix is the sum of all lifeforce.
Among most fans, Jean is also regarded to have an immunity to permanent death due to her frequent resurrections.
Alternate versions
Lady Grey
In Uncanny X-Men #125 (September, 1979), Mastermind introduced Phoenix to the illusion of living in the body of a namesake and look-alike ancestor. This ancestor was Lady Grey, an 18th century member of the Hellfire Club. This was his method of turning her to the Black Queen of the modern Hellfire Club. Whether this ancestor was a real person or a creation of Mastermind was left uncertain.
However the question was answered in X-Men: Hellfire Club #2 (February, 2000), part of a mini-series on the Marvel Universe history of the Club. This particular issue was scripted by Ben Raab and drawn by Charlie Adlard. Lady Grey was revealed to have been an influential member, possibly a Queen, of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania branch of the Club during the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783).
The issue begins with a flashback to 1780. Specifically, it was at the moment this upper class redhead noticed a fifteen-year-old blonde girl stealing an apple and managing to escape the pursuit of an angry male. Lady Grey approached the girl to find more about her. The girl was named Elizabeth Shaw. She had emigrated from England in 1778, hoping to find a better life in the colonies. She had instead fallen to living in poverty and stealing in order to eat. She was surprised to be confronted by Grey, but delighted to be invited to her quarters in the local Hellfire Club.
In private, Lady Grey had some explanations for Elizabeth. Others may have entered the club in pursuit of mere hedonism but Grey and like-minded thinkers had entered with the ambition to gain influence on the local, national and global scene. But people of such privilege would have to recruit a protégé from time to time, not depending on their current situation but on them being able to share the dreams, ambitions and passions driving their mentors – individuals with "fire" in their own hearts. She asked Elizabeth what was her own dream. Elizabeth answered "freedom", which was good enough for Lady Grey to recruit her.
Six months later, Grey was one of several members to turn her attention to Major General Wallace Worthington who had managed to replace the defector Benedict Arnold in command of his forces. The man was reputed to be particularly fierce in his patriotism. The Club members were searching for weaknesses to exploit in order to place Worthington under their control. Grey had the idea to play match-maker by introducing him to her young protégé. Providing Elizabeth Shaw managed to marry him, Grey would have her agent in his own household. Worthington was instantly smitten.
Within months, Wallace Worthington and Elizabeth Shaw were married. Lady Grey sensed the event as a personal victory. Elizabeth was to seduce her husband into confiding military secrets to her. Military intelligence which the Hellfire Club would use to end the "pitiful" American Revolution and assure the victory of the Kingdom of Great Britain. However Worthington continued to establish a reputation for loyalty to the cause and successful administration with the aid of his fellows Captain Steven Rogers; an ancestor of Captain America and Ulysses Bloodstone; an immortal born in the late Hyborian Age.
Lady Grey finally contacted Elizabeth in December, 1781 to enquire on what was the reason of the delay. The reason was that Elizabeth had actually fallen in love with her husband and could not betray him. Grey warned her that betrayal to the Club would result in her strings to be cut. Elizabeth was still confused and let her go. Apparently, Grey decided Shaw was a lost cause. Within hours Wallace Worthington was murdered and his house burned, leaving behind only his widow and her lost dreams of freedom.
Whatever happened to Lady Grey and Elizabeth after the murder was not revealed. But Elizabeth was possibly pregnant. She was implied to be an ancestor to Warren Kenneth Worthington III, Archangel of the X-Men. Elizabeth was also implied to be a distant relation to Sebastian Shaw, Black King of the modern Hellfire Club.
Ultimate Jean Grey/Marvel Girl
In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Jean Grey was reimagined as a responsible yet outgoing teenage girl. She had a passionate affair with Wolverine, but soon dropped him for Cyclops.
She took on the name Marvel Girl in Ultimate X-Men #1, but currently both teammates and herself have stopped using it. She ridiculed her codename, as she says "she outgrew it two bra-sizes ago".
In the "Hellfire and Brimstone" arc, she is shown to be possessed by a so-called Phoenix Force and becomes nearly insane, but escapes its grip. In further arcs, her powers emanate as a halo in Phoenix Form and it is shown that she sometimes has difficulties controlling her vastly grown powers. This has led to speculation that there will be an Ultimate Marvel re-imagining of the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Appearances in other media
Jean Grey was a character X-Men animated television series in the mid-1990s and was voiced by Catherine Disher. She also guest starred on at least one episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends in the early 1980s.
- In the feature films X-Men , X-Men 2 and X-Men 3 Grey was portrayed by Famke Janssen. Near the end of X2, Jean exhibited what may have been Phoenix-like powers.
- In the animated TV series X-Men: Evolution, Jean was voiced by Venus Terzo. Jean is portrayed as very beautiful and popular. Her powers are similar to the early comic books; she possess telepathy and telekineses, initially only being able to move objects with her mind that she would normally be able to move by hand. Professor X, the world's greatest telepath, later trained her to use and refine these powers. When her powers surged, Jean found herself losing control, overhearing thoughts without effort. The X-Men helped her to regain control, leading her to form a psychic rapport with her teammate Scott Summers. After recently graduating from Bayville High, Jean has taken an instructor's position at the Institute. She is also currently romantically involved with Scott (Cyclops).
- Jean Grey had made rare appearances in video game spinoffs until recently, when she appeared as Phoenix in both X-Men: Mutant Academy games for the Sony PlayStation. She also appeared in X-Men Legends and its sequel X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse as a playable character.