JEAN GREY

The Dark Phoenix

The White Phoenix of the Crown

The Phoenix Force

JEAN GREY’S BEGINNINGJean had a happy childhood that abruptly came to an

end when her best friend, Annie Richardson, was hit by a car. Barely ten years old, Jean held her dying friend in her arms. In that instant, her mutant power kicked in and she unwittingly read Annie‘s mind, as she slowly slipped away to death. Even though she didn’t understand her telepathy, Jean embraced Annie’s soul and tried to protect it from the darkness that was closing in, but there was nothing she could do. Annie died, and it seemed that a part of Jean died as well. Over the next three years Jean fell into a deep depression. That changed when somebody told her parents of Professor Charles Xavier. He discovered that the girl was a mutant and not able to cope with her telepathy yet. Therefore, he decided to mentally block her access to it until she was mature enough to properly control it. He also helped Jean to realize her potential as a telekinetic and, while she continued to live with her parents, she would regularly meet with Xavier for training sessions, which technically makes her his first student (but not his first X-Man)

MARVEL GIRL

Years later, when the professor had already recruited four other mutants, one of them being Scott Summers aka Cyclops, Jean officially enrolled at Xavier’s school and joined the X-Men under the codename Marvel Girl. Only shortly afterwards, the team made its public debut, fighting Magneto. Inexperienced as they were, the X-Men were unable to capture him, but they at least managed to thwart his plans.

Later When Professor Xavier was kidnapped by the mysterious group called Factor Three, Jean apparently returned to the X-Men on a full-time basis. At least she did not seem to be attending classes at Metro College anymore, after the X-Men had tracked their mentor down and rescued him. Xavier was so proud of his students‘ performance that, in the aftermath of that adventure, he allowed the X-Men to wear individual costumes, each of which Jean had personally designed. 

THE PHOENIX IS BORN

Jean was captured by a new version of Sentinels and taken to their orbital station. The X-Men had no means to get there on their own, but Dr. Corbeau, a friend of Professor Xavier, was in charge of the United Nation’s Starcore project. He quickly organized a space shuttle and piloted the mutants to the Sentinel inhabited base in Earth’s orbit. While they managed to free Jean and several other X-Men that had been abducted, the flight back turned out to be problematic. The shuttle’s shielding was damaged; yet they had to pass cosmic radiation and solar flare activity. Jean reasoned that she alone stood a chance to survive by trying to filter out the radiation with a telekinetic shield; therefore she telepathically absorbed Corbeau’s knowledge to fly the ship and ordered everyone else into the life-cell, a specially shielded chamber in the rear area of the craft. However, the strain of piloting the shuttle and keeping her telekinetic powers up at full force was too strenuous, and ten minutes into the flight radiation began to pass through. The shuttle crashed down in Jamaica Bay, and all of the passengers in the back made it safely out. However, the X-Men were in for a surprise when Phoenix dramatically rose out of the wreckage before passing out. Even though she was wearing a different costume and, by all rights, shouldn’t have been able to survive, the X-Men had no reason to believe that she wasn’t the real (and only) Jean Grey. While the cocoon containing Jean’s body sank to the bottom of the bay, the X-Men rushed Phoenix to a hospital, only to be given a clean bill of health.

THE PHOENIX

A villain kidnapping Lilandra, an alien Shi’ar princess, whom Xavier had just befriended. Fortunately, Phoenix was able to re-activate the stargate that the Shi’ar agent had used, so that the X-Men could follow him. In the far outskirts of the Shi’ar galaxy, the X-Men rescued Lilandra, only to learn of a much bigger threat. In a mad quest for power, Lilandra’s brother, Shi’ar emperor D’Ken, had tampered with and eventually damaged the structure of the M’Kraan crystal, a nexus to all realities. Entering that crystal, the X-Men found themselves in a beautiful but also unsettling alien city, with a glowing energy sphere in its center. That energy sphere contained neutron galaxy that, if the lattice remained damaged, would draw in all of the universes mass into a big bang, to create a new universe. Phoenix realized that she coulduse her vast energies to heal the sphere, but feared that she would be fully absorbed by it. To anchor herself to humanity she linked with the lifeforces of Storm and Corsair of the Starjammers right before she flying into the sphere and engulfing it by a bird shaped-energy signature. This Phoenix effect kept growing and growing, even dwarfing the whole solar system, until finally the impossible task was accomplished. During the process, Phoenix touched the life-forces of the whole universe.

THE BIRTH OF THE DARK PHOENIXUnnoticed by anyone, Phoenix was being

stalked by Mastermind. For weeks the illusionist had been following her in many different guises and, presenting himself as a handsome stranger, he even introduced himself to Jean when she went shopping in a nearby town. Slowly but surely, Mastermind began to influence the unsuspecting woman with his illusions. For a few seconds, reality would shift and she found herself in some late 18th century setting, wearing the typical clothes of the time and apparently in love with Sir Jason Wyngarde, the attractive guise in which the villain had approached Jean. Right after Professor Xavier returned from space, Cerebro registered two new mutant signatures and the X-Men split up to get in touch with both of them. While approaching Dazzler in a night club in New York, Jean again bumped into Jason Wyngarde and immediately was hit by another 18th century illusion, in which she ended up marrying Jason Wyngarde.

THE BIRTH OF THE DARK PHOENIX(CONT.)Returning to New York a couple of days later,

the X-Men attended one of the Hellfire Club‘s parties with invitations that the Angel had organized for them. They walked straight into a trap, though, as Jean fell prey to another illusion of Mastermind; this time it being permanent. As the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club‘s Inner Circle, she helped to capture all the other X-Men, who in the illusionary world she was trapped in were rebellious slaves and unpleasant servants to Jean‘s role as an 18th century noble woman. Through their psi-bond, Cyclops managed to enter the illusion, only to be confronted and killed by Jason Wyngarde on the astral plane. Seeing her true love “die,“ Jean snapped out of the trance she was in and freed her teammates. While the other X-Men fought the rest of the Hellfire Club, she took a most cruel revenge on Mastermind, making his mind one with the universe, overloading his sensory input

THE DARK PHOENIX DESTRUCTION

Even though the villain was defeated, it was too late, and the damage was already done. Wyngarde’s manipulations had awakened and strengthened Jean’s darker side and, lusting for power, she transformed into Dark Phoenix during the flight back home to Xavier’s mansion. In this state, she had no moral code anymore. Easily over-powering her fellow X-Men, she took off to the stars. In the matter of seconds, she left the Milky Way behind and reached other galaxies deep in space. Soaring through the universe at this incredible speed, however, Dark Phoenix needed more energy. Passing D’Bari, a star of approximately the same size as Earth’s sun, she decided that this would do just fine and entirely consumed it without a thought of the consequences. Her actions doomed the entire D’Bari systems, as the planets and all their inhabitants were scorched when the sun went super-nova. Five billion people died, but their deaths were recorded by the crew of a Shi’ar vessel close by.

DEATH OF THE PHOENIXThe Shi’ar, who filled the X-Men in on

what Dark Phoenix had done while she was in space. Classifying her as a threat to the whole universe, the aliens demanded her death and the X-Men had to engage the Shi’ar Imperial guard in a duel over Jean’s fate. The Blue Area of the moon served as a battleground for this duel but, unfamiliar with the powers of many of their opponents, the X-Men didn’t fare too well. After all her teammates had been defeated, Phoenix’s cosmic power levels resurfaced. With her last strength of will before succumbing again to the dark influence inside of her, Jean used her telekinesis to activate an alien weapon to vaporize herself.

DEATHWhen Phoenix pulled herself back together in some

sort of afterlife, she thought at first that she had not managed to kill herself, until she realized that she was suddenly wearing a white Phoenix costume. She found herself on a strange building floating in space, and Death appeared in the guise of construction worker, building additional floors to the building. With nothing else to do, Phoenix helped him with this task, learning along the way that she was building rooms for the souls of the many people she had killed. Death, however, reminded her that she had also saved countless lives before that. Next, he explained the connection between Jean and the Phoenix Force, and also revealed the Force had had a hand in Jean’s telepathic contact with Scott back when they were children. It was all pre-ordained; Jean‘s connection to Xavier’s school, Scott family history with the Shi’ar and the two of them falling in love with each other all were required elements to ensure that, in the time of need, the X-Men and the Force’s avatar, Phoenix, would be there to stop D’Ken from destroying the entire universe. As she departed from the afterlife, Death knew that Phoenix still needed to learn and grow more responsible. Unfortunately, though, he was also aware that she wouldn’t remember his words. 

JEAN DIES AND THE PHOENIX LIVESMuch later, Jean flew a plane to save Logan

who was stranded on an asteroid. It turned out to be a trap and now both were stranded on Magneto’s old headquarters, Asteroid M, which was hurtling towards the sun. Jean shared her concerns with Logan: her growing powers, her fears about the Phoenix replacing her and her knowledge that she had to let Scott go out of love. Not able to see her slowly die, Logan killed her instead. As a result, her Phoenix-self was freed and, now fully empowered, Jean used the sun’s energy and the molecules of the asteroid to create them a craft that brought them back to Earth. Along with the other X-Men, they confronted a Magneto imposter who had been posing as the X-Man known as Xorn. As his last act, “Xorneto” sent all his energy into Phoenix causing a stroke within her. Jean died in Cyclops arms, telling him all she ever did was die on him and urging him to live.

REBIRTH….150 years later, in some dystopic, war-torn

future, a Phoenix egg was found in the Moon’s blue area. However, before Tom Skylark could bring it to the X-Men, the egg was stolen by the Beast’s armies. The Beast had it hatch and out came a burning, yet reborn Jean, who due to being hatched prematurely didn’t really remember who she was, just that she was there to “fix something that was dying.” Heart-broken after her death, Scott had left the school and, while the Beast tried his best to keep the Xavier Institute open, he ultimately wasn’t wasn't capable of handling all the responsibility that had been thrust on him. Eventually, he began taking the drug Kick to cope with the pressure and, as a result, Hank became the new host body for Sublime, the sentient microscopic lifeform who existed in aerosol form within Kick.

…RECREATION

While the future X-Men died in the battle with Sublime, buying her time, Jean turned back into Phoenix. Facing Sublime, she separated the rogue intelligent bacterial colony from the Beast’s body and burned it out of reality - by amputating the entire future. Her work done, she returned to the so-called White Hot Room, where she was expected by an army of Phoenixes – although as a “white Phoenix of the crown” she apparently played a special role. Jean learned that she could build a new future, but she would have to water it with her heartblood. As that particular future had been made possible because 150 years earlier Cyclops had refused Emma Frost and her offer to reopen Xavier’s school together, Jean reached back through time to her funeral. Urging Scott to “live,” Jean made him choose Emma, thus opening another path for the future.

THE PHOENIX FORCE LIVES

The X-Men put the inscription “She will rise again“ on Jean’s gravestone, they couldn’t have known how soon that would actually happen. It being common knowledge among the Shi’ar that the Phoenix Force always comes back, a group of renegades caused it to return incomplete and way before its time. They intended to destroy the Force once and for all with a new experimental weapon, but one tiny spark of the Phoenix remained and escaped to Earth. Taking on a humanoid shape, the Force approached Jean’s grave, animated her body and made her dig herself out. Despite Jean’s protests, the Force fully restored her body and entered it. Struggling for control, Jean had Wolverine kill her time and again, further weakening the Force, before burying herself deep underneath the frozen sea in the Arctic region.

END OF THE PHOENIX

Emma mindlinked Scott with all the other X-Men and, bundling all their love and support for Jean, she sent it to Jean. Thus grounded to her human roots, Jean got a handle on her new status. At that point, the Shi’ar launched their weapon again, creating a miniature black hole to get rid of the Phoenix. Jean threw herself in the way of the blast, saving her friends and teammates. About to depart to the afterlife once again, Jean admitted that she was scared and asked Scott to let her see his eyes a final time. As he took off his visor, Scott reminded her that no matter where she would go or how much she would grow, she should always remember that, deep down, she is Jean Grey. Jean is now in the White Hot Room, piecing the Phoenix Force back together.