When I started reading Uncanny X-Men a month ago, one of the first things that struck me was how interesting Jean Grey was, especially for the time. Comic books, to put it lightly, have never been a reliable source for positive images of women. So, when Stan Lee wrote his token girl character with arguably more dimensions, power and respectability than all of the men, X and otherwise, around her, it can be seen as something of a feminist message. Of all the characters to come out of X-Men, Jean Grey may just be the most interesting.

Jean is the best example of a unique development in the way the X-Men franchise approaches super powers. Aside from being a burden, an idea as old as Superman, the Marvel mutants are actively dangerous. Many of them may be too powerful for their own good, especially in Jean's case. Her raw power is so intense that Professor X has to essentially cripple her in her own mind to keep her from manifesting as The Phoenix (more on the Professor's good intentions later).

I really like the idea that having a lot of power would fundamentally change the way a person thinks. For Jean, the Phoenix Force is something that makes her partially inhuman. She wields such an intense strength that the danger isn't in some general malevolence, but in her potential ability to see others as being negligible by comparison to her own power.

Whether intentional or not, the feminist reading of the Phoenix concept is rather resonant. The Phoenix makes Jean so powerful that she can literally make or unmake the world as we know it (via the M'Kraan Crystal). This is a radical evolution in the idea of the female as the life-giver. The Phoenix isn't the old ideal of the mother chained to her kitchen in service to others, but a more primal understanding of what it means to be responsible for life.

Just as interesting is the nature of Jean Grey's post-Phoenix body. According to the mythology, Jean's original body was destroyed when the Starcore Space Shuttle crashed into the ocean. The body that emerged from the water, new costume and all, was a reconstituted physical presence that Jean/Phoenix willed into existence. In other words, Jean is entirely in control of her body. She owns it to the greatest extent.

It should also be noted that, amid all this life-giving and self-ownership, Jean as the Phoenix is also the biggest badass among the X-Men by all means. She's unstoppably powerful and has no fear of death. Looking at a lot of the art of the Phoenix, especially in those early iterations, she looks downright scary.

It's for all these reasons and more that I don't really agree with the general understanding of Jean Grey as little more than a love interest for Cyclops and Wolverine. She's too self-possessed, too strong and too complex for the peak of a love triangle. Also, she makes Wonder Woman look like the St. Pauli Girl.