X-Men: When Did Jean Grey Re-Adopt the Codename of Phoenix?

Comic Book Questions Answered is a feature where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com). Today, I explain when and why Jean Grey chose to adopt the code name Phoenix after distancing herself from it for so many years.

Recently, I did a When We First Met about the first time that Jean Grey officially decided to abandon her code name of Marvel Girl, and just start going by simply the name “Jean Grey.” Reader Matthew D. recalled that Jean was eventually going by the name Phoenix in the 1990s, and he wanted to know what was up with that, so let’s take a look at how Jean Grey came to be known as the Phoenix (and when it happened).

As I noted in that earlier piece about Jean’s code name choices, she had been known as Marvel Girl for her whole superhero career until she seemingly died in X-Men #100. In the next issue, Jean seemingly was reborn as a much more powerful mutant known as Phoenix. Slowly but surely (with a great deal of “help” from the villainous Mastermind), the Phoenix was eventually “broken,” and she snapped, and became the Dark Phoenix, destroying a whole planet filled with billions of people on it. The Shi’ar Empire felt that she needed to be taken down. The X-Men, who had successfully brought Jean back to her “humanity,” fought to protect her, but in the end, when Jean felt herself turning back into Dark Phoenix, she voluntarily chose to end her own life, thereby resolving the conflict, but leaving her longtime boyfriend, Cyclops, a total wreck (until he found another woman who looked just like Jean, and then he was fine).

Well, obviously, as you all know, a retcon in the 1980s revealed that the “Phoenix” was actually a cosmic force that had agreed to swap places with the real Jean, as the Phoenix wanted to know what it was like to be human. Obviously, things did not go so well, but the argument is that just IMPRINTING on Jean was so inspiring that the cosmic force chose to sacrifice itself to save others (David Harth has a recent piece about Jean and the Phoenix Force). Okay, so the REAL Jean was found a few years after she “died,” and she was back as a superhero. Naturally, then, she would just go back to the superhero name she was using pre-Phoenix, which was Marvel Girl. Over time, though, the name just seemed kind of silly, since she was a grown woman now. So she dropped a code name period, and started going by “Jean Grey.” That, though, wasn’t what Marvel really wanted (it’s kind of hard to merchandise a character named “Jean Grey,” ya know?). So the X-Office came up with a plan to bring the Phoenix back to Jean.

Who was the Phoenix after Jean Grey?

After Jean’s seemingly tragic passing, the X-Men met Rachel Summers, a mutant who was the child of Jean Grey and Scott Summers in an alternate future. She came to the present day, and eventually joined the X-Men. After handling a crystal that her “mother” had imprinted herself upon, Rachel found herself able to access the powers of the Phoenix Force, although to a much more limited degree than her “mother.” After a disatrous encounter with Wolverine where he tried to keep her from killing a supervillain by…almost killing HER, Rachel found her way to England, where she joined the superhero team, Excalibur.

Years later, as noted in a recent piece by Renaldo Matadeen, Rachel was thrown into the future after swapping places with Captain Britain to save the British superhero (Rachel’s longtime Excalibur teammate). She ended up taking on the identity of Mother Askani, a group that would later raise Nathan Summers (Cyclops’ son) from birth after his father was forced to send Nathan into the future following Apocalypse infecting young Nathan with the Techno-Organic Virus. So Rachel was out of the way, and thus the Phoenix name was now free.

How did Jean Grey take the name Phoenix?

In the 1994 miniseries, The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix (by Scott Lobdell, Gene Ha, and Al Vey), Jean and Scott Summers were on their honeymoon when suddenly their minds were transported far into the future. It was the work of Rachel (now Mother Askani, and an old woman), who worked out a way to clone their bodies for their minds to live in in the future (as their bodies couldn’t handle the time travel), and her plan was that they would be in the future soon after Baby Nathan arrived in the future.

So Scott and Jean (as Slym and Redd) will raise Nathan, and train him to be able to lead the uprising against Apocalypse (and prevent Stryfe, the clone of Nathan Summers who was NOT exposed to the Techno-Organic virus, from becoming Apocalypse’s newest vessel to keep himself alive)….

Rachel fell into a coma soon after bringing Scott and Jean into the future. For the next few years, Scott and Jean raised Nathan as basically his parents, and in the end, stopped Apocalypse’s plot in the future. Before they were sent home (with their minds returned to their bodies still on their honeymoon, so no time passed in the past, but they still have the memories of raising Nathan for years in the future), Rachel reached out to her mother, and asks Jean to take on the Phoenix name now that Rachel is no longer in the past….

Jean agrees, and she began calling herself the Phoenix again with Uncanny X-Men #318 (by Lobdell, Roger Cruz, and Tim Townsend)…

Obviously, everyone still pretty much calls her “Jean,” but her code name is officially Phoenix. Of course, this becomes a bit of a “thing” later when Lobdell is replaced on Uncanny X-Men by Steve Seagle, and Jean starts wearing the Phoenix’s costume (as seen in the header), but that’s a story for another day!

Thanks for the sort of implied question, Matthew If anyone else has a comic book question they’d like to see answered, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!