SHADES OF GREY
Chris Claremont on Jean Grey’s evolution from Marvel Girl to Phoenix
First falling in love with Jean Grey after seeing some artwork by artist Neal Adams when he started work as a gofer at Marvel in 1969, Chris Claremont was determined to update the erstwhile Marvel Girl when he took over from Len Wein as writer of the All-New,
All-Different X-Men with 1975’s #96. “Neal Adams is an exceptional artist and storyteller, and his Jean Grey was like the ultimate redhead girlfriend,” laughs Claremont, who was initially paired with artist Dave Cockrum before John Byrne assumed penciling duties with #108. “Comics were vastly different conceptually back then than they are today. Each team had its girl and the X-Men’s was Marvel Girl. The way that Dave Cockrum was drawing her was consistent with how she’d been presented up to that point, as she dressed like a respectable Upper East Side Manhattan posh lady. But that was not the direction we wanted to go in, so we revamped her, which in ’70s terms meant that we gave her hot pants and a really cool haircut.”
Clearing the stage for new members like Nightcrawler, Storm and Wolverine, Wein concluded #94 to #95’s opening two-parter with
Jean departing alongside the rest of the original team. However, Claremont resolved to bring her back as soon as possible, reintroducing her in #98 before she’s dramatically possessed by cosmic entity the Phoenix Force two issues later.
“Dave and I wanted her to stand on equal terms with the other five members of the team, so were working on giving her a new and unique identity, which was not pejorative and not just a girl,” explains Claremont. “In one of the best conceptual designs of that era, Dave came up with her green and gold costume. At the same time, every writer has their list of cool superhero names and mine was Phoenix, which was perfect for Jean as she was rising from the ashes of #100.”
With Claremont noting that “for every yin, there is a yang”, Jean began her transformation into Dark Phoenix in #129 after falling under the malign influence of Mastermind. “He had no idea what he was dealing with, as it was like juggling with a nuclear bomb,” reasons Claremont. “As far as Mastermind was concerned, ‘I’m a badass and she’s a girl so I can handle this. I mean, what kind of danger is a girl?’”
Initially intending her to survive the Dark Phoenix saga, it was editor-in-chief Jim Shooter who insisted that Jean must make the ultimate sacrifice by dying in 1980’s classic #137. “It was a totally last-minute decision, as after Jim saw Jean supernova a sun in #135 just because she was hungry, killing about six billion people in the process, he said that all the traditional bets are now off and there has to be some moral consequence for this unforgivable act,” recalls Claremont. “I took that as a green light to say ‘she’s committed this terrible crime so to stay true to herself and bring the story to a viable end, she has to pay for it with her life.’”