You know Jean Grey. As an indelible part of the X-Men since its inception in 1963, you’d be hard pressed to find a fan of the line or indeed Marvel Comics in general without some opinion of her or connection to her. Until recently, Jean’s tenure in the Krakoa era has been defined by her return to her Marvel Girl moniker and costume – a costume she made herself, that defined many of her early adventures as an X-Man. Many fans have bristled at the idea of her returning to a costume she wore as a teenager, but making a new iconic look for one of the most important members of the X-canon is no simple task.
Jean Grey has had a lot of iconic looks over the years. To name a few – there is the iconic and divisive green dress from the 70s; her lasting Cockrum-designed Phoenix look; her 90’s look, designed by Jim Lee, that lives on in the minds of fans of the cartoon; and even her recent Krakoan costume, designed for the Hellfire Gala by Russell Dauterman, that has become her mainstay superhero look. Our artists had a lot of Jean looks to consider and reference, but the question remained – how do we reinvent the queen of rebirth in a new and unexpected way?
As usual, they killed it. Enjoy the work below, and be sure to follow these X-Ceptional artists on their social media!
Josh Cornillon
“I sincerely love Jean’s iconic green dress, but I definitely feel like it could use an upgrade for the 2020’s. Referencing her 60’s origins and modern collections by Miu Miu and Rachel Antonoff, I wanted something that felt elevated and preppy, perhaps even befitting Jean as a mutant ambassador for a team outside the X-Men. Also, like in a lot of my designs, I feel passionate about a good earring.”
Karen Charm
“I approached this redesign with the idea of her as the X-Men’s elder statesman, with very much a suiting kind of design (Jean Grey in gray!). Apart from that, I had a flurry of design references and ideas – her X-Factor costume, a little bit of Ultimate X-Men, the original uniform, AoA, the Grey King (from Cerebro’s X-Men). I also wanted it to be in the same universe as my other redesigns, like she was on the same team as that Polaris look from last year.”
Calvin Lin
“For this one, I really wanted to redesign an uncommon costume for Jean so I went with her X-Men Evolution look and revamped it!”
Sara
“In this redesign I designed Jean Grey with Scott’s jacket because I thought it would be cute since I feel like their relationship is defined too much with suffering and made her suit green because that’s HER color. I made her a WOC as well because the X-Men don’t nearly have enough POC.”
Léa Dupic
“This Jean sports a new take on her classic (and slightly controversial) green dress, paired with a loose turtleneck and some golden thigh high boots. I like dressing her in pretty feminine clothes, and I think she can get away with an outfit more fashion oriented than battlefield ready. The dark phoenix wears a similar outfit, but has upped the sensuality of it all with an asymmetric cut on the dress, more intense makeup, longer boots, and, most outrageous of all, a phoenix shaped boob cut.
As for her body type, I’m an advocate for having people on superheroes teams be very differently shaped, because it makes for cooler art. And since Jean is all about being mind over matter, I think she works really well as a fat character.”
David Hughes
‘I’ve been redesigning Jean for the best part of a decade but I’ve never tackled the “Marvel Girl” costume. I wanted to go for a strong and structured look, something befitting someone of Jean’s status that she could wear into battle.”
Jarrod Chilton
“I wanted to keep it simple and work with Jeans classic 90’s era look. I played with a structured outline based on her original costume’s useless thigh padding; going for a subdermal implant-like feel. The armor is to juxtapose that hardness.”
Luis Ramos-Rosas
For this redesign I looked at the X-Men Evolution style and Power Rangers. I specifically looked at the Gold Zeo Ranger for the biggest inspiration. Merging my love of X-Men and Power Rangers was the best decision I made when choosing my direction on this piece!
Alex Buckland
“I really wanted to go for a look that Jean’s never really had so I tried to stay away from the usual color combinations. My biggest inspiration for this look was the unused Alex Ross design, which is one of my favorite Jean designs.”
Joshua Bruckner
“The core challenge for me here was taking a character who has had several looks over nearly 50 years, but whose non-Phoenix looks are pretty simple and basic. After several false starts, I settled on a blue and red color scheme based on her X-Men Red look, with something simple, streamlined, and a little feminine. The drapery nods to her infamous minidress while being modern.
For her Dark Phoenix look, I leaned into my impulse to make every superhero look like a crazy wizard, and drew a costume that looked like an ancient avatar from an ancient civilization ready to swallow a sun whole.”
Valentine M. Smith
“Jean’s one of those characters that could honestly wear anything. She’s one of the most powerful minds, a little (a lotta) bit terrifying — and I think she’s one of the characters who would really benefit from a wider range wardrobe with pieces to mix and match. I definitely stuck closer to her classic green, because of course it makes her hair pop (and you know she knows it).”
Kenneth Laster
“I was hoping to do a bit of athleisure + cosmic entity and kinda ended up in my usual space cadet territory. Also took inspiration from Kevin Wada’s incredible Flame Con redesign for the insignia in the center.”
Hector Barros
“Jean is, in many ways the quintessential X-Man, so my goal was to simplify the design to make it iconic and recognisable. A template for the next generations to model their costumes and visuals on. I’ve kept the colour coding as a shortcut to identify each of her eras”
Max Carleton
“Using the classic Phoenix costume as a base, I tried to incorporate more of the armored aspects from her X-Men: Red costume. (The fingerless gauntlets, heavier boots, slight shoulder padding.)”
Christian Tomas
“It was so hard for me to decide which era of Jean Grey I wanted to focus on, since there’s so much inspo to pull from a character who is essentially the denmother of all mutantdom. Since Jean herself is defined by so many facets of her life, I went with three different looks for her. The first is a modern take on her Marvel Girl outfit. The second is a Mugler-inspired catsuit that I thought was fitting for her emotionally-driven Dark Phoenix era. And the final takes us into the modern era, pulling inspo from her armored looks and her Hellfire Gala ensemble.”
Bradley Clayton
“For my design, I wanted something that tied into all my favorite jean looks. I made a look that used her iconic green and gold with a nod to the infamous mini dress and a little bit of 90s flair. I couldn’t resist adding a dark phoenix variant with wilder hair as well.”
Juan Wences
“The look I was going for was a little bit of all of her costumes while making it look new and sleek. I took some of the Young Jean Grey feel with some of the 90’s era body suit. Kept the classic Marvel Girl colors with some black accents as a tip of the hat to the New X-Men era.”
Kameron Youngblood
“I tried to take the infamous ‘Marvel Girl’ aesthetic and update it to something closer to maybe a ‘Marvel Woman?’. Something a little more in line with Krakoan suits.
I also replaced the eye mask with a visor that I like to think works similarly to a Saiyan Scouter, but I mainly just thought it looked cool.”
Dillon Snook
“I kept mine simple, taking notes from her most notable costumes and just tried to form something cohesive.”
Adam Reck
“Look 1: Combo of the classic Phoenix look combined with Teen Jean
Look 2: A play off the 90’s Jim Lee look with a touch of astral plane armor thrown in.”
John Caden
“I approached this redesign from the thought: let’s take the Jean/Phoenix relationship to even more of a warlock/patron relationship a la Dungeons and Dragons and then combine that with the feel of a Persona or a JoJo Stand. At this point, Jean has been corrupted by the Phoenix in a similar way that Maddie was and I wanted her outfit to reflect that similar over the top/creepy vibe that the Goblin Queen was able to convey.”
Stephen Reinfurt
“I tried to do an updated version of Jean Grey’s costume from Age of Apocalypse. I wanted her to have a high-tech suit, but dusty and beat-up to represent a life surrounded by war and destruction. I experimented with a couple of different short hairstyles and settled on the shaved sides for a cyberpunk look. I also wanted to try more elaborate tattoos than the original jagged (knife?) David Bowie face tattoo. If I had more time I think it would have been fun to show it continuing over her shoulder and twisting down her arm.”
Kal Huset
“One of my earliest artistic inspirations was the show X-Men: Evolution! To this day it remains one of my favorite iterations of the team so I drew inspiration for my Jean from their design! I kept it simple and sort of just brought the look to a modern aesthetic.”
Erik Ojo
“I had so much fun redesigning Jean Grey aka Phoenix aka Marvel Girl aka queen of my heart. three looks: for work (that X-Men grindset), business (when you need to get cosmic in this bitch), and play (for all those Krakoan parties).
I wanted to emphasize Jean’s connections with both her own identity and her Phoenix identity + did so through using her Marvel Girl, Phoenix and Dark Phoenix costume color schemes. Once again my love for big cropped jackets makes an appearance, as does my love for haute couture with fantasy flair. Her party outfit is modeled after 70s partywear, as I’ve always felt that 60s/70s + 2000s fashion has always looked amazing on Jean.
(Fun easter egg: the second outfit is, silhouette-wise, a mirror to my Madelyne Pryor redesign!)”
