Jean Grey is one of the first ladies of Marvel, both in the sense that she is one of their most significant female characters and in the sense that she was one of the very few female characters created during the early days of Marvel. Making her debut in Uncanny X-Men #1, Jean started out as Marvel Girl, a teenage telepath in training, and evolved into Phoenix, one of the most dangerous and powerful characters in comics. She has survived everything from multiple plunges into G-type stars to endless jokes about her multiple resurrections.
Long story short, there are plenty of reasons to admire Jean Grey. But she is also responsible for more scandalous moments than you can telekinetically shake a stick at. And now that Jean's back from the dead-- again -- we're going to commemorate her return with this list of 15 of her least heroic moments. Granted, many of her worst actions are really the Phoenix, the extraterrestrial entity from which she gets her greatest powers and one of her codenames, acting through her. But the line between Jean and Phoenix is often a blurry one, and in any event, none of that erases the many, many faux pas Jean has been involved in. Let's take a peek, shall we?
15 MARCH OF THE BLACK QUEEN
In the famous "Dark Phoenix Saga", Jean Grey falls victim to Jason Wyngarde (Mastermind), a prominent member of the power-hungry Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club. Wyngarde uses his powers, which have been enhanced by unscrupulous telepath Emma Frost, to make Jean fall in love with him. After months of careful manipulation, Jean is firmly enough under Wyngarde's control that she betrays her fellow X-Men to the Inner Circle.
Adopting the name the Black Queen, Jean knocks out her friends and stands passively by while they are chained up and, in Cyclops' case, nearly killed. But like we said: Phoenix is one of the most powerful women in comics. She inevitably breaks free of Wyngarde's control, and once she does... well, let's just say the queen was not amused.
14 I'M KICKING YOU OUT
Some time after arriving in the present, Jean Grey and Iceman's teenage selves have a chat about life, love and the kind of deep secrets you can only trust a true friend with. Or rather, Jean probes Iceman's mind because she feels like it, decides that he's gay and informs him of this fact.
Shockingly, Iceman does not like Jean reading his thoughts and does not want to have this discussion at all. He even starts erecting an ice barrier between himself and Jean, but she ignores his obvious distress. Things get worse from there, with Iceman suggesting he might be bisexual and Jean pigheadedly insisting he's "full gay." Look, Jean, supporting your friends is great. Poking around in their heads without permission and dictating their sexuality? Not so great.
13 CHEATERS NEVER PROSPER
In New X-Men #138, Jean receives news that no wife wants to hear: her spouse is cheating on her. Specifically, Scott Summers has been having an affair with Emma Frost. So far, the infidelity has been restricted to the psychic realm rather than the physical. This does not appease Jean one bit.
Jean storms in on the pair and telepathically bars Scott from the room. This gives her plenty of time to invade the unrepentant Emma's mind and force her to relive all of her worst memories, from her unhappy childhood to the destruction of the island of Genosha, which Emma survived while millions of other mutants died around her. Even granting that Emma was not an innocent here, this seems just a bit harsh.
12 DESIGNATED DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
Female heroes of the 1960s, when they could be found at all, were not generally portrayed in the most flattering light. They all loved fashion and sewing, sometimes even more than they liked crimefighting. \And whenever the script called for a member of the team to need rescuing, the token girl got that role more often than not.
Jean Grey is no exception to this rule. In Uncanny X-Men #2 alone, she needs saving twice, and not from anything particularly impressive. First, she overtaxes her mental powers saving Angel from some rabid fangirls and needs him to carry her to their destination. She then wears herself out again in the training room, compelling Cyclops to scoop her to safety before the giant ball she was telekinetically lifting crushes her.
11 SELF-CONTROL
During her time in the present day, the teenage Jean Grey of the past finds herself haunted by a ghostly grown-up version of herself. Because clearly she didn't have enough problems. Things come to a head in Jean Grey #7, when Adult Jean finally tires of the Jacob Marley routine. Using her considerable mental powers, she possesses her younger self and forces her to go to the home of Emma Frost.
As you may have gathered from other entries on this list, Jean and Emma are not exactly the best of friends. Jean jumps from Teen Jean's body to Emma's, essentially kicking Emma out of her own head, and forces Teen Jean to risk her (their?) life by rooting around in Emma's memories for a missing bit of the Phoenix Force.
10 JEAN MESSES WITH ANGEL...
In All-New X-Men #2, Beast pulls the original five X-Men out of the past and into the present in an attempt to halt Cyclops' descent into supervillainy. Thanks to Beast's time-tampering shenanigans, Jean Grey's full powers manifest when she's far too young to properly handle them. As a result, we get to see her abuse her newfound abilities at every opportunity.
Case in point: Jean's teammate Angel is distressed by what he's learned about his future self and wants to go home. Jean wants them all to stay. To guarantee Angel's acquiescence, Jean tickles his brain until he forgets his troubles. Angel goes from sobbing about how much he hates the future to happily babbling about what's for lunch in three seconds flat. The rest of the team is confused at first. But when they realize what Jean has done, they are rightfully disturbed.
9 MAKE WAY FOR THE X-MEN (OR ELSE)
In Uncanny X-Men #1, Magneto takes over a military base. The X-Men ask the army's permission to take the lead in this case. The army grants that permission, and the X-Men use their respective powers to physically push the soldiers aside to get at Magneto. Remember, the army has already given the X-Men permission to be there. No one was trying to make them leave or block their advance. There is absolutely no reason for this show of force.
In fairness to Jean, this is her first outing with the X-Men; she only put on her costume two minutes before being sent after Magneto, and Professor Xavier has had no time to give her any training whatsoever. And the other X-Men did start super-shoving the soldiers first, so maybe Jean was just following their lead?
8 GOODBYE, CRUEL WORLD
"The Dark Phoenix Saga" ends when Jean Grey sacrifices herself to stop Phoenix from killing anyone else. What If? #27 explores what would have happened had Jean survived her suicide attempt. The results are not pretty. An alien race called the Shi'ar effectively lobotomizes her, shutting off her telepathic powers. But the effects of the lobotomy prove all too temporary. Soon enough, Phoenix is back in fighting form and eager for revenge.
She murders all of the X-Men one by one, including burying the claustrophobic Storm alive and stabbing Colossus with Wolverine's claws. It's only after killing Cyclops that she comes to her senses, after a fashion. Hit with the true horror of her actions, Jean Grey destroys herself, the Earth and the entire universe. Uh, we'll stick with the original ending, thanks...
7 JEAN UNFRIENDS STORM
In the mid '70s, all of the original X-Men except for Cyclops quit to pursue their own interests. The original team members -- Beast, Angel, Iceman and Jean Grey -- seemed happy enough with their replacements at first. But in Uncanny X-Men #106, the originals allegedly return to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters just to tell the newbies how much they suck.
Nonplussed, the new team fights back as best they can, only to realize their opponents never seem to tire. Jean even activates the weaponry in the X-Men's training room to try to kill Storm. But as you may have guessed, this isn't actually Jean, nor are the other original X-Men really themselves. They're mental constructs of the original X-Men created by an evil version of Professor X. Fortunately, the real Xavier shows up to put his villainous self back in whatever mental box he keeps it in.
6 ...TWICE
In All-New X-Men #11, a mere three issues after taking over Angel's mind so he'd quit complaining, Jean pulls the same stunt on the same poor guy. Angel is all set to abandon his team in favor of one put together by the elder Cyclops. Can't imagine why, given what a great time he's been having so far.
Jean disapproves of Angel's decision so strongly that, when he doesn't listen to her orders to stay, she once again enters his mind. This time, instead of just filling his head with happy thoughts, she forces him to walk away from Cyclops. Who needs free will, right? Ultimately, Jean is stopped by three other telepaths, the Stepford Cuckoos. In a move that should surprise no one, Angel leaves the team as soon as possible.
5 DUST TO DUST
Jean Grey seemingly died at the end of the movie X2. But of course, few superheroes stay dead for long, and Jean is no different. At the beginning of X-Men: The Last Stand, Jean's boyfriend, Cyclops, who is still mourning her death, visits the spot where she died. While there, he discovers that Jean is alive. He gets to enjoy this fact for about a minute before she sucks the life out of him.
Later on, when Professor Xavier tries to convince Jean to please stop murdering people, she quite literally disintegrates him into powder. We can't exactly say this made the "Dark Phoenix Saga" darker in any way, given the original featured Jean indirectly slaughtering an entire race. But it sure did make Dark Phoenix's rampage a lot more personal.
4 THEM'S THE BREAKS
By the mid '80s, Jean Grey was no longer an X-Man. Instead, she and the other founding members operated under the name X-Factor. In the tenth issue of their self-titled book, the team is on the trail of a mutant child lost in New York's sewer system. There, they encounter the Marauders, a group of mutant mutant-hunters. Jean can only watch as one of the Marauders, Prism, knocks Cyclops for a loop.
Scott and Jean have been having major relationship problems lately, but that doesn't mean she wants to see him hurt. Jean smashes the glass-like Prism into a wall, shattering him to pieces. Prism's death may or may not have been an accident, but neither Jean nor the other X-Men seem overly bothered by it. Hell, no one even brings it up.
3 PETER PARKER: COLLATERAL DAMAGE
In the Ultimates universe, Jean Grey decides to teach Wolverine a lesson for hitting on her. Too bad her idea of a lesson involves messing with an innocent bystander, namely Spider-Man. Jean hexes Logan so that his brain will be "in the place it least wanted to be," which was apparently Peter Parker's body. Peter ends up stuck in Logan's body by default. Given that Wolverine spends most of his time as Spidey leering at high school girls, this wasn't much of a punishment for him.
To be clear, Ultimate Wolverine is a creep who deserves worse than what he got. Peter, however, got punished for existing. When he accuses Jean of almost ruining his life, she just tells him to cool it before putting everyone's minds back. It isn't until after Spidey cusses her out and storms away that Jean thinks she might possibly owe him an apology.
2 HERO VS. HERO
Nowadays, people pay big bucks to watch superheroes duke out their philosophical differences on the big screen. But back in the '60s, the only time you'd see a hero fighting another hero in earnest was when one of them was either under mind control or a shapeshifting supervillain. Brainwashing is responsible for the Avengers vs. X-Men fight in Avengers #53.
Long-term X-Men adversary Magneto, in an attempt to kill the Avengers, kidnaps the X-Men and tricks them into thinking they hate the Avengers. The two teams come to blows, and Jean attacks the Wasp with a mental blast. Fortunately for our heroes, Magneto's mistreatment of his lackey, Toad, comes back to bite him; Toad deliberately sabotages the operation before the Avengers and the X-Men can do permanent damage to each other.
1 SOLAR ENERGY
After finally succumbing to her evil impulses, the newly dubbed Dark Phoenix takes off for the stars in Uncanny X-Men #135. But space travel takes a lot of energy, even for a being as powerful as Dark Phoenix. Before she can go any farther, she needs a snack. She dives into the nearest star and absorbs its considerable energy, causing it to go supernova years before its time.
Destroying an entire star is a scary enough prospect all on its own. But there is an added dimension to Dark Phoenix's choice of cuisine. Eleven planets orbited the star she destroyed, and at least one of those planets harbored life. When Dark Phoenix absorbs the energy from their life-giving sun, all five billion inhabitants on that planet die within minutes.