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The X-Men are here. After years of anticipation, the MCU has introduced its first X-Man into the primary timeline. Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues the story of Peter Parker (Tom Holland) after Doctor Strange erases his secret identity from the world’s memory. Yet the movie also doubles as an origin story for Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), presenting us with a version of her that’s unlike anything audiences have seen or read before.
Jean Grey is Brand New Day’s villain. While it’s a surprising starting point for the character, villainy is in the makeup of Jean’s most emblematic storyline. What’s interesting is the MCU’s decision to lead with that first, breaking tradition with the character we’ve grown up reading about in comic books and watching in animated shows and live action movies. It’s a decision that sets the stage for an X-Men adaptation unlike any we’ve ever seen before. We often meet the X-Men as a fully-formed team recruited by Charles Xavier. They’re a group of superheroes with various powers who protect mutants and humans alike. But there are no X-Men in the MCU — there’s just (presumably) a bunch of scared kids with powers they don’t know what to do with yet.
First, let’s take a look back at Jean’s cinematic history. Over the past two decades, Jean has been played by Famke Janssen and Sophie Turner in two separate trilogies. While of different ages, the Jean we’ve encountered is consistent: she’s a powerful telepath closely mentored by Xavier, with him suppressing the full range of her abilities to protect Jean from the trauma of her childhood.
[Spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day follow.]
Instead of exploring this across different movies, Brand New Day takes us to Jean’s most traumatic moment. As she hunts for her sister in New York, mind-hopping from person to person in search of clues, she ends up in the hands of the Department of Damage Control thanks to Spider-Man’s intervention. While she’s being held captive and being tested on, Jean learns that her sister Sara (Olivia Booth-Ford) died in that same room. The trauma allows her to access a power she didn’t know she had.
Throughout the film, Jean has no moral compass, making her hosts walk into incoming traffic and jump off buildings. In one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, Jean takes over MJ’s (Zendaya) mind and kisses Peter. It’s a moment that Peter and the audience have been waiting for the past five years. It becomes his lowest point when it’s revealed that MJ doesn’t remember Peter at all, with Jean mocking him for believing in the redeeming power of true love’s kiss. The scene feels plucked right out of Jean’s Dark Phoenix era, where she’s known to manipulate and take advantage of her rivals’ biggest weaknesses.
That reverses the dramatic structure of nearly every previous Jean Grey adaptation. Traditionally, audiences meet Jean as one of the X-Men’s most compassionate and dependable members, making her transformation into the Phoenix a tragic turn for the people she loves. Brand New Day charts a new path. Before we see Jean as a student, teammate, or hero, we see her violating people’s minds for her own ends. The question is no longer whether a beloved hero might lose control, it’s whether a villain can become a hero in the first place.
The decision to center on this version of Jean as a starting point reminds me of what the MCU did for Spider-Man. In Spider-Man: Homecoming, we catch up with a younger Peter who is very different from the one historically depicted in movies and comics. He’s much younger and already has his powers and the protection of Tony Stark, one of the most influential figures in the MCU. It took the death of Stark in Avengers: Endgame and Aunt May in Spider Man: No Way Home for Peter to edge closer to the hero we’re so familiar with. “Our first three Tom Holland Spider-Man movies were the first act of Sam Raimi’s Spidey movie,” explained Kevin Feige on press for Brand New Day.
Maybe the MCU hopes to get to a point with Jean where she grows into the hero she’s historically been. By the end of Brand New Day, she saves Peter’s life and leaves her quest for vengeance behind, at least in New York. No redemption is given, but she makes a bond with someone who understands her and sees her as more than a rebellious force to be contained. Whether the MCU decides to follow through with the Dark Phoenix storyline or not, Jean already has that capacity for evil. It’s an exciting place to start from when establishing a new generation of X-Men expected to lead the franchise for the next decade. If this version of Jean is our lead character, what does it mean for the origin stories of characters like Cyclops and Beast?
The standalone X-Men movie has been shrouded in secrecy, with there being no plot details or a cast confirmed. At the end of this year, the old guard of the X-Men will be featured in Avengers: Doomsday. We don’t know the role Sink’s Jean will play in these movies, or if she’ll be featured at all. Still, from what we’ve seen in Brand New Day, this version of Jean is heading in a new direction, front and center in the X-Men lineup.
Jean Grey didn’t start out in the MCU as the compassionate telepath audiences recognize; she’ll have to grow into that identity as her story develops. In some ways, Spider-Man is the perfect character to introduce her, teaching her the biggest lesson he’s learned: Great power doesn’t make someone a hero. What they choose to do with that power does.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now.
