The Best Jean Grey Storylines To Get To Know Marvel Girl
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140 VOTESDark Phoenix Saga
Story Found In: Uncanny X-Men #129-137
Details: Jean Grey was one of the founding members of the X-Men, and she's been an important character ever since she debuted in X-Men #1. Since then, her powers have continued to grow and evolve, which is the main reason she was targeted by the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix Force. When she became possessed, she lost herself, and it was up to her friends and teammates to deal with the destructive force she became.
"The Dark Phoenix Saga" is one of the most important crossover events to affect the Marvel Universe. It elevated the X-Men into the cosmic Marvel Universe and made one of the core characters the center of the universe. Jean Grey managed to destroy an entire star, which killed an entire planet of people, and in the end, she died. Granted, she eventually came back, but this story served to introduce the Marvel Universe to one of the most important cosmic entities it contained, and it all came at the cost of Jean Grey.
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219 VOTESDevil in the House
Story Found In: X-Men #28
Details: Believe it or not, there was a time in the comics where Professor X believed that Sabretooth was capable of redemption. He let the man into his home and tried to make him into one of his X-Men, but his students and career superheroes on staff couldn't help but remember what a terror the man was over the years.
While he was imprisoned in the mansion, he terrorized pretty much everyone. He screwed with them, went on his typical berserker rampage, and made life hell for everyone... everyone, that is, except for Jean Grey.
Jean had no problems confronting Sabretooth, and when she did, she let him know without any hesitation why he should fear her above everyone else in the mansion. She even shamed him into attempting to prove himself capable of redemption, but going back to the fear thing; if anyone can put the fear into Sabretooth, they must be powerful, and that's a word that easily describes Jean Grey in this story.
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322 VOTESThe Ties That Bind
Story Found In: X-Men #30
Details: Every once in a while, Marvel Comics likes to let some of its characters wed, and when it happens, it's a pretty big deal. The wedding between Peter Parker and Mary Jane was eventful, as was the joining of Reed Richards and Susan Storm. The wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey was equally important, and it happened in X-Men #30.
The interesting thing about this wedding is that it happened without any major catastrophe or supervillain attacks. Weddings are rife with such interruptions in the Marvel Universe, but not in the case of Jean and Scott. They married, and it was the happiest day in either one of their lives. She even saved a special dance for her mentor, Professor X, using her powers to help him stand for the occasion. It's a lovely story and an important one in understanding the relationship between these two important characters.
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417 VOTESInferno
Story Found In: X-Factor #38
Details: Jean Grey had to come to terms with what happened to her during the "Phoenix Saga," and while she managed to handle the emotional aspect of her ordeal in Fantastic Four #286, she would come face to face with the lingering consequences in the pages of X-Factor #38's "Inferno."
While Jean was "dead," her clone, Madelyne Pryor, up and married Cyclops. When Jean returned, Madelyn went completely insane, and when the events of "Inferno" reared its ugly head, she had sold her soul to become the Goblin Queen intent on letting Hell loose on Earth, but fortunately, Jean is back, and with some help, she may be able to stop her evil doppelganger from destroying the world.
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517 VOTESX-Men Origins: Jean Grey
Story Found In: X-Men Origins: Jean Grey #1
Details: When Jean Grey was first introduced all the way back in X-Men #1, her origin wasn't fleshed out very much. Actually, few characters were, which is why Marvel released its popular "Origins" series to deal with this missing information.
X-Men Origins: Jean Grey offers up a fully-fleshed out origin story for Jean Grey, beginning from the moment Professor Charles Xavier showed up on her doorstep and taking off from there. Her powers were strong, but how strong could they be, and what happened in her past that continues to haunt her as an adult? Find out in this excellent story about the original Marvel Girl!
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625 VOTESLike A Phoenix
Story Found In: Fantastic Four #286
Details: When the Fantastic Four return from a mission in space, they find Captain America and Hercules waiting for them. Cap informs the team that they recovered a strange pod at the bottom of Jamaican Bay, and after some investigating, the pod reveals a young woman inside, but nobody can open it or identify who she is.
Eventually, things begin levitating around the mansion, and the woman breaks free to reveal she is none other than Jean Grey, who had been missing for several months. Of course, she thinks the FF are constructs of Stephen Lang's anti-mutant operation and attacks the team.
A short attack is replaced with calm when it becomes clear what is going on. The story continues, as the details of operation Armageddon are explained, and ultimately, the details of the Phoenix Force, and where Jean had been comes out to reveal a truly fantastic story.
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712 VOTESX-Cutioner's Song
Story Found In: Uncanny X-Men #294-297, X-Factor #84-86, X-Men #14-16, X-Force #16-18 & Stryfe's Strike File
Details: One of the deadliest villains to go after Jean Grey in the 1990s was Stryfe. The man had a vendetta against Jean Grey and Scott Summers, though they didn't know what they had ever done to make him angry. Eventually, it was revealed that Stryfe was the time-traveling son of the pair, but not really.
It's well-known that Cable is the son of Jean and Scott, but so is Stryfe, only he's a clone of Cable. Cable was partially raised by his parents, thanks to their minds being sent to the future for a time, but Stryfe grew up hating them, so when he showed up in the 1990s to battle them, he was just as deadly as Cable, only he wasn't on their side.
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823 VOTESThe Hate Machine
Story Found In: X-Men Red #1-5 and X-Men Red Annual #1
Details: When Jean did return to the Marvel Universe, she found it looking less and less like she remembered. The hatred for mutants she had somewhat grown accustomed to over the years had grown in intensity, and Jean didn't like the reality she was faced with following her resurrection.
To make sense of it all, she formed her own team of X-Men with the hope of changing the various hearts and minds of people who hated her kind. Jean's hope was to demonstrate the love and compassion she hoped to receive, and despite the odds and enemies thrown at her, she wouldn't give up on her goal, which was the same as Professor Xavier's long-ago dream to live in a world where all people are accepted, no matter their differences
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915 VOTESThe Adventures Of Cyclops and Phoenix
Story Found In: The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1-4
Details: It's well-known that Nathan Summers, otherwise known as Cable, is the child of Scott Summers and Madelyn Prior, the clone of Jean Grey. Unfortunately, in order to save their son from Apocalypse, they were forced to cast him far into the future, which robbed them of the joy in raising their son.
In "The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix," they get their chance when their own minds are sent into the future. In their case, they each possessed the bodies of Slym and Redd. While they were there in the future, they raised and protected their son long enough for him to become Cable, and it helped to further cement the bond of family that they lacked before this story went to print.
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1015 VOTESJean Grey And Emma Frost
Story Found In: Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey And Emma Frost #1
Details: Jean Grey and Emma Frost are two of the most powerful telepathic beings in the entire Marvel Universe, so you know their team-up is going to only come around when the excrement has truly hit the air conditioning. In this incredible tale, that's exactly what happens, as Storm is in peril and needs their unique form of health.
This series of Giant-Size books showcased some of the House of Ideas' greatest artists and threw them onto titles they hadn't been exposed to beforehand. For this one, Jonathan Hickman wrote the words illustrated by Russell Dauterman, who is best known for his work on Thor and World of the Realms. The book they turned out stands as a beautiful depiction of two important characters in an equally amazing story.
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1117 VOTESX-Men: Phoenix - Endsong
Story Found In: X-Men: Phoenix Endsong #1-5
Details: Some things are better left alone, and that's something the Shi'ar Empire learned the hard way. In an attempt to destroy the Phoenix Force, they mucked it up and released the thing back into the cosmos. It immediately heads towards Earth to reanimate the corpse of Jean Grey.
As the newly-risen Dark Phoenix, there is little the X-Men can do to stop their former friend and teammate. The Phoenix Force grows in strength throughout the story, slowly chipping away at the remaining consciousness of Jean, and it will ultimately be up to Jean herself to put a stop to the Phoenix Force, as nobody else can ever hope to stop it.
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128 VOTESX-Men: Season One
Story Found In: X-Men: Season One
Details: X-Men: Season One is pretty much what you expect it to be: it's a modern retelling of the original X-Men team, as written by Dennis Hopeless. The story features everyone who made the team great: Jean Grey, Ice Man, Angel, Beast, and Cyclops.
When she was first introduced into the Marvel Universe, Jean played a more passive role than she would take on decades later. This new look at the origins of the team puts Jean at the forefront of the fight, as she must learn to contend with her extraordinary powers while working as the only girl on an otherwise all-male team of hormonal teenage boys.
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1316 VOTESNew X-Men
Story Found In: New X-Men #114-126
Details: In the early 2000s, Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly took over the X-Men books, and the pair went on to make significant changes to pretty much everything. One of the aesthetic changes came in the abandonment of the familiar 1960s-era spandex uniforms for a more tactical type of gear, but there was far more to it than just a visual change.
The violence levels were ramped up, but more than that, Jean got a significant power boost, which made her the most important character in the franchise. She was proven to be the most powerful X-Man, but in addition to that, she was shown to be one of the most powerful superpowered beings on the entire planet.
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1416 VOTESPhoenix Resurrection: The Return Of Jean Grey
Story Found In: Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey #1-5
Details: Because she's been the primary target of the Phoenix Force, Jean Grey has died and been reborn more than most characters in the Marvel Universe. Her second demise lasted longer than her first, leaving her absent from the Marvel Universe for more than a decade (outside of her teenage counterpart, of course).
In Phoenix Resurrection: The Return Of Jean Grey, Jean returns to a strange town peopled with her fallen friends and family members. The whole affair plays out in a strange manner, but it turns out that it's all the work of the Phoenix Force, attempting to mold her into a perfect host. In the end, Jean manages to sever their connection, and finally return to the land of the living in the Marvel Universe.
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1510 VOTESGreater Love Hath No X-Man...
Story Found In: X-Men #100
Details: The centennial issue of Marvel's X-Men Isn't a Jean Grey story on its own, but that doesn't mean it isn't one of the best Jean Grey stories ever told! The team finds themselves aboard a space station with Stephen Lang, the man behind the anti-mutant project called Armageddon.
What is the goal of Armageddon? Why, you might ask, to wipe out the entire population of Earth's mutants from across space, and it's up to the X-Men to stop his evil plot. Of course, the close-quarters of the space station make it hard for anyone to get anything done without bumping into one another, so tempers fly as the fate of mutantkind is at hand.
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169 VOTESYesterday's X-Men
Story Found In: All-New X-Men #1-5
Details: The Beast is near death in this story, and to ensure Professor Xavier's dream of mutant-human harmony comes to fruition, he does the only thing he can think to do, and brings the classic team from the past into the present. The original teenage versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Beast, and Iceman find themselves living alongside their adult selves, but their resolve to see the Professor's dream come true isn't broken.
By bringing the classic team into the present, writer Brian Michael Bendis managed to simplify the narrative and take everything back to the original, but in a new setting. The teenage Marvel Girl gets more than a few chances to set herself apart from the rest of the team, and the stories that unfold with their intrusion in a modern timeline are fun reading and a great addition by Bendis to the X-Men franchise.
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1711 VOTESFinal Fight
Story Found In: Jean Grey #7-11
Details: The Phoenix Force is on its way, and death and destruction follow in its cosmic path to Earth. Jean has gone to everyone in the Marvel Universe she could think of for advice, and after speaking with the likes of Psylocke, Namor, and Thor, she's off on a new adventure with the Scarlet Witch and the White Queen, otherwise known as Emma Frost.
The former villain may be Marvel Girl's only hope, as she's going to need to train and hone her psychic powers if she ever hopes to keep the Phoenix Force at bay. Frost may be her only hope in helping her get there, but as the cosmic entity gets closer and closer to Earth, things heat up in this intense adventure of everyone's favorite Phoenix Force host, Jean Grey!
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1810 VOTESNightmare Fuel
Story Found In: Jean Grey #1-6
Details: Jean Grey finally got her own solo series, and all it took was shooting the teenage version of herself through time to the present, thanks to the modern Beast's goal of fulfilling Professor Xavier's dream. Now that she's in the present, she's learned the terrible fate she faces in her future in the form of the Phoenix Force.
Determined to escape her future (which has already happened as far as anyone else is concerned), she will do whatever she can to escape from her own destiny. When a premonition reveals that the Phoneix Force is coming to Earth to take her, she enlists every former host of the cosmic entity she can find and gets to work preparing for the inevitable.
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1910 VOTESFalse Fronts
Story Found In: X-Men #53
Details: In the lead-up to "Onslaught," we find Jean Grey offering up a glimpse into her daily life. Before the insanity of "Onslaught" could take over the X-Men universe, Jean would go about her daily life, which involved trying to deal with all of the uninvited thoughts of everyone around her, which is something she's had to deal with for most of her life.
In the issue, Onslaught himself appears and reveals that he has been attempting to break Jean's mental barriers. The assault didn't come without some serious issues for Jean, as she had to put up a serious fight, and when the issue closes on a cliffhanger, the readers know that Jean is only stronger from the event, and will move forward with greater strength and determination than ever before.
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2011 VOTESThe Trial Of Jean Grey
Story Found In: Guardians of the Galaxy #11.NOW-13 and All-New X-Men #22.NOW-24
Details: After she is captured by the Shi'ar Empire, the time-displaced teenage Jean Grey finds herself on trial for crimes he would ultimately commit. Thanks to some time travel shenanigans, those crimes have already been committed, and she's going to have to learn about the horror of her future self while learning what's happened in the past.
Fortunately, she's able to draw from an immense power buried deep within herself and escapes, but the level of power she displays is intense and terrifying. She later stands face-to-face with the champion of the Shi'ar, the Gladiator, and he's strong. Can this teenage mutant, displaced out of time, battle an enemy more powerful than any she's ever faced?
