The Jean Grey Story..... First Seen X Men 1 # September 1963

 

As I said I am taking a short brake from My Doctor Who Story line, but do not worry the story will continue.  

I finally made a little change to the Cross of St John on the door as the one I did back in 2013 was not that good. Also I made a small change to the key hole. although you can not really see it in this picture. 

 

But in the meantime I originally planned to drop this little feature on my Blog on the run up to Christmas.  Unfortunately  I never found the time. So I decided to make time and I hope you enjoy my journey through the many looks of one of my favourite leading ladies from Marvel.

 Marvel and their Female Characters used to come in either, The Mother - Sister - Fiancée  guise, as in Sue Storm or in the Girl Friend guise, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson , Alicia Masters etc. There was some female Super Heroes, but far too few.  One of which was young heiress Janet Van Dyne. Who met a dashing Doctor named Henry Pym.  She fell head over heels in love with the Blue Eyed widower, who just happened to be a scientist like her Father. Little did she know that Henry aka Hank was secretly new hero on the block The Ant - Man..

After Hank injected Janet with some untested cells he had been working on, that ended up  making her  a " Human - Wasp Combo, he announced that she was now his partner. Remember back in the 1960's referring to a person as your " partner  " meant something very different to what it means today.   !!!!! All Janet wanted was  wanted an engagement ring,  but had to settle for what Hank gave her...... Antenna's and some Wings. Lucky Girl ? And her original costume that Hank had just happened have just in case..... No wonder Janet went on to redesign her look and every week. The Original Helmet would have done nothing for her hair do. 

The Original and one of the many Janet has worn over the years.

Sue Storm  has around since 1961 was one quarter of the Fantastic Four, but early stories treated her as the victim who needed to be saved and protected.  She by return was seen as the " Home Maker" who served as chief Cook and Cleaner at the Baxter Building. She looked lovingly at her Boyfriend Reed, looked after  Reed's best friend Ben when he got emotional about his condition, and  acted as Mother to her Hot Headed little Brother Johnny. She did the cooking, cleaning even designed the original FF costumes. What would the boys had done without her ? Sue on the main stayed looking the same. The FF Uniform worked so well it was not updated for year. The Only changes made to the Team was getting The Thing look perfected..... which did not take long.... and the other was Sue Storm's hair. If you look back at the early days of the Fantastic Four Sue always seems to sport the hair do of the time. A small thing, but at least that showed she was all woman. 

Her original power of turning Invisible was manly defensive, and may be  Sue was treated like a bit of a liability in some stories.   In Fantastic Four 22 October 1963, with a bit of help from Reed Richards, Sue's powers where developed and improved on. It was suggested that she had other powers all along, but did not know how to use them. Lucky Sue had Reed to show her what she could do. ?

Now Sue was able not  just turn herself invisible, but other objects and people as well. She also had the power to create invisible force fields.  She went from being the weakest person on the team, to being possibly the most powerful. Although she would and the others would have to wait many years until the Invisible Girl became her own Woman. See FF 281 from 1985. And what a powerful lady she became..... an no longer just an Invisible Girl...... But now an Invisible Woman who needed to be seen.

So Sue ended up the most powerful member of the Quartet, and some would say the most deadly.  Telling Doctor Doom that she could have killed him many times over the years, as she could easily place one of her Force Fields inside his Brain causing him to Die. Victor had the wind taken from his sails with that one. The female of the species can be deadlier than the male indeed.

Other heroes on other teams were sometimes seen as being eye candy. Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp was not even an Official founding Member of the Mighty Avengers. She even named them in issue 1, but at first she was just the "Partner" of Ant Man, who was an official member. Ok later Janet's past was rewritten making her a Founding Member of the Team...... but many of the early stories she was just treated as the Victim that needed saving.  She had a habit of always wanting to powder her nose and stare lovingly into the eyes of her team mates. All fluff and no substance. I am not sure if she had time to do this with The Hulk, maybe that was why he decided to leave the team after a couple of issues.  Ok he had anger issues, and maybe he needed a hug once in a while. As Kermit said " It is not easy being GREEN ! "

When the Original line up of the Avengers all took a short " Retirement"  Wanda the Scarlet Witch became an Avenger, along with Hawkeye, Quick Silver under the tutorship of Captain America.  Wanda like Jan and Sue was also treated very much the same.... As a Victim.  Her Brother Quick Silver treated her like she needed saving from everyone. Especially her Team Mates.  Her Power Set were not great, too uncontrollable at times to be reliable.  Plus after using them poor old Wanda always seemed to need a little lay down to recover.  Thank God that Wanda has developed over the years. Again she is one of the most powerful of the Avengers... Remember she wiped most of the Mutants of the planet with her " No More Mutants " line, and she nearly killed all of the Avengers in a fit of rage. Wanda was not really a victim, but she was treated the part by many over the years.  Her back story has been changed so many times over the years, it is hard to work out who Wanda really is. She was once a Mutant, now she is a Mutated Human. Once she was the Daughter of an Eastern European Romany Leader and a Witch, this changed a while later so that she was the Daughter of Magneto. This has since changed back.... but she still calls Eric Daddy !. Wanda married an Artificial Man called the Vision. Who used the brain patterns of a then DEAD Wonder Man.   Simon Williams would later tell her that he loved her too. Very complicated for Wanda to understand no doubt.  Ok that was after her Husband had been taken apart by the Government and lost his "Humanity" and his love for Wanda. She at least  had her Twins, by the Vision, but these turned out to be fake.  She had created them using her powers. Ok again Tommy and Billy would come back into her life as young adults called Wiccan and Speed, but that is another tale for another time. No Wonder Wanda it could be said that she is a few Hex's short of a Spell Book.

Wanda's Original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants look and her later updated 1970's outfit.

The early years of Woman in Marvel may not be seen as great, but there was one Character that seemed to have her own strong place on the team she was on. This was Jean Grey...... aka as Marvel Girl. 

She was one 5th of the team The X-Men.  Unlike Sue, Jean was not treated as the victim. Ok she had to fight off the advances of 4 horny teenagers who fell in love with her the moment that they first saw her. But there would only be one person who she felt attracted to, and that was Scot Summers.  Hank was older but too much a Chunky Monkey, Bobbie was too young, Warren was a multi millionaire, with the looks of an Angel, but this was not for her. It was Scot, and it it always was. She liked the shy silent type. He felt the same way about her. However, he would never let Jean know how he thought about her, as he worried he could hurt her by accident if he let slip the energy of his optic power blasts.

Jean's powers would increase over the years, her Telekinetic Power, would be later joined by her regaining her Telepathic abilities that had been "buried" by Professor X after Jean had a childhood trauma.  Her Powers grew to god like proportions after her many encounters with the Phoenix Force. Again a VERY complicated back story, that has changed and has been expanded many times.

That would come to be many years in her future.... But here is my take on the First Time Miss Jean Elaine Grey appeared in print.

X-Men Issue 1 # 1963

Next Time Jean gets Suited Up for a date with Magneto.

Until Then ENJOY !