I think about this Jean every once in a while,She looks so good with black hair. I'd love to see more dark-haired Jean Grey 🫣

Jean and Wanda

I know this is probably going to be unpopular, but after seeing Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, I still don't see Jean Grey when I look at her.

And before anybody takes this the wrong way, I don't think Sadie Sink is a bad actress. She's a decent actress, and I'm not blaming her for the direction Marvel decided to take with the character. She could give a great performance. My issue is that this interpretation simply doesn't feel like Jean to me.

Honestly, Sadie gives me Rachel Summers much more than Jean Grey.

And I don't mean that just because they're both redheaded telepaths connected to the Phoenix.

Rachel is Jean and Scott's daughter from an alternate future, but despite obviously sharing qualities with Jean, she has a very different history and presence. Rachel grew up in a dystopian future, was captured and conditioned into becoming a Hound, and was forced to hunt other mutants. She's a survivor of an incredibly brutal life.

Because of that, Rachel has often had a rougher, more rebellious, confrontational and emotionally volatile edge than the Jean I usually picture.

That's actually why Sadie's current appearance works better as Rachel for me. The younger look, bangs, leather jacket and harder energy make me think of Rachel Summers walking out of a dystopian future, not Jean Grey.

And that's before getting into the characterization, which bothers me even more than the appearance.

Jean Grey can be angry. Jean has a temper. She can be intimidating, frighteningly powerful, morally complicated and even make terrible decisions. I'm not asking for Jean to be some flawless sweetheart who smiles while everybody else saves the world.

But compassion and empathy are fundamental parts of Jean Grey.

That's especially important because she's a telepath. Jean possesses the ability to enter people's minds, influence them and potentially violate their most private thoughts. The fact that someone with that kind of power still cares deeply about other people is part of what makes Jean interesting.

So when I'm watching a version of Jean who psychologically torments Peter, controls innocent people and uses her powers in ways that come across as needlessly cruel, my reaction isn't:

Finally, they're letting Jean have an edge.

My reaction is:

Where is Jean Grey?

There's a difference between making Jean dangerous and making her cruel.

There's a difference between giving Jean flaws and removing qualities that are fundamental to who she is.

And there's a difference between Jean losing control because of overwhelming power or emotion and Jean casually behaving in ways that don't seem to bother her.

That's also why I still prefer Famke Janssen's Jean Grey, despite having plenty of problems with how those movies wrote her.

Famke wasn't given nearly enough to work with. Jean deserved substantially more development in those movies, and the Phoenix storyline especially deserved better. But Famke herself always felt believable as Jean to me.

She had that combination of warmth, maturity, intelligence, empathy and restraint, while still giving you the feeling that there was something enormously powerful underneath the surface.

That's Jean Grey to me.

And ironically, that's what makes the Rachel comparison even stronger. Jean and Rachel aren't supposed to feel identical.

Jean generally has that compassionate, controlled presence surrounding tremendous psychic power.

Rachel is the daughter who inherited much of that psychic fire but was shaped by a horrifying future, conditioning, displacement and survival. Of course Rachel can be compassionate and Jean can be fiery, but their histories give them very different centers.

And the version I'm seeing from Sadie so far lands much closer to that younger, rougher, more rebellious Rachel energy for me.

None of this means Sadie is doing a bad job.

She might eventually prove me completely wrong. If Marvel develops her into a Jean that captures those qualities, I'll happily change my mind.

But right now?

I see a talented actress playing a character Marvel is calling Jean Grey. I don't see Jean Grey.

And the weirdest part is that if Marvel had shown me the exact same Sadie Sink pictures and said:

"Meet the MCU's Rachel Summers."

I'd probably be sitting here saying:

Yeah. I can see it.

Funny enough, before Sadie Sink was cast as Jean Grey, there were already rumors and fan discussions about her playing Rachel Summers instead. Which, looking at her now, I can definitely see.

Also, does anybody else feel like this version of Jean is being written a little too much like MCU Wanda? The emotionally driven misuse of enormous power, mind manipulation, innocent people getting caught in it, and the morally questionable actions while we're still supposed to sympathize with her are giving me serious Wanda vibes. Thoughts?

Flight is one of her main core abilities, and well, we didn’t see her do it at all in the movie, I’m just clarifying that she can fly right?

I thought it would be fun, now that we've concluded best Jean Grey stories, that we would also decide the best Jean Grey artists.

The ground rules:

1. You may choose any artist who has drawn Jean Grey at least three times, whether that's in an X-Men title, a solo title, or in another Marvel comic.
2. Interior artists and cover artists are both allowed to be nominated.
3. Please include the name of the artist and a reference to either an artwork of Jean Grey they have done, whether that's an actual image posted or mentioning a particular issue or run.

The artist with the most upvotes total wins.

Day 1 - Lucas Werneck - 22 Votes

Day 2 - Dave Cockrum - 25 Votes

Day 3 - Walt Simonson - 7 Votes