My Jean Grey appreciation Mega-Post for the new thread.

Jean is one of the most iconic, long-standing, and powerful characters in comics whose influence is wide-spread across other mediums. Originally "the girl" of the team, Jean has always struggled with agency and power (the power of self-determination and her actual powers). Her robust and dynamic life includes being an original X-man, earning a psychology degree and modelling, being roommates with Misty Knight, defining herself outside of the X-men when she thought her friends were dead, heroically sacrificing herself, saving the universe, becoming the X-men's defining tragedy, resurrections, parenting her adopted son, marrying Cyclops and becoming an iconic couple, owning her power and becoming bigger than her relationship with Cyclops, dying, re-defining her legacy through a time-displaced younger version, being resurrected and affirming her agency, leading her own team, and recently becoming integral to Krakoa's defence.

Jean's iconic status was partly secured by being part of the cast for the Animated Series where she mostly tripped, fainted, and called out for Cyclops. The show's adaptions of the Phoenix Saga and Dark Phoenix Saga elevated the character and remains the only good adaption of the Phoenix. The TAS exaggerated everyone's personality, but Jean is harder to define and distill to something cartoonish. So she came across as subdued and much quieter, making her transcendence into the Phoenix so revelatory.



Jean has appeared in two cartoons since TAS. X-men Evolution Jean was confident, responsible, and full of potential. She was popular at school, pined after, and a star-athlete. But she struggled with being a closeted mutant and the show did an excellent job portraying someone burning with a secret on the inside, who loses her status and reputation due to bigotry, and embraces what she tried to hide. She had a great original costume in the show and really cool power signature, and became more powerful throughout the series which culminated in a psychic battle between cerebro-powered Jean and mind-controlled Xavier.

Jean's most recent starring role in an animated series was Wolverine and the X-men, which made her a pawn of the Hellfire Club and responsible for a post-apocalyptic future. Jean was mostly a plot-device in a series that really played up the Wolverine, Cyclops, Emma Frost, and Jean Grey quadrangle. Jean was a major powerhouse and target for Mister Sinister, as well as the Phoenix' chosen host. I particularly liked that the show made Jean's power central to Xavier and Magneto's rift. Imagining the Phoenix as a canary in a bird cage in Jean's mind was a creative presentation of telepathy.

Jean has made appearances in a total of 7 movies, starring in X-men, X2: X-men United, X-men: The Last Stand, and X-men: Apocalypse cameoing in The Wolverine as a ghost and in Days of Future Past showing that the new timeline has fixed the tragedies of the old one, and as the leading woman of Dark Phoenix. Played first by Famke Janssen and later by Sophie Turner, movie-Jean was fairly weak and timid before powering up to Phoenix-levels and becoming a major threat. The movies heavily emphasized the love triangle and made her Logan's one true love while sidelining Cyclops. The movies peaked with Jean's sacrifice in X2, and thoughtfully scripted and performed moment in which Jean uses her Phoenix powers to save her team. The movies famously dipped in quality with X3 where Dark Phoenix was reduced to a demonic and veiny split-personality subplot in order to give Wolverine angst. Jean served three different hairstyles and rocked them all, with the X2 soccer mom cut being my favourite. She wore black leather with green (and later red) piping before donning a Scarlet Witch-esque jacket with a corset as her Dark Phoenix look.



The recent films retold Jean's backstory but retained themes of Jean's underlying power and the consequences of Xavier's tampering. X-men Apocalypse was panned by critics and audiences, but Jean's Phoenix power-up, depicted telepathically as Jean coming out of Cerebro and unleashing psychic fire, was a highlight. Jean's costuming and styling in Apocalypse was fairly bad unfortunately. Dark Phoenix made Jean the storyline central, but was creatively doomed by its director being the writer of X3. Studio politics, including Disney buying Fox and similarities to Captain Marvel, meant that a risky two-parter was cut into one movie that had a phenomenal space sequence followed by dreck. Dark Phoenix ultimately fell victim to the decades of problems with the X-films and Jean's film future is uncertain.

Jean is also significant for how many video games she has been playable in. Between the Mutant Academy games (plus the Next Dimension in which Dark Phoenix was a separate unlockable character), X-men Legend and Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, Marvel vs. Capcom and mobile games, Jean is prominent in fighting games and rpg video games. These games sometimes draw on Jean tk and tp, but most often depict her as Phoenix with fire powers. Notable Jean gameplay include her tp in XML2, combos that blended tp, tk, and fire perfectly in Next Dimension, powerful blasts in MUA2, energy regen in MUA3, and her character power in MvsC3 in which Dark Phoenix powers boost Jean's power while draining HP.



Jean had an interesting decade. Long dead, a time-displaced Jean Grey changed all of the rules regarding the Jean we knew and reexamined the legacy of the character. Jean haunted the X-men after her death with her legacy and image hanging over the X-men at all times. Would Jean approve of Utopia? Would Jean want to reopen a school? Would Jean have supported Cyclops? Teen Jean was haunted by her future/past self and it was interesting to see her act without training or tampering. She abused her telepathy in shocking ways but eventually figured out who she wanted to be. Jean's legacy was sometimes reduced to DPS only, but Teen Jean had the agency the character was sometimes denied. Jean had her first ever solo series this decade in which she was brought into the greater MU to take on the Phoenix once-and-for-all.

Editorial inconsistency and bizarre decisions resurrected adult-Jean around the end of Teen Jean's solo series, creating a bit of a continuity headache. The Phoenix Force was apparently coming for Teen Jean at the same time as it resurrected adult-Jean in a reality-warped cocoon. The Phoenix had deemed Teen Jean as unworthy while giving adult Jean everyone she loved back in order to tempt her into becoming its host again. Jean, never liking to have her future written for her, rejects the offer and strikes out on her own. X-men: Red gave us Jean without the Phoenix, without Cyclops, without Wolverine, and without her past. She uses that time to be a visionary and assemble a badass team of friends and newbies to go after Cassandra Nova's hate machines (that also served as a commentary on bots, social media, and online right wing radicalization). Jean's time in the leadership spotlight ended after 12 issues when the X-men got caught up in the events of Disassembled and Age of X-man (where Jean got little real development).

The HoX/PoX era scaled back the characterization of a lot of X-men, and for Jean that meant a return to Marvel Girl imagery. DoX teases her open relationship while fleshing out her worldview in X-Force where the fire inside of her is starting to burn. Jean believes that the resurrection protocols and a deathless mutant society will make the mutants better heroes because eliminating the fear of death helps increase selflessness. We got some really terrific Jean Grey art too.

Jean's status quo since returning is still up in the air, but 2020 promises to dig deeper into her dynamic with Emma Frost and Storm. Percy has her in X-force for the foreseeable future and that seems to be a good fit. I'm hopeful for Jean's new green and yellow costume, X-Force confidence, and evolved love life.