X-Men's strongest and most troubled hero. Following her traumatic upbringing, Charles Xavier created a safe place for the developing psychic to safely hone her powers. While Jean has spent decades fighting alongside her found family, her recent evolution into the Phoenix has sparked a new sense of purpose for her among the stars and without the X-Men. Jean Grey has become something greater.

In Phoenix #10 by Stephanie Phillips and Alessandro Miracolo, Jean Grey continues her psychic war against Perrikus and his fellow Dark Gods of Asgard. To free the Dark Gods’ newest pawn, Adani, from the powers of the Phoenix Force, Jean teleports both parties to the Nexus of All Realities.

Here, the Phoenix recounts the trauma and trials of her life before declaring that she, not just the Phoenix Force, has found a purpose in that pain. After everything she has experienced with the X-Men, Jean Grey has finally outgrown her need for the team to become something more.

Jean Grey’s Traumatic Life Stole Everything She Loved, and She Deserves to Finally Move On

Phoenix #10 by Stephanie Phillips, Alessandro Miracolo, David Curiel, and Cory Petit

Tragically, Jean Grey’s early life was nothing short of horrific. After being forced to watch her childhood best friend be killed by a car, Jean’s psychic powers manifested. As her friend died in her arms, Jean couldn’t help but feel the fleeting moments of fear, confusion, and death that the child felt in her final few seconds of life. Soon, Jean’s mind became a receptacle for the minds of everyone around her, driving the poor child into fits of hysteric madness. Fortunately, Charles Xavier appeared at just the right time in Jean’s life to save her from her powers.

Even after Jean ed the X-Men, she continued to lose more and more, which consistently stripped her of the remaining fragments of her humanity. In X-Men #36 by Fabian Nicieza and Andy Kubert, Jean’s sister was savagely murdered by an anti-mutant bigot. In Uncanny X-Men #467 by Chris Claremont and Chris Bachalo, the rest of Jean’s living family were slaughtered by the Shi’ar Death Commandos. This isn’t to mention the number of X-Men who have died around her and sometimes because of her. Yet, despite the horrors and losses in her life, Jean Grey found a relatively reliable home with the X-Men.

The X-Men Became What a Young Jean Grey Desperately Needed: A Family

Without the X-Men, Jean Grey Couldn’t Have Risen From the Ashes

When Jean Grey first met Charles Xavier, the Professor became an instant anchor to ground Jean’s growingly chaotic mind. With her at his side, Xavier put together not just a team of mutants, but a family of misfits in need of a home. There, Jean found her first purpose. At such a young age, the mutant was taught that her debilitating powers could be used for good; she learned that she could be a hero. With the X-Men, Jean found love, family, and a home that would never waver, regardless of its shape or form.

However, it’s also with the X-Men that Jean found her true purpose, even if she hadn’t yet realized it. In X-Men #101 by Claremont and Dave Cockrum, the X-Man valiantly sacrificed herself to save her allies from a slow death in space. In doing so, she opened up a beacon to the Phoenix Force, who answered the call. In an instant, Jean had become intertwined with the cosmic god, becoming a new god herself. For a while, the team remained tepidly accepting of Jean’s new power, until the emergence of the Dark Phoenix. Soon, Jean Grey’s purpose was to be a monster.

The X-Men Rejected Jean Grey’s Ascension to the Phoenix

While Trying to Protect Her, the X-Men Stole Her Purpose

While imbued with the power of the Phoenix Force, Jean began to run into new issues with the X-Men. Realizing that she was no longer just a mutant, the Phoenix’s identity had suddenly been ripped to shreds. Her relationship with Cyclops was slowly souring, and the X-Men proved distrusting of Jean’s newfound power. These feelings of rejection and fear boiled inside the mutant’s mind, allowing its influence to pervert the Phoenix Force from an entity of creation to one of destruction. In The X-Men #137 by Claremont and John Byrne, the Phoenix sacrifices herself, unable to handle the horrid destruction that the Dark Phoenix caused.

But if it wasn’t for the seeds of self-doubt the X-Men planted in Jean’s mind, the Dark Phoenix might never have risen. After her self-resurrection, the team continued to distrust the Phoenix Force’s power; even wearing the Phoenix’s costume has caused startling concern among the X-Men. But from the Phoenix Force’s perspective, it only wished to give Jean Grey the power it believed she was owed. Despite its overwhelming cosmic godliness, the Phoenix Force wanted Jean Grey, more than anybody, to be the soul who reshapes the universe. That is a purpose that the X-Men could never give her.

Jean Grey Has Let Go of Being a Mutant in Order to Become Something More

The Phoenix Is Finally the Universe’s Ultimate Protector

In Rise of Powers of X #5 by Kieron Gillen and Luciano Vecchio, Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force are reborn as a single entity in order to save existence from the Enigma Domain. This moment was the Phoenix Force’s end and its beginning, with Jean Grey as its anchor. Reunited and free from their past animosity, the Phoenix arose from the ashes of Krakoa, saved reality, and departed to the stars to truly understand what she is capable of. Now, in the ongoing Phoenix series, Jean Grey has finally found her true purpose as the Phoenix.

Through Jean’s guidance, the Phoenix Force’s power has been channeled to answer an even higher calling that it alone would have never accepted.

Jean Grey is a god. Her purpose, just like the Phoenix Force’s, is to create. The eternal flames of the Phoenix burn through the universe to create inside the voids where destruction is wrought. Through Jean’s guidance, the Phoenix Force’s power has been channeled to answer an even higher calling that it alone would have never accepted. The Phoenix may not be with the X-Men, but she isn’t alone; she never has been. From the beginning, the Phoenix Force watched over the young and traumatized Jean Grey, and now it has become her reason to live.

While the X-Men continue to fight for mutant rights on Earth, the Phoenix has become entangled in a new level of war, justice, and peace of godly and cosmic proportions. Jean Grey is contesting against Dark Gods, cosmic killers, and intergalactic governments, not just towering robots and bigots. For the first time since the death of her childhood friend, Jean can see just what her power was meant for. The X-Men may forever be Jean Grey’s family, but her purpose has evolved beyond them and transcended to one of cosmic creation, bound to the stars above.

Phoenix #10 is available now from Marvel Comics.