I’ve got kind of a dumb question—in the Marvel comics universe, what’s the current status of Jean Grey? Is she still dead, ressurected, evil, or what?
I just lost track a few months ago—she could be working at the Daily Bugle by now for all I know.
Still dead last I knew. This is stemming from the latest “Phoenix killed by Xorn/Magneto” storyline.
She’s dead. (Entertainingly, when this was mentioned to…Fury? I lent my copies to someone…in Astonishing, he said “Yeah, like that’ll last.”) There’s a Phoenx Endsong thing going on, though, which I know absolutely nothing about other than Marvel had a poll related to it on their site recently asking whether Jean should live or die. So I guess she’s alive there. And she’s recently revivified in the X-Men: The End thing, too, although I’m not sure how seriously to take that as canon.
In UXM #175, you can see that Jean Grey is buried at the Chapel of the Holy Innocents at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Jean’s father, John Grey, taught history at Bard. Scroll down here to see a picture of the Chapel.
As to whether she is still in her grave, I don’t know. In ‘real life’ there is no graveyard at the chapel at Bard. Chris Claremont went to Bard, as did I.
I’ve glanced over a few pages of the Phoenix: Endsong saga, and while I think it’s beautifully done–the artwork is great–I’m still not entirely sure if it’s canon. I know that at the end
Jean merges with the White Phoenix and fades to go onto the White Hot Room, and one of Emma’s cuckoos gets a piece of the disintegrated Phoenix Force (it’s a little confusing, I’m not entirely certain).
Hopefully this isn’t really a hijack, but I’m more than a few years behind. Jean Grey becomes the Phoenix, then Dark Phoenix, then dies, then it turns out Phoenix never really was Jean Grey, so we’re back to having Marvel Girl, or whatever, then Jean Grey’s daughter from an alternate future shows up with Phoenix power, then what?
I take it at some point Jean Grey became Phoenix again? Then died again? How’d all that happen?
IIRC, the Phoenix Force inhabited Maddie Pryor, who was a clone of Jean who Cyclops later married. Maddie became “The Goblin Queen” (don’t ask) and died, and her essence and the Phoenix Force both then inhabited Jean. Maddie got sucked out at some point but I don’t remember if Phoenix did or not.
In The X-Men: The End* doohickey, both Jean and Rachel manifest Phoenix powers. So I think they both are Phoenix-y. Hey, it’s the Phoenix! It’s powerful to be two people at the same time, right?
*Like I said, I don’t know how canon this is. All kinds of weird shit is happening in this book.
Here’s what I remember. The phoenix force decided it wanted to experience life as a human, so it created a human body for itself (a fake Jean Grey) and put the real Jean Grey in suspended animation in a stone sleeping bag under the sea. For a while, all was fine.
Then, unable to handle the full range of human emotions, Phoenix went bat-poo crazy and started eating stars. There is a series of emotion tugging battles and Phoenix gives her life dramatically because Scott was too mopey to kill her. After her death, Scott stayed mopey and the real Jean Grey stayed comfy unda da sea.
Then the writers got bored and decided to poke Scott “mopey” Summers with a pointed stick called Madelyne Pryor, who looked and acted like Jean Grey. This is where my details get fuzzy. Somehow Jean came back and Madelyne became the Goblin queen after being revealed as a clone of Jean Grey (hey, it worked so well for Spider Man). Madelyne dies and Jean sticks around for a while.
Also, Scott and Jean’s daughter from the future named Rachael comes back to the past with the full on phoenix force, revealing a possible link between the Grey chicks and the phoenix force. Seems to me she sacrifices herself into some multi-dimensional hodgepodge to save Captain Britain and she goes away with the phoenix force.
Shortly after the Muir Island/Shadow King saga, they decide to restart the X-Books. They christen the new books launch by having a sentinel from the future smash Jean Grey’s head in. Dead again? Not really. Turns out she transfered her mind telepathically into the body of Emma Frost who, having also been “killed” by the future sentinels, had transferred her mind into Iceman. The body switching thing gets straightened out and everything is happy for a while.
Then comes another relaunch and Jean Grey goes back to the Phoenix look, using her growing in power tk and telepathy to create a phoenix style effect. For some reason, everyone thinks that this is a good idea and nothing bad will happen.
Madelyne Pryor returns to Earth thanks to the Age of Apocalypse refugee X-Man. I have no idea why they did it or what happened to her, but she was back. She also appeared in the alternate universe of Mutant X, only she was married to Alex “Havok” Summers and it doesn’t count.
Long Story short, something bad happens. Scott hooks up with Emma “I’m like Jean, but trampier” Frost. Jean and Wolverine go up to Asteroid M to find Magneto for a bagel brunch. They forget the lox and Magneto pitches the asteroid towards the sun with Jean and Wolverine inside.Out of desperation, Jean contacts the Phoenix force and they hook up for about two issues before Magneto dumps a massive electromagnetic pulse into her system. She dies, presumably for real this time, and Wolverine cuts off Magneto’s head. Scott, not surprisingly, mopes.
Somehow Rachael Summers re-enters the picture and calims the mantel of “Phoenix” to honor her mother. For some reason, nobody sees any problems with this and now Rachael’s powers are growing at a scary rate.
To my knowledge, the Phoenix force never inhabited Madelyne, who was a clone created by the awesomely named Mister Sinister. She gained the Goblin Queen powers from the oddly apostrophed N’Astrih and his purple and technode virused monkey named Sym. Those two were also responsible for turning Colossus’ sister into Majick and giving her the soul sword.
Dear og I hope that covers things. If I missed anything, feel free to correct me.
Harborwolf, I think I love you.
X-Men and Coelocanths? I think I love you too. 
No, Belasco was responsible for turning Ilyanna into Majik, when he kidnapped her as a child and held her in Limbo for about 7 years (while mere moments passed on Earth). I am like 98% sure that the Phoenix Force at least temporarily resided in Maddie Pryor and that both of them got re-absorbed into Jean.
Belasco :smack: . Knew I’d forgotten somebody. And you’re right. The phoenix force did partially reside in Madelyne. After Dark Phoenix “died,” it tried to give powers back to Jean. She freaked and cast the powers out. The powers then flew to a clone of Jean created by Mister Sinister and brought her to life. During Inferno, Maddie and Jean fought with Maddie almost dragging Jean into death. Jean tapped into the partial phoenix powers in the Goblin Queen and survived, taking part of Madelyne’s mind in the process.
Full details can be found here, thanks to UXN.