Jean Grey deserves some time as Jean Grey. The Phoenix is a huge part of the history around her, obviously, but she was already one of the original X-Men before any of that happ…

Jean Grey deserves some time as Jean Grey. The Phoenix is a huge part of the history around her, obviously, but she was already one of the original X-Men before any of that happened. I’m only covering her through the part of the books I’ve reached, before the Muir Island Saga. She arrives at Xavier’s school as Marvel Girl, joining Scott, Hank, Warren and Bobby. The early stories give her the position of being the only girl in that original group, with plenty of attention paid to which boy is interested in her. There’s more going on with her than that, though. She’s learning how to use a power that lets her interact with the world without physically touching it, and she has to make that useful alongside teammates with very different abilities. A telekinetic can move something out of danger, restrain an opponent or protect someone who can’t protect themselves. That puts Jean in situations where helping another person is as important as taking someone down. It also means she needs to pay attention to several things around her rather than just the person directly in front of her. She belongs to the original team’s history as much as any of the others. When she eventually returns to that group in X-Factor, she’s returning to people she helped build a life with, not joining a story they made without her.