Jean Grey

Jean Grey was the second daughter of John and Elaine Grey. She grew up in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, with her older sister Sara. Born a mutant, Jean's telepathic and telekinetic abilities manifested at a young age. Her gift first manifested itself one day when she was playing with her classmate Annie Richardson. When Annie was fatally struck by a speeding car, Jean's telepathic abilities kicked in for the first time and she maintained a mental link with her friend and experienced her thoughts as she died in her arms. The experience deeply disturbed Jean and she withdrew from the outside world. Her parents took her to a number of psychologists until they finally sought the aid of Professor Charles Xavier a mutant telepath himself. Realizing that Jean was a mutant, Charles began working on helping her through her trauma and aiding her in controlling her similar powers. Charles began working with Jean to get her to get over the death of Annie Richardson.

Initially, Charles succeeded in getting Jean out of her shell and taught her how to control both her telepathic and telekinetic abilities restoring her to some level of relative normality. Also at this time Charles was working on opening a School for Gifted Youngsters, where he intended to train new mutants in the use of their powers in the hopes of bringing peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants. Charles was developing a mutant tracking device called Cerebro to assist him in this cause. With his assistant Moira MacTaggert, the pair also had Jean utilize her powers through Cerebro as well. It was during these initial field tests that Charles and Jean made contact with another mutant named Scott Summers who was living in an orphanage in Nebraska at the time. This initial contact helped Scott get over the fears he had since his parents died in a plane crash. As fate would have it, Scott and Jean's lives would become intertwined for years to come. Jean recovered well enough to return home, and before retiring one night she observed what she thought was a falling star, taking it as a sign she would be all right. During the day of her freshman dance, Jean was briefly possessed by her future self, who soon passed on to another era, leaving Jean with no memory of what happened. Jean's progress with Xavier proved to be a short lived success when Charles attempted to bring Jean out of her family home and into a shopping mall. The number of conflicting thoughts from all the patrons was too much for Jean and she lashed out with her powers. After wiping out everyone's memories of the incident, Charles had to start from square one all over again. Eventually, Charles made new progress but was forced to shut down Jean's telepathic abilities until she was more mature and in better control of her other powers. Eventually, Charles was satisfied with his work with Jean, but convinced her parents to allow her to enroll in his school for gifted youngsters. Jean's sister Sara had her reservations about allowing Jean to leave to attend this school, but Jean convinced her that it was what was best. By this time, Charles had gathered a group of mutants together who also trained to use their powers to combat threats both human and mutant as the X-Men. Jean took on the codename Marvel Girl.

Jean joined the X-Men and took the name Marvel Girl and began training to use her telekinetic powers in combat situations with the team in the specially constructed Danger Room. Now calling himself Professor X, Xavier was ready to reveal the X-Men to the world. Soon the threat of the mutant terrorist known as Magneto became very real and Xavier called upon his X-Men to prepare for their first battle against his one-time friend. Before they could leave, Jean decided to cut out and go into the Westchester County community that the school resided in. Ignoring the news reports of her teammates battling Magneto at Cape Citadel, Jean realized what her true responsibilities were when she saved a girl her age from an ambulance that went out of control and went to join her teammates. Through Xavier's guidance, Cyclops and the X-Men succeeded in stopping Magneto from taking over the Cape Citadel missile base, forcing the master of magnetism to flee. Due to his exemplary work in the field, Xavier selected Cyclops to act as the field leader for the team, despite Scott's fears that he was not worth due to the lack of control he had over his powers.

Later when the mutant teleporter known as the Vanisher began stealing government secrets, Professor X offered the X-Men's aid to the government to stop him. Xavier himself defeated the Vanisher by using his mental powers to cut off his access to his powers, allowing the X-Men to easily capture him and his minions. Later when the Angel had another personality shift following exposure to radiation unleashed by a test by Stark Industries, Marvel Girl and the X-Men stood back to allow the armored hero Iron Man deal with the danger posed by the Angel until he reverted back to normal. Jean and her teammates later met the supremely powerful hero known as the Sentry, assisting him in defeating his foe the General who was attempting to steal nuclear weapons to launch against the nation of France.

About this time, Scott began to develop feelings for Jean Grey, but kept his feelings secret because he feared that his powers might someday harm her. Jean also began developing feelings for Scott, but likewise kept silent hoping that Scott would someday express himself to her. It was about this time that Xavier soon located another mutant, the immovable Blob who was working as part of a carnival freak show and sent the X-Men to recruit him. However the X-Men soon learned the error of welcoming the Blob in with open arms when he turned out to be uninterested in joining the X-Men and later attacked the school. While the X-Men kept the Blob and his army of carnies at bay, Xavier completed a device that allowed him to wipe out all memory of the X-Men's headquarters and secret identities from the mind of the Blob and his cohorts. Later while in a training session the X-Men were briefly surprised by the sudden appearance of a medieval knight, but it soon disappeared. After more training, Magneto resurfaced, this time with his own team of mutants. This so-called Brotherhood of Evil Mutants conquered the South American nation of Santo Marco. Xavier soon deployed the X-Men who battled the Brotherhood, which also included Pietro and Wanda Maximoff who were now reluctant members of the Brotherhood as Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. When the Brotherhood was forced to flee, Xavier threw himself at a booby trapped door to save his students from the blast, and led them to believe that he had lost his mental powers as a result. Cyclops stepped up and took a leadership role later when the X-Men were lured into a trap by Magneto and were taken aboard his Asteroid M headquarters. Under Scott's leadership, the X-Men managed to escape without the aid of Xavier. Charles later revealed to his students that he feigned his lost powers as a final test to see if his students could handle themselves without his aid. Soon Professor X was enthralled by the Puppet Master and the Mad Thinker who then used Xavier to order the X-Men to attack their foes the Fantastic Four. Although the two teams were forced to fight each other, Xavier eventually broke free from the Puppet Master's control and exposed the entire ruse. The Puppet Master and the Thinker then fled before they could be captured by the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. Not long after this, Jean and the X-Men were chased by an anti-mutant mob. Cornered in a blind alley the mob started throwing rocks. One rock, thrown by photographer Philip Sheldon, struck Iceman in the head. Scott told his teammates that the bigoted mob were not worth it and they fled into the night.

After Professor X decided to create a nation-state for all mutants due to the recent revelations of Moira MacTaggert's ability to reincarnate herself, Jean Grey shortly joined with her students and became a leader as a member of the Quiet Council. Jean Grey also was a part of X-Force, Krakoa's CIA until Beast's premunitions against several nations forced her to leave the team due to ethical disputes.