After months of speculation about who Sadie Sink would be playing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day<\/em>, one of Marvel\u2019s worst-kept secrets is finally out there. That\u2019s right, the mysterious, mind-controlling, red-haired baddie glimpsed briefly in trailers is none other than Jean Grey, one of the X-Men\u2019s most famous, and most powerful, members. As one of Marvel\u2019s very first mutants, Jean has a long history in comics, animation, and movies, but she\u2019s never been seen quite like this. Always portrayed as a straight-up good guy (when she\u2019s not going Dark Phoenix mode \u2013 more on that later), it\u2019s rare to see her take on a villainous role, even temporarily. But though it might move her away from her comics roots in some ways, this new take on Jean manages to stay true to the spirit of the character while also setting her up for a bright future in the MCU.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a9 Getty<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Jean debuted in 1963\u2019s X-Men #1<\/em> as \u2018Marvel Girl\u2019, a nondescript name for a pretty nondescript character. While her teammates quickly took on distinct and enduring personalities \u2013 class clown Iceman, erudite Beast, rich kid Angel and boy scout Cyclops \u2013 Jean suffered from a clear case of \u2018Smurfette Syndrome\u2019; much like her Fantastic Four counterpart the Invisible Girl, who debuted two years earlier, she was defined simply as \u2018the girl\u2019, relative to the more individualised male characters around her. Her role was to be alternately ogled and rescued by the boys, with her character development mostly revolving around her budding relationship with Cyclops.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Jean Grey has an incredibly complicated comic-book history, even by X-Men standards.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Since then, Jean has had an incredibly complicated comic-book history, even by X-Men standards. Rare is the X-Man who hasn\u2019t been killed, cloned or driven to the dark side, but Jean has done all three \u2013 and then some \u2013 to the point that it\u2019s hard to keep track. She\u2019s spent so much of her comics career dead, possessed or replaced that she hasn\u2019t had the opportunity to develop in the way that other \u201860s superheroines have. There\u2019s a long list of things that have happed to her<\/em>,sure. Even her defining storyline \u2013 the \u2018Dark Phoenix\u2019 saga \u2013 doesn\u2019t give her all that much agency. The iconic comics run, in which Jean gains uncontrollable cosmic power from a big fiery space bird, mostly involves her being captured and controlled by others, until her final noble sacrifice saves the universe from the deadly Phoenix inside her.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even this was later taken away from her: when she eventually returned from the dead, a retcon revealed that this wasn\u2019t Jean all along, but just the Phoenix itself wearing her face. Jean got to come back with a clean slate, without the Phoenix\u2019s crimes on her conscience, but also without the character growth that should have resulted from such a seminal comics arc.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n When she\u2019s not Dark Phoenix-ing about \u2013 a fate that awaits all on-screen Jeans \u2013 the Jean that we tend to see in later comics and adaptations is generally portrayed as smart, capable and fundamentally good. She\u2019s a dependable figure at the centre of the team, much like Cyclops, but without the tragic powerset, smug charisma, and uneasy relationship with the burden of leadership that make him so interesting. This is essentially how we find her in the \u201890s animated series and the 2000 X-Men film, played by Famke Jassen. Sophie Turner\u2019s teenage take in X-Men: Apocalypse<\/em> never got that far, introduced as a troubled girl struggling to control her powers, already well on road to Phoenix-dom.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Jean\u2019s history with the X-Men makes her a must for any adaptation \u2013 but other X-Women like Storm, Rogue, and Jubilee have tended to overshadow her. Introduced in the \u201870s and later, once comics writers had begun to take female superheroes more seriously, those characters are much more clearly-defined in their own right. Jean, meanwhile, remains largely defined by her relationships with others \u2013 namely Cyclops, Wolverine, Xavier and the Phoenix itself.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is especially true in the Fox X-Men<\/em> films, where her most important role is as a love interest for Wolverine, something which is drawn from the comics but given an outsized focus on screen. For Logan, Jean represents a moral purity that sits just out of reach for the savage superhero. After he\u2019s forced to end her life to stop the Phoenix in X-Men: The Last Stand<\/em>, she also comes to represent his guilt, with her memory haunting him in future films long after her death. As with many female characters who fall victim to superhero storytelling\u2019s long history of \u2018fridging\u2019, her impact is felt mostly in the mark she leaves on our male lead, which feels like a disservice to such a major member of the team.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The version of Jean we meet in Brand New Day<\/em> has a lot of things going for her, but moral purity isn\u2019t one of them. Some of her actions range from morally, well, grey to outright nasty. During her spell as the film\u2019s body-hopping antagonist, she causes havoc as the Hulk, walks an unsuspecting citizen right into a speeding car, and pulls a shocking switcheroo with MJ that even Peter says in unforgiveable. For some fans this will no doubt be a step too far for a character mostly known as one of the kindest, noblest mutants around. However, while not super-faithful to more typical depictions of Jean, I\u2019d argue this more aggressive take on the character fits just fine within her history in the comics, and paves the way for a more interesting journey for the character.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to see Sadie Sink\u2019s character growing into the Jean Grey we know.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Given where we find Jean in Brand New Day<\/em> \u2013 orphaned, on the run, and just getting to grips with her massive mutant potential \u2013 it\u2019s probably best to look at this as a what-if scenario, rather than a straight-down-the-middle adaptation. More specifically: what if Jean Grey didn\u2019t have Professor X to look after her, or Cyclops and the other X-Men to support her? In both the comics and the Fox films, Jean is one of Xavier\u2019s first students, and he trains her from a young age to harness her incredible powers. In one of his dodgier moral decisions, he also secretly puts a dampener on her psychic abilities, to help her control what could be extremely dangerous powers. Jean grows up with a much more limited skill-set, not really knowing her full potential until the Phoenix is unleashed.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Brand New Day<\/em>, Jean hasn\u2019t yet had the chance to thrive in the hallowed halls of Xavier\u2019s Academy, but she has started to reckon with the scale of her mental abilities. She goes from taking over one body at a time to a fully-fledged psychic powerhouse, telepathically shutting down a good chunk of New York, and wrecking house with her trademark telekinesis. She also, eventually, taps into her compassionate side, with a pep talk from Spidey (and an assist from Aunt May) unlocking a glimpse of something closer to her classic comics persona. She\u2019s not there yet, but it\u2019s easy to see Sink\u2019s character growing into the Jean we know, just taking a different, more independent route to get there.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n If anything, this brings her more in line with a more recent comics take on the character. In a 2012 run called All-New X-Men<\/em>, Beast \u2013 bear with me here \u2013 goes back in time to fetch the original teenage X-Men at the start of their career, bringing them to the present day. His plan was for these wide-eyed idealists to speak some sense to their jaded older selves, especially Cyclops, who had taken a turn for the supervillainous and murdered Professor X (like I said, bear with me). With Jean in particular, it had the opposite effect. Learning that she\u2019s fated to die twice, kill a bunch of people, and get possessed by a psychic space bird does a number on her, leading to a much more cynical and antiheroic take on the character, quite close to what we get in Brand New Day<\/em>. With Xavier out of the picture, she also taps into her telepathy at a younger age, which she wields a lot more indiscriminately than her adult counterpart. Sink even looks more like the time-displaced Jean, who ends up rocking shoulder-length hair with a fringe like she does in Brand New Day<\/em>. Crucially, this version of the character is more complex, more independent, and even ends up coming out of Cyclops\u2019 shadow to lead her team of X-Men.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n With the MCU positioning Jean as the jumping off point for mutants as a whole, we could be about to see her take on a similarly major role in X-world \u2013 and not a moment too soon.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in cinemas now. Marvel’s X-Men film comes to cinemas on May 5, 2028.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After months of speculation about who Sadie Sink would be playing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, one of Marvel\u2019s worst-kept secrets is finally out there. That\u2019s right, the mysterious, mind-controlling, red-haired baddie glimpsed briefly in trailers is none other than Jean Grey, one of the X-Men\u2019s most famous, and most powerful, members. As one of Marvel\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-47"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12996,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12994\/revisions\/12996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sadie](\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/how-does-sadie-sinks-jean-grey-in-spider-man-brand-new-day-compare-to-the-comic-book-version.jpg\")
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