Jean Grey's X-Men Red Mission Explained by Tom Taylor

Jean Grey is one of the Marvel Universe's most legendary mutants because of the power she wielded as the Phoenix and the empathy and compassion she had for the people and the world around her. When she returned to the world of the living at the end of the recent Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey miniseries it was without the massive power of the titular cosmic entity, but her big heart was very much intact, and that meant she couldn't return to the usual business of super heroics. The world had changed while she was gone and not for the better, so she took it upon herself to be the change she wished to see in it.

In the debut issue of X-Men Red, writer Tom Taylor and artist Mahmud Asrar chronicled Jean's initial attempts to change the world. They included gathering a team of like minded and politically powerful mutants around her, and announcing her intentions to improve the lives of both humans and mutants on a global basis via a speech at the United Nations. That last action though put her in the crosshairs of one of the X-Men's most sinister and powerful foes, Cassandra Nova.

CBR spoke with Taylor about the events of the issue, Jean's leadership style, her mission to build a better world, and the teammates that will assist her in that goal.

CBR: In X-Men Red, you're writing about a team lead by Jean Grey. What's your sense of Jean and her leadership style?

Tom Taylor: To me, Jean is an incredibly powerful and incredibly compassionate person. Her leadership style comes from wanting the best for the world and the people around her. She's an incredibly protective person, but it's not that she's protective of people because they're hers. She doesn't take ownership of them. It's that she loves and respects the people she's alongside. So as a leader she's leading for the best of everybody.

So a sort of Captain America style of leading from the front and not asking anyone else to do things you aren't willing to do yourself?

Absolutely. You'll see a moment in issue #2 where it's exactly that. It's her going into a fray and telling the people around her that they don't have to. Of course they're like, “No! We will join you.” [Laughs]

What can you tell us about the sort of mission statement of Jean's team in X-Men Red? What type of adventures will they embark upon?

Essentially this book is Jean Grey coming back to life, but not coming back to the life she left behind. She doesn't want to come back to that life either. She's seen that the world has moved on. It's changed and she doesn't like everything she's seen. She's very empathetic and she feels so much of what's going on around her that she wants to make an actual change to the world. Not just for mutantkind or humanity, but for everybody.

That's what we're going to see here. The mission statement is change the world for the better. That's a very big mission statement. [Laughs] So it's not all going to be fighting the villain of the week. It's bigger ideals, and it's the embodiment of that in Jean Grey.

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That reminds of the the approach of the Champions. They want to fix the world's problems and if that means they have to fight villains they will, but that's not why they're together. Is that what you're aiming for?

That's exactly right. One of the things we see Jean do in X-Men Red #1 is we see her go to the U.N. She stands up there for everybody and talks about this idea of a new mutant nation that can exist peacefully with everyone else in the world and what she hopes for the world moving forward. She mentions that every time Mutants have tried to come together in one place like Genosha or Utopia it doesn't end well for them. So the idea is we can still be one, just where we are.

She also goes across the world and grabs every single once in a generation mind that she can; Nobel Peace Prize winners, educators, artists, leaders, writers. She puts them all in a room and tries to find a path forward using these minds.

Lets talk about the team Jean surrounds herself with starting with probably one of the most unlikely candidates, Namor. What made you want to bring the Sub-Mariner into the book?

I wanted to bring him in because we needed the ruler of another nation. What we're doing here involves big ideas. We needed someone like Namor. He's the ruler of the seas. He's the ruler of Atlantis. Jean needed that backing behind her before she could go to the U.N. And she'll need that backing again going forward.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from X-Men Red #2 by Mahmud Asrar and colorist Ive Svorcina

He's such a big player. It's not that he's there to punch guys in the face, as we've seen. He's here because he's a king.

So in a way you're playing up his dual heritage as both an Atlantean monarch and a mutant.

Exactly, and as you saw in the first issue he basically tells Jean that he doesn't have time to be one of the X-Men. He has a lot going on. But he's still there when they need him.

Since you pen their ongoing adventures in All-New Wolverine I'm not surprised to see Wolverine and her sister Honey Badger among the ranks of Jean's team. What's it like for Gabby to be a member of the X-Men?

For Gabby it's incredibly exciting. She's excited by everything. [Laughs] But being told told that you're one of the X-Men is huge. She's going to be a ray of light in the darkness when we need her to be as she has been in All-New Wolverine.

And Jean likes characters like this. She's an idealist at heart. So surrounding herself with other idealists helps the whole team.

Laura is of course very different from the Wolverine that Jean knew. How does that effect their dynamic?

Yes, she's very different from the Wolverine Jean knew, but in a way that makes her perfect for this team. Laura has come from a very violent, abusive past, but she's come to this point where she doesn't want to see violence as the answer all the time. She actively doesn't kill in her own book. That's never the first option. The claws don't immediately come out.

She's incredibly effective too. She's fantastic at stealth. She's an incredibly important person for this team to have. She can get in anywhere, do anything, and take out anybody they need her too. At the same time though, she's less likely to stab someone in the neck. [Laughs]

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Jean's team also includes a familiar face for her in the form of veteran X-Men member, Nightcrawler. What's it like writing Kurt? It seems like he'd be another optimistic voice on this team.

Yeah, and that's a large reason why I chose him. I remember seeing once years ago that Jean was the heart of the X-Men and Kurt was the soul. I think that's absolutely true. It's certainly true of this book.

When Jean is being a little too serious he can lighten things a little bit. He's going to share the same ideals as her though. And she's shared her vision of the world with him. He's going to be her sort of number one in terms of support.

Rounding out the team are a newer character, the Wakandan mutant Gentle, and a brand new mutant character named Trinary.

Yes, Gentle has been around awhile, and he's one of the strongest mutants in existence. The stronger he gets though, the more pain it causes him. So like Laura he doesn't often resort to violence. Because it actually hurts him.

I've always been fascinated by incredibly powerful characters who don't resort to violence as a first choice. It's one of the reasons we created Val-Zod over in Earth Two. He was Earth Two's Superman, and he was a pacifist. So he's one of the strongest beings on the planet, and he doesn't want to punch anyone. There's something great about that.

That works with Jean as well. She's here to try and bring about peace, and usually the best way to do that is not to punch someone in the face. Sometimes it is. [Laughs] But often it isn't. So Gentle is a big part of this.

Then yes, lastly, we've got Trinary, who is an Indian, mutant, technopath. Her role is going to be incredibly important. It doesn't make a lot of sense in this day and age to not have a technopath on the team when a lot of the battles you're fighting are online.

It feels like this initial arc of X-Men Red will in part be a getting the band together style story?

Yes, it's definitely a getting the band together story. There will be members of this team that don't hang out with the others until about issue four. We start with a flash forward. So we see a lot of the team together at the start, but you won't see Gentle and Trinary until about issue #2.

Characters will come in and out as the story dictates, but not as you might expect. They're there to help the story not because it's mandated.

Does that mean the team ranks are a bit fluid and if Jean needs someone to help them with their mission of building a better world she'll draft them in?

A little bit. We will have a core team, but we do have more players coming. Ultimately, it's such a big idea that you will see other X-Men helping out.

In X-Men Red #1 you revealed the team's first major antagonist will be Cassandra Nova. What made you want to pit your characters against her?

She's pretty much the antithesis of everything Jean believes. Also Jean played such a huge part in her downfall in Grant Morrison's X-Men run. There's a large amount of hatred there, but Jean is in an position where she's an actual threat to Cassandra Nova. So there's a lot in play going on behind the scenes that will build and build.

Will the cast of X-Men Red interact with the Blue or Gold X-Men teams right away? Or is that something we might see further down the line?

There will be a story where we see Jean in the moments right after Resurrection. I think that's incredibly important. And, yes, we will see her with her friends and the X-Men she's grown up around. We'll see them in further stories as well. But for the moment, our story is a very self contained one. We're telling this one story before we branch out into the wider universe.

Finally, let's talk a little bit about your collaborator, artist Mahmud Asrar. He can and has drawn just about every type of superhero and team.

I'm incredibly excited to be working with Mahmud. Watching the pages come in every day is insane. He's an incredible talent, and I was ecstatic when they said I would be working with him. I'm a huge fan of his.

He does the little moments just as well as the big action. He has a great grasp of the book and he's excited about it too, which always helps. We talk about what we want to do and why we want to do it. So it's a great collaboration.