Spoilers ahead!
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out, and all of us armchair speculators were correct. Sadie Sink is indeed playing Jean Grey in the MCU. Having Sink play Spidey’s antagonist in this film made some people question the role and casting. I mean, after all, Jean Grey is a “rule follower,” a “goody two-shoes.” How could our beloved Marvel Girl ever be so dark and vengeful? Allow me to take you down comic book row and explain how Jean Grey has, at times, been the whole problem, and why this Jean Grey works.
The Beginnings of Jean Grey
Jean Grey is an Omega-level mutant. She has two mutations: telepathy and telekinesis. Jean Grey first appeared in 1963’s X-Men #1 as Marvel Girl. During those first issues, she was only a telekinetic, not a telepath. However, Bizarre Adventures #27 retconned those beginnings. In that issue, Jean has an older sister named Sara Grey, who is not a mutant. Her telepathic abilities awaken through the trauma of having her best friend, Annie, die in her arms after getting hit by a car. She goes into Annie’s mind, trying to keep her alive, but while in her mind, she feels her friend die.
She experiences death firsthand. In this comic, she is described as a “withdrawn, serious, almost haunted” child. She later meets Xavier, and he puts mind blocks in place “until she has matured,” and he is the one who helps unlock her telekinetic powers.
A modern, more comprehensive retelling of Jean’s origins appeared in 2008’s X-Men Origins: Jean Grey #1, a one-shot by Sean McKeever and Mike Mayhew. In this one, once again, trauma triggers her powers, but it triggers both her telekinetic and telepathic powers. The trauma pushes her too far, and once again Xavier puts up walls in Jean’s mind.
While Spider-Man: Brand New Day does change some things from her original origin, like her sister Sara also being a mutant, I personally think it also properly sets her up. By having her sister be the catalyst for why she is going after the Department of Damage Control, she has a stronger motive. It gives Jean a fresh story, and, similar to Spider-Man: Homecoming, it allows a new way for us to view this character.
We have had two previous Jean Greys on the big screen. Both mostly stuck to the comic book origins, and both suffered the same fate. When it came down to telling the Dark Phoenix story, arguably the best story of Jean Grey, it didn’t quite measure up.
The Dark Phoenix Curse
Jean Grey as Marvel Girl in her earlier appearances is great. But it wasn’t until Chris Claremont’s 1976 Uncanny X-Men #101, “Enter: The Phoenix,” that we truly saw the awesome power of Jean Grey.
In this story, Jean Grey sacrifices herself piloting a dying space shuttle through a deadly solar storm and bursts from the ocean as the Phoenix. Later, in the 1980s, we get the Dark Phoenix Saga.
No live-action movie has been able to pull off the Phoenix correctly. And it is not because the actresses playing Jean weren’t magnificent—they were. It is because the pacing of films doesn’t allow for the same beats needed to build up the Dark Phoenix Saga.
In comics, the entire Phoenix Saga lasted seven issues. The Dark Phoenix Saga lasted three issues.
To this day, arguably, the best version of the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix Saga has been told by X-Men: The Animated Series in the ’90s.
In previous film iterations, we knew about Jean Grey’s childhood trauma. And we knew Xavier held back her power. But we were never fully aware of the darkness that lurks beneath. And film, being a visual medium, needs those beats on screen for us to believe her turn to darkness.
Without understanding Jean Grey’s rage, we, as the viewers, see the Phoenix Force manifestation as some sort of possession of Jean versus all of Jean being unleashed.
That rage and growth that Sink’s Jean Grey shows throughout this film set up the bones and groundwork for the Dark Phoenix, in the same way that Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff in Age of Ultron set her up to become the Scarlet Witch. These women are arguably the two most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe. They need deep roots.
Jean Grey as the Whole Problem
In comics, there has been an ongoing question: Is Jean Grey the Phoenix? Or was she simply possessed?
As the Dark Phoenix, Jean Grey commits some pretty heinous crimes. When Jean’s mind fractures and she becomes the Dark Phoenix, she sucks a star dry, causing it to go supernova, and instantly incinerates D’Bari IV, an inhabited planet. She essentially genocides five billion innocent, civilized alien beings.
She also destroys a nearby starship belonging to the alien Shi’ar Empire, eliminating the witnesses to her crimes. Not to mention the aggravated assault on the X-Men (her teammates) and driving Mastermind permanently insane.
But was it Jean, or was it the Phoenix? Comics including Immortal X-Men and Phoenix Resurrection have established that Jean Grey and the Phoenix are one and the same. When the Phoenix Force asks to bond with her while she is dying in the spacecraft, it essentially bonds itself to her soul, meaning she is 100% responsible for the atrocities she commits. This makes her one of the most powerful and interesting characters in both comic book and movie history, if they decide to go down this route.
The Phoenix Force chooses Jean because of her passion, trauma, and uninhibited powers.
“Your mind… your soul… they cry out to me. They call to the fire. You have a capacity for passion, for life, for feeling that matches my own cosmic fire. I am the Phoenix… and you are the only one who can truly give me a shape.” — X-Men #8 (1987)
“The Phoenix is the fire. But Jean… Jean is the heart. Jean is the soul. You did not just match the fire—you gave the fire its purpose. You are the Phoenix, because without you, the fire is just blind destruction.” — Immortal X-Men #18 (2024)
If we are going to have Jean Grey from the comics, then we need to show her as the powerful being she is. We need to show her rage, her passion, and the extent of the moral grayness she would commit.
And I really hope this is the direction we go. After all, it’s a brand new day, and time for a brand new story for Jean Grey.
