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

Jean Grey’s power first manifested at the age of ten when she read the mind of her best friend Annie Richardson, who was dying after being hit by a car. Jean felt Annie's mind slip away and die, and nearly died with her.

For three years her parents asked many specialists to get Jean out of her catatonic state, but only one, Professor Charles Xavier, could help. He discovered that the girl was a mutant and not able to cope with her telepathy yet, so he decided to mentally block her access to this ability; allowing it to evolve at a natural pace. Even though Jean stayed at her parent‘s home, she would have many training sessions with Xavier until she became a teenager.

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. During her tenure there, she fell in love with Cyclops.

Following a mission in space, Grey attempted to pilot a shuttle back to Earth during one of the worst solar storms in history. The shuttle was unshielded and Grey would have died were it not for the intervention of the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix force. Though at the time it was believed (and the storyline meant it to be) that the Phoenix imbued Jean with vast cosmic powers, this was later retconned that she was actually placed into a coma in a cocoon in Jamaica Bay and the Phoenix adopted her identity as a heroine who claimed to be Jean and was so convincing an imposter that not even Charles Xavier could detect the difference.

Phoenix believed herself to be Grey, and she and Cyclops continued their relationship, until Phoenix lost control of her powers, and eventually committed suicide. 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 the 1970s.

Grey's survival was revealed when the original X-Men formed X-Factor, which she joined when she emerged from her coma. Cyclops, in the meantime, had married her double (later revealed as her clone), Madelyne Pryor. When Scott left Pryor for Jean she felt distraught and betrayed. Goblins used her despair to make her the Goblin Queen. She died in 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 (it didn't.)

As a result, Cyclops and Grey were able to resume their relationship, and eventually married. Shortly thereafter, 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. Later, she assumed the role of the Headmistress of the Xavier Institute.

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. Emma Frost took advantage of this, initiating an affair with Cyclops and falling in love with him. When Jean walked in on the two in bed, a psychic battle erupted between the two telepaths when Jean demanded to know what was going on. This led to Cyclops briefly walking out on both Jean and the X-Men. Upon his return, someone in the guise of Magneto attacked the X-Men, and killed Jean Grey. As she died in Scott's arms, she told him she forgave him.

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 so the Phoenix enity would be weakened and she could gain control. Jean then plunged herself through the ice, freezing herself.

When the X-Men arrived, Wolverine told them that Jean was "dead. Or as close as she can get."

The Phoenix enity later burst through the ice and started attacking the X-Men, but Jean herself remains dead for now.

Appearances in other media

Marvel Girl was a character in the mid-1990s X-Men animated television series, and guest starred on at least one episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends in the early 1980s.

In the X-Men film and its sequel X2, Grey was portrayed by Famke Janssen.

In the animated TV series X-Men: Evolution, Jean was voiced by Venus Terzo .

External links

• UncannyXmen.net, Spotlight feature on Jean Grey/Phoenix