This is "Death Takes Its Toll," a feature spotlighting comic book deaths that I thought were particular wastes of a worthwhile character. This is sort of like my feature, As Cold as Ice, about notable examples of characters being "fridged," except that this is open to all sorts of characters and not just those that have been fridged.

Today, based on a suggestion by reader Sergio M., we take a look at the tragic deaths of Jean Grey's niece and nephew, Gailyn and Joey Bailey (the kids of Sara Grey).

I've written in the past about how Sara Grey's death was a waste, and yay, now we get to feature her kids, too!

We first learned that Sara Grey had kids in Bizarre Adventures #27, where she visits her sister's grave and worries about whether her kids will become mutants...

In X-Factor #12 (by Louise Simonson, Marc Silvestri and Bob Wiacek), Jean sees Sara on television...

She and Scott go to Sara's house, but everyone is gone and then it blows up...

Okay, so Sara appears to have been kidnapped RIGHT after giving a statement on television.

We don't hear anything more about Sara until we discover in X-Factor #35 (by Simonson, Terry Shoemaker and Joe Rubinstein) that her two children, Gailyn and Joey (now Joey instead of Tommy) have been kidnapped by the twisted villain known as the Nanny (who believes she is protecting kids from their parents)...

Five issues later, in X-Factor #40 (by Simonson, Rob Liefeld and Al Milgrom), Sara's kids are saved (Gailyn is spelled Galen for some reason)...

Sara is then confirmed as dead during the Phalanx Covenant.

During Zero Tolerance, Nate Grey is tasked with protecting Gailyn (spelled Galen again) and Joey in X-Man #30 (by Terry Kavanagh and Cary Nord)...

So all is well and good with the kids, as they're staying with their grandparents, who are still alive.

Then we came to Uncanny X-Men #467 (by Chris Claremont, Chris Bachalo and a bunch of inkers), where the Shi'ar decide that it is best to just kill off every person with Grey blood, just in case they could become hosts for the Phoenix Force later, so the Shi'ar Death Commandos slaughter the entire Grey family at a family event, including young Gailyn and Joey...

Isn't that just the most unnecessarily bleak thing?

I think the Shi'ar wanting to wipe out the Grey family line to make sure none of them could be hosts for the Phoenix Force is a GREAT idea, but it's a great idea for something the Shi'ar should be ATTEMPTING to do, not something that they actually DO! There are very few "normal" relatives of X-Men out there, to wipe out Gailyn and Joey like this seems too much of a cruel twist of fate.

Thanks to Sergio for the suggestion!

Okay, folks, I'm sure you have lots of suggestions for this feature, so feel free to send them to me at brianc@cbr.com!