Originally Posted by
Harpsikord
Wait, why did the appreciation thread get rebooted? Haha.
I guess to start us off, why is Jean your favorite character? Exactly what about her GRABBED you and wouldn't let go?
The first time that I ever saw Jean Grey was in the X-Men Animated Series' Phoenix Saga. She was graceful, powerful, compassionate, and at the time she amazed little me. I always related more to female characters when I was a little kid than I did male characters (I realize now that's, in part, a gay thing and also a result of my older brother's hyper-masculine attitude), but even if it weren't for that, I think that Phoenix would have still drawn my eye. I remember having my parents buy me all the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix merch that they could find, and following the X-Men right into the films, Evolution, and Legends when I slowly got older - and it was all because of characters like Storm, Iceman, and especially Jean Grey.
Through the films, Evolution, and X-Men Legends I fell even more in love with who Jean was as a character. She's so complex. Always - at the time - holding back for fear of losing control, but still amazingly powerful and doing all that she can to protect and save the world even if humans hated mutants. She didn't care. She would protect them anyway.
I was fourteen when I started reading comics, and Jean Grey was dead then. That didn't stop me from reading all of the AU's and backissues that I could find that featured Jean in them, and I was hooked at that point. There was no turning back. I had to wait four years for some kind of Jean Grey to return to the main publication, and I never thought that it would happen. Teen Jean wasn't perfect and there were times where I questioned whether this really was Jean Grey or not, but over time that melted away. And then, in five more years after that, nine years after I started reading comic books, she was back.
And I've been over the moon ever since.