Jean Grey

Real Name: Jean Grey

Other Aliases: None (current), Marvel Girl (former), Ms. Psyche (former), Redd (former), Phoenix (former)

Place of Birth: Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

Martial Status: Married

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #1

Group Affiliations: X-Men (current), X-Factor (former)

Powers: Jean Grey is a Class A Telepath, able to read minds, project thoughts, and stun the minds of others using "mental bolts". She is also telekinesis, which enables her to levitate or to levitate other living beings or inanimate objects.

History: When Jean Grey was 10 years old, she watched helplessly as her best friend, Annie Richardson, was struck by a car. The strength of Jean's emotions awakened her latent telepathic powers, and she experienced the dying girl's fealings. Withdrawn and depressed, Jean discovered that she could not control her newly awakened mental powers and was forced to isolate herself from other to keep hold of her sanity. Jean had been an averange teenager; now, she could hear thoughts louder than voices and lift weights with her mind.

Jean's parents were refered to Professor Charles Xavier, secretly a mutant himself with similar mental powers as Jean had. Xavier treated Jean for several years, erecting psychic shields in her mind so she would not be able to use her powers until she achieved the maturity necessary to control them. When Jean attained a certain level of mastery, Xavier recommended her parents to enroll her in his newly established School for Gifted Youngsters. Adopting the guies of Marvel Girl, Jean became the fifth member of the X-Men.

Jean harbored strong feelings for her fellow student Scott Summers, alias Cyclops, whose uncontrollable optic beams would fire whenever he opened his eyes. For years both where too shy to express there emotions.

Following the removal of Xavier's psychic shields, she proved highly adept at using her telepathic powers. When the mutant island kown as Krakoa held Jean and several of her teammates captive, Professor Xavier assembled a second squad of X-Men. Led by Cyclops, the new recruits rescued Xavier's original student's. Jean left the X-Men soon after, by continued the romantic relationship with Scott.

However, her unique powers would not allow her to life a normal life. The government created a new bread of mutant-hunting Sentinels, and the androids abducted Jean and the other X-Men. Imprissoned in an orbiting space station, the team was forced to escape back to Earth in a space shuttle through a lethal solar-radiation storm. The pilot's cabin lakced sufficient shielding, but Jean insisted on flying the craft. Already succumbing to the agonizing effects of radiation poisoning, she was touched by the cosmic beeing known as the Phoenix Force. The entity created a body for itself that was identical to Jean's, duplicating her memories and personality, and absorbed a portion of her consciousness. It then guided the shuttle to a crach-landing in Jamaica Bay off New York City.

The Phoenix Force placed the real Jean in suspended animation within a coccon-like pod resting on the bottom of the bay. The Phoenix Force eventually was corrupted by its own power, becoming a threat to all creation. But Jean's persona was dorminant, and her psyche caused en entity to sacrifice itself to save the universe. Subsequently, the Avengers discovered the pod and turned it over to the elastic inventor Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. Finally breaking through the coccon's psi-damping, the real Jean released herself. Fully healed, she reunited with Scott and the original X-Men. Together they founded the new team X-Factor. Later the members of the X-Factor rejoined the X-Men.

Inevitably, Jean married Scott. However, their toughest trial was yet to come. At the dawn of the new millenium, the mutant warlord Apocalypse captured the Twelve - powerful mutants who could determind the fate of their kind, including Scott and Jean. They were wired to the machine that would channel their powers into Apocalypse, allowing him to absorb the body of the X-Man and ascend to a sate of cosmic awarness. As his teammates, a powerless Scott showed the X-Men out of Apocalypse draining circuit, merging with Apocalypse which created a new evil entity. Jean detected Scott's psyche inside Apocalypse and prevented the X-Men from destroying him. However, he was resumed dead by most of his teammates. Only Jean and the future-era freedom fighter called Cable (Scott's son) refused to believe Scott had perished. Investigating rumors that he was alive, Jean and Cable found Cyclops struggling to reassert his mind over Apocalypse influence. With Jean's help, Cable exorcisted the warlord and shattered his essence. Jean as able to help Scott shake off the devastating effects of his merger with Apocalypse and the two rejoined the X-Men.