It is surprising that Xavier is going behind Jean. These polls are usually popularity contest and not many people seem to stan him, at least not on a level compared to Emma, Betsy or Rachel.
Jean
Xavier
Emma
Rachel
Psylocke
Sinister
Exodus
Cassandra Nova
Quentin Quire
Legion
Shadow King
Other
It is surprising that Xavier is going behind Jean. These polls are usually popularity contest and not many people seem to stan him, at least not on a level compared to Emma, Betsy or Rachel.
Some Jean telepathy feats:
As a child, pre X-Men, her mind is used to calibrate Cerebro
As a child, pre X-Men, able to Astral project and contact Scott Summers in Sinister's orphanage. Xavier could not detect Scott on his own and could only "see" him through Jean's perceptions
Without active telepathy, she's able to sense that Vanisher is a mutant
Jean's burgeoning empathic/telepathic abilities are strong enough to start eroding Xavier's mental blocks. This marks the start of her telepathic training.
Able to hurt Juggernaut through his helmet
Able to telepathically communicate with Hank from 3,000 miles away while also connected to two of the other X-Men
Picked up thoughts of the last people in a room
Without active telepathy, she's able to serve as a psi boost for Psylocke to pierce the psionic haze during Inferno and allow the two teams to share info
Similarly, without TP, she uses her skill to commandeer Legion's telepathic persona to merge info between the teams of X-Factor, New Warriors and the Muir Island mutants
Transfer her full consciousness into Emma's body without needing artificial or mechanical means
During Bloodties, on Genosha, while held "captive" by Exodus, she was in fact constantly probing his defenses telepathically and streaming that info to Xavier
During X-Cutioner's Song, when Jean and Cyclops were sucked out onto the vacuum of the Moon's surface, she projected a faint signal to Wolverine...that's over 200,000 miles away
Soon after her telepathy is inadvertently restored by Psynapse, she's able to telepathically cloak a team of X-Men from the Shadow King (and took Psylocke out also)
Despite his desperate efforts, Jean is able to keep Onslaught out of her mind while he tries to learn how she taps into the Phoenix Force...she resisted him hard enough to affect his cohesion with Xavier
After Xavier, Jean was the only telepath he felt could challenge him
Psionically sever the connection between Binary and alien inciters
After OZT, she telepathically scanned the globe
Psychometrically filtered out, coalesced and eliminated the remnant hate left by Bastion all over the Mansion
Removed Apocalypse's essence from Cyclops
Administered psychic time compressed danger room sessions to the novice crew she collected during Eve of Destruction
Re-wrote Frenzy's personality to use her for the Genosha mission against Magneto
Projected the illusion of Magneto killing Dazzler into his mind, even through his psi-proof helmet
Detected Emma under a huge pile of debris after the attack on Genosha, even when she was in her psi-proof diamond form
Created a time compressed construct in Storm's mind from half a world away so they could have a full day's worth of hanging out in a matter of moments (also telekinetically braided her hair from half a world away too)
Helped Scott create a psychic black box in his mind strong enough to contain the void
I tend to think that Emma would be more skillful, in that she's got more experience at the less ethical uses of telepathy, while Xavier has (usually) held himself to higher standards (even when he did bend his own rules, he didn't do it *daily,* like Emma did, as part of the Hellfire Club). That's been my fanwank for why she could telepathically block Cyclop's access to his optic blasts in Astonishing X-Men, a feat that neither Jean nor Xavier ever seemed able to do. Jean had the power to do something like that, but not the skill at screwing with someone's deep mind (or willingness to do so) that Emma had. Xavier also had the power, and perhaps the skill and cold-bloodedness, but just flat-out lacked the intimate connection to Scott that Emma and Jean would have.
The only other advantage over Jean that Emma might have, even if Jean is the stronger by far, other than skillfulness and a willingness to 'go places' and master sketchy techniques with her telepathy that Jean doesn't usually share, would be that, for most of her career, she was *only* a telepath, focused entirely on this discipline (and even creating psi-technology, like the mind-swapping gizmo she used on Storm!), while Jean had to split her focus on mastering telekinesis as well. I feel like someone with only a single power is likely to put more focus on it than someone like, say, Exodus or Legion or the High Evolutionary, who has a smorgasboard of other stuff on their plate, clamoring for their limited attention.
I'm always amused by these lists not including people like the Gamesmaster (one time the hot new thing and 'strongest telepath'), or Moondragon (I can mind control an entire planet, or pierce Galactus' mental shields), or the High Evolutionary (who would be very powerful, but likely not even close to the levels of specific telepathic skill of someone like Xavier, Jean or Emma).
There's no reason to believe Jean couldnt do the same for Scott. She pretty much did that for Nehnzo in X-men Red. Besides did Emma really do that? She was being possessed by Nova in that arc to tear down the X-men and what she did was left Scott mess whom couldnt access his powers before moving onto the rest of the team. It didnt even last
As for the last point, I think its bc these lists tend to be about X-men characters or rather mutants. Hence why Moondragon doesnt enter the conversation. Gamemaster could but he's a long forgotten villian and one of the few that actually went face to face with Jean and definitively lost. He isolated her from the team back in the annual from the 90s bc his powers wouldnt work on her and she'd be the only actual threat. Once she was "awake" in the astral plane, she managed to free herself and defeat him
Last edited by Havok83; 08-25-2019 at 11:58 AM.
Which was 1000% complete horse crap.
Jeen has virtually zero psychic experience. Laura was conditioned with the Trigger Scent for over a decade with the expressed purpose of it never be reversible. It would be like Jeen removing Rachel's hound conditioning.
Honestly, the Jeen wanking by the writers was kind of ridiculous. Jeen's feats would put her in the same tier of power as Infinity or Eternity. I know they wanted to generate hype for the character but that's more than a little extreme.
*Thought I posted this earlier*
Emma is not more skilled than Jean just because Jean is also more powerful...it's not an either/or thing. They only thing with Emma is she's more ruthless at the onset (Jean gets there when her temper is triggered)
Jean being a dual psi doesn't diminish her capabilities as a telepath
I'm mad because it throws power scaling out the window. Jeen being more powerful than Galactus means that she's more powerful than every X-hero and villain combined. Why was she running from the Phoenix when she could fight her on even terms? Why were they running from Ahab when Jeen could easily beat Ahab and every one of his dudes without coming close to breaking a sweat. Why didn't she just nope Charles Jr and Raze?