Ironworks Gaming Forum - X men questions (spoilers)

The answer from the comic series is long and complicated. Let me see if I can remember it correctly.

While returning from a mission into space, the X-Men encounter a deadly cosmic storm. Jean Grey orders all the team into a compartment/cabin/room in the shuttle that is shielded against the cosmic rays - but she stays in the cockpit to guide the shuttle home. They crash into the ocean and all the X-Men survive - except for Jean Grey who was apparantly killed by the cosmic rays.

As the team stands on the bank mourning, a fiery Pheonix suddenly rises out of the ocean. It is Jean Grey - reborn.

I believe originally this was a way to increase the power of Jean Grey/Marvel Girl who - despite her powers of telekenisis and telepathy - was still considered one of the "weaker" members of the team. Once she became the Pheonix, she was stronger than the rest of the team combined.

Jean Grey maintains the Pheonix persona for a while, but starts feeling "evil" urges. These "urges" eventually take over and she becomes Dark Pheonix - a force of insatiable destruction. She suddenly has a "hunger" to destroy and she ends up obliterating an entire planet. Then she decides to head back to Earth.

This leads to the inevitable cataclysmic clash between Dark Pheonix and her former teamates (including her lover - Cyclops). In the end, I believe it is Jean Grey herself that actually "defeats" the Dark Pheonix persona inside her (could be wrong about that, though).

With the defeat of the Pheonix persona, she goes back to being Jean Grey/Marvel Girl - but the Pheonix persona is still buried deep inside her. She realizes it's only a matter of time before the Dark Pheonix rises again, so she knows she must be killed to prevent this from happening. The X-Men end up in a big fight on the moon against a group of alien superheroes that have been sent to find and destroy Dark Pheonix. The battle climaxes amid some alien ruins on the moon. Jean Grey uses her telekinisis to activate one of the weapons in the ruins and supposedly "kill" herself.

After that, Jean Grey was left out of the X-Men comics for quite a while (to the best of my knowledge, anyway. I collected a LOT of X-Men comics, but not until long after the fable Pheonix saga had already ocurred).

Sometime later, Jean Grey is brought back to comic-book life and rejoins the X-Men.

The storyline for her return claimed that Jean Grey and the Pheonix were never the same person. Pheonix was an alien entity that saw the shuttle crashing. It entered the shuttle and put the "real" Jean Grey into a state of suspended animation - then took on her appearance. So the newly revised "official" story is that Jean Grey never actually became the Pheonix to begin with.

In answer to your original question, Jean Grey was never permanently killed off in the comics - nor has she been killed in the movie.

The comic version of Jean Grey is still alive and well and has become one of the most powerful heroines on the planet. Her telepathy is second only to that of Charles Xavier himself and she has absolute control over her telekinises. She can lift cars and other huge objects, or she can telekinetically insert coins into a vending machine. Her power has limits, but those limits are much higher than they used to be.

The movie-version of Jean Grey isn't dead either. X-Men 3 will see the start of the Pheonix saga. If you have X-Men 2 on DVD or VHS, look at the final scene as they fly over the water - and you will notice an image of a "fiery bird" that seems to be "flying" beneath the surface of the lake. ;)