Marvel Made a Massive Mistake With Jean Grey, but They Can Still Make Things Right

Jean Grey is one of the biggest Marvel Comics characters around right now, thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She’s made her MCU debut in the biggest superhero movie in years, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, with fans all over the world are talking about Sadie Sink’s performance and her future with the character. As with all things, the best place to look for that is the comics, where Jean has long been one of the most important members of the X-Men. She spent about 14 years dead, the longest period she’s ever spent gone, and since her return has been returned to the top of the team’s pecking order, even finally regaining the Phoenix Force.

Jean Grey is the most powerful X-Man, thanks to the fiery force of death and rebirth. Her original stint with it led to the greatest Marvel story ever “The Dark Phoenix Saga” and her relationship with it has since defined her place in the Marvel Universe. For years, it was played as the boogeyman in her life but that has changed; her relationship with it is closer than ever. She came in clutch at the end of the Krakoa Era, using its power both to go back in time to ensure the birth of Hope Summers (she’s her father, by the way) and empowering the team to defeat Enigma, a godlike being outside of space and time. The end of the Krakoa Era led to a new era of the team, and Jean would also get taken in a new direction, one that has proven to be a huge mistake. Marvel had one plan with the character and it failed, but there’s time to salvage the situation.

Jean Grey’s Space Adventures Were Supposed to Lead to a New Cosmic Marvel

Marvel editor extraordinaire Tom Brevoort was moved over to the X-Men office after the end of the Krakoa Era, creating the “From the Ashes” status quo (although not that name, that was Claremont in the early ’80s; see what I said about nostalgia?). This status quo seemed to be based almost entirely around trying to capture the ’90s nostalgia that had driven X-Men ’97 to the top. Brevoort chose writers who were willing to work in this framework. Now, Jean Grey and Cyclops’s relationship played a huge role in X-Men ’97 and just X-Men history in general; the two of them had spent the Krakoa Era together, so it would have been safe to assume that a status quo based on nostalgia would put them together. That wasn’t the case.

Phoenix was going to star Jean Grey as the Phoenix, but instead of having adventures with her friends and family in the X-Men, she was sent to space. It was honestly something of a mystifying choice at the time; moving Jean away from the X-Men didn’t really feel right, especially not right now. However, cosmic adventures starring the Phoenix Force definitely had potential and so fans were optimistic. The book would see her work with Nova at times and end up battling against enemies like Thanos and Gorr the God-Butcher, and there were rumors that Brevoort wanted to use the series as a stealth reboot of Guardians of the Galaxy, except this time with one of the most popular X-Men in the middle of it.

While the Guardians of the Galaxy have been very popular at the multiplex, they’ve never really been able to match that success at the comic store. Brevoort has tried numerous times to get the series off the ground and there was definitely the feeling that he was trying again with Phoenix. This was before Imperial came along and tossed everything in cosmic Marvel into the air; there were various characters out there who needed something to do and Jean Grey was meant to be the nucleus for this. Brevoort hoped people would be so interested in her adventures with the Phoenix in the cosmos that it would reinvigorate cosmic Marvel with a mutant flavor.

It’s honestly kind of hard to say why it didn’t work. If I’m being honestly, I often felt like Jean was a guest star in her own book when I was reading it and I was turned off by it. Jean as the Phoenix is one of the most powerful characters you can imagine and it’s often hard to write characters on her level. This led series writer Stephanie Phillips to use the other characters more in the early stages of the book as she got her bearings writing Jean. There was definitely the feeling that Jean on Earth was too powerful for the stories that were being planned for the X-books and it sort of felt like Brevoort was hoping to hit two birds with one stone by putting her in space.

Jean Grey has a very interesting history, but taking her out of her environment to put her in an entirely new setting was a mistake. Even when the book started to deal with the big Sara Grey story, which did play into Jean’s history, it honestly felt like it was too little too late. Marvel took a gamble with Jean, hoping that her popularity would buoy her in the new setting while they figured out what to do with the book. You can almost see the dividing line, from where Jean was tangling with the Black Order and hanging around with various cosmic characters to where she was dealing with the consequences of her own powers. Marvel never should have separated her from the X-Men, but it’s time to remedy that.

The X-Men Have a Jean Grey-Shaped Hole In the Team

While there’s something to the idea of Jean Grey with a new Guardians of the Galaxy around her, it was also an idea that was never going to work in the long run. I love Jean Grey as a character, but this latest stint with the Phoenix Force has been bad for her. Most of her stories have dealt too much with her powers and not enough with her as a person. Jean is a great character, but throwing her out into a new setting with a makeshift supporting cast when she had the greatest supporting cast ever on Earth seems like a weird choice. Half the fun of Jean as the Phoenix is seeing how it affects everyone else and we got none of that.

Jean Grey is a character in limbo; her solo series was a failure of somewhat legendary proportions – readers have been screaming her to get the Phoenix Force back for decades and yet the book still couldn’t keep them coming back. The X-Men books are in the middle of big longterm stories where Jean would be more of a spoiler than anything else; 3K wouldn’t have a prayer if Jean was around. However, Marvel needs to figure out a way to bring her back where she belongs sooner rather than later, especially with her MCU debut leading potential fans to the comic store to learn more about her. That’s the ticket to success with her in the future – put her back with the X-Men and let her shine again.