While Charles Xavier put the X-Men together, there is one of his students who simply dwarfs all others when it comes to power and their effect on mutant history. That honor falls to one of his first students, Jean Grey, a powerful telepath in her own right who became part of the original five X-Men. She would later grow even more powerful though, setting up some of the X-Men’s most epic moments into motion.
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Over the years she’s undergone transformations not only in her skills and abilities but also regarding her costumes. She started out in the early days like everyone else, eventually adopting the Marvel Girl suit and persona. It fit her quieter nature at the time, but she would then adopt several looks over the years that changed according to her ever-evolving personality.
That also applies to the big screen, where the character has popped up twice now with two separate actresses playing the part, the most recent of which was Sophie Turner in X-Men Apocalypse. Everyone has their favorite look, of course, largely dependent on when you became a fan of the character. So sit back, relax, and hit the next slide to see ComicBook.com’s top five Jean Grey costumes and find out if your favorite made the list!
The synopsis for X-Men: Apocalypse is located below.
Following the critically acclaimed global smash hit X-Men: Days of Future Past, director Bryan Singer returns with X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. Since the dawn of civilization, he was worshiped as a god. Apocalypse, the first and most powerful mutant from Marvel’s X-Men universe, amassed the powers of many other mutants, becoming immortal and invincible. Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction.
The cast features James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Olivia Munn as Psylocke, Lucas Till as Havok, Evan Peters as Quicksilver, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, Josh Helman as William Stryker, Lana Condor as Jubilee, and Ben Hardy as Angel.
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X-Men Apocalypse (Blue & Yellow)
Speaking of X-Men: Apocalypse, the majority of the film finds an updated but similarly drab costume style to other entries in the X-Men film franchise. Director Bryan Singer did finally let some color in however in the film’s final sequence, which shows the students in the Danger Room.
All of the students are now wearing new costumes and most of if not all are vast improvements over the previous versions simply because they implement some much-needed color. Jean Grey’s is no different, with a brighter blue hue to her armor with stripes of gray and yellow. It’s a nice homage to her 90’s outfit while still keeping the same overall “tone” the movies have set in place. Hopefully, fans will see this suit in the future.
Age of Apocalypse
There are so many things to love about the Age of Apocalypse, one of which happens to be the job that Marvel did with Jean Grey. That includes her costume for the big event, which was far edgier than her costume in the books at the time.
The outer edges were all in black, including the sleeves and collar, with red in the torso and blue on the inside of the legs. Combined with her short red hair and black symbol over her left eye it managed to give an immediate sense of the world the X-Men were living in at the time, and just frankly looked amazing in action, and conveyed her more confident nature.
Phoenix
Jean Grey has always preferred the color green, but her Phoenix costume was by far her best use of it. There’s a simple elegance to this costume, with an all green bodysuit separated by gold in the gloves, boots, a golden sash, and that lovely Phoenix symbol.
This costume of course ushered in the Phoenix, her far more powerful form. Combined with her bright red hair the suit looked amazing on the page and became one of her most popular looks. Sometimes less is more, though there was one way to make this suit even better. Hit the next slide to find out how.
Dark Phoenix
Yep, you guessed it. How do you make the Phoenix costume even better? Why you change the green out for red, make her crazed with power, and call it Dark Phoenix.
That’s oversimplifying the Dark Phoenix Saga a tad sure, but costume wise it’s pretty spot on. The red just looks phenomenal with the gold, especially with her long red locks in tow. She was even more powerful in this form, so if you’re going to try and destroy the world, why not look amazing while doing so?
Ironically there was even one more version of this costume, a white and gold version. It looked great as well, but it still doesn’t rival the previous green and yellow or this version, so it sadly got left off the list.
They also did a version of this for X3-The Last Stand, and it’s actually not that bad, but d
oesn’t surpass the original.
Uncanny X-Men (1990’s)
This costume really shouldn’t be here, at least on paper. If you described this look to someone they might stare at you oddly, with the words “no, it really does look great” coming out of your mouth more than once. Thing is, it does work, and in the right artist’s hands, this is hands down the best costume for Jean Grey ever made.
Even when colorists drew it more orange than yellow, it still worked. Weird pouches on the side of the legs? Sure, why not. Shoulder pads that could cut timber? Sure, go ahead, throw it in there. Despite all that, well, vintage 1990’s, it looks great on the page, and with that mane of red hair flowing out of the blue cowl, it all just works, despite the fact that it really shouldn’t.
