Five Times Jean Grey Got Kissed And Didn’t Expect It

Scott & Jean Goodbye, The All-New, All-Different X-Men #94

While I was looking for images with which to furnish the Top Five Scott & Jean Moments, it turned out to be rather easier to stumble across Jean being kissed (or almost kissed) and being shocked about it, than finding pictures of Jean and Scott. Jean: one of the founding five X-Men, perhaps the most fantastically powerful X-Character, friend, mentor, and paragon.

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Like, what the heck was up with this, Marvel?

1: Hank McCoy

When Jean joined the Xavier School, four pupils were already in residence. Bobby Drake, the youngest, was the only kid uninterested (so that’s where that came from, for starters)Scott went on to marry her, Warren spent a good ten years real-time pining unrequitedly, and Hank McCoy, before he was furry and blue, laid a smacker on the only girl in school.

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2: Spider-Man

The X-Men were effectively cancelled in 1970, and spent a few years appearing here and there in other people’s books. X-Men #67 through #94, between ’70 and ’75 were reprints, but ’72s Marvel Team-Up #4 saw the X-Men (minus Hank) take against Spider-Man, believing him to be a kidnapper. Everything turns out fine in the end, I guess, and the X-Men help Spidey avoid death-by-serum. Grateful, Parker drops a smooch on the only redhead in sight, horrifying Xavier.

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3: Jason Wyngarde

Whilst Jean was Phoenix, or Phoenix was Jean, the Hellfire Club (from whence sprang later Summers lover Emma Frost, the White Queen) decided that they needed a woman as powerful as that on their side. So an applicant, Jason Wyngarde (a.k.a. Mastermind) used a “psionic device” to boost his mutant hallucinatory powers to make Phoenix-Jean believe that she was … an eighteenth century Lady … who was also … his lover. Tricking them into being your girlfriend is an age-old way of controlling women, it can’t be argued.

Nevertheless, this backfired on Wyngarde, because his ridiculous shenanigans led to the emergence of the Dark Phoenix who, among other things, laid him out in a coma.

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4: Gambit (but she’s a robot)

1991’s X-Men #1 re-introduced the cast in cute little tableaus, which here manifest, in the immortal words of D. Brothers, as “part of the personality spamming Claremont often got up to, something to remind you that Gambit is a Cajun lothario with a sense of humor.” Jim Lee gives us a robotic training-Jean that can get shiny-eyed in shock at an unsolicited kiss. Is he that bad? Is that yellow streak his breath? What?

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5: Her husband

Why, Scott? Honestly why.

Okay. The why is in the brainwashing, as again related at 4thLetter: “A brainwashed Cyclops steals a kiss from Jean Grey (I’m just now realizing how weird it is that it happened TWICE in the span of three issues) and asks if his kiss is as much fun as Wolverine’s, which is actually this whole weird cuckolding/male competition thing that I’m not sure I’m okay with in my old age.”

Weird. Is it weird? It’s weird. It’s totally weird. And as Claremont’s final issue of his mighty, sixteen year X-Men captaincy, it’s a shame too.

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This is a really uncomfortable trend…

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Claire Napier

Claire Napier

Critic, ex-Editor in Chief at WWAC, independent comics editor; the rock that drops on your head. Find me at clairenapierclairenapier@gmail.com and give me lots of money

2 thoughts on “Five Times Jean Grey Got Kissed And Didn’t Expect It

  1. Cyclops was kind controlled in that last one. I only point it out because I just retread this comic 10 minutes ago.

    Warren also kisses her out of no where during the Dark Phoenix saga.

    1. Yeah it says that in the list text, actually! This piece is less about the reasons the characters did the kissing, more about how writers keep having Jean get kissed.

      So cheers for the Warren/Dark Phoenix addition! I wonder if there’s actually enough material for a “top ten” (ew).

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