Jean Grey of the X-Men grew up in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Her parents were teachers at Bard College there.
Chris Claremont, longtime X-Men writer, is an alumni of Bard College. Nothing unusual with this connection. Lots of writers incorporate elements of their real life in their fiction.
But Claremont didn’t create Jean Grey. She was created as one of the original X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby back in 1963. Claremont didn’t begin writing the series until 1975.
So my question is did Claremont retcon Grey’s history or is it just a coincidence that Grey supposedly grew up in the same town he went to school in?
An important issue? No. But they can’t all be Great Debates.
I’m not an expert (I’ve read about half of the pre-cancellation issues and from Giant Sized #1 up through the end of Claremont) but I can’t think of a time that the Greys appeared before the Dark Phoenix Saga. I’m pretty sure that’s a Claremont insert.
I dunno if her parents’ jobs were mentioned but I’m almost sure that the Greys appeared in a backup story in a non-X book in which Jean appeared. I wanna say it was in an issue of “Claws of the Cat” (or whatever the exact title of Tigra’s pre-Tigra book was called). But it’s been decades.