X-Men Fanart Showcases Jean Grey’s Most Iconic Costumes

Artist Mark Eastwood has created stunning fan art showing the many costumes of the X-Men‘s Jean Grey. Some superheroes are known for keeping to the same costume – characters like Spider-Man and Superman have only ever switched them up a little, and any major changes have generated headlines. But the X-Men are different; they get through a frankly insane number of costumes, switching things up at regular intervals.

Marvel artist Russell Dauterman has been celebrating the history of the X-Men costumes by creating stunning variant covers displaying some of their most famous. In general, they’ve been tremendously effective, with a single character body used to compare and contrast the costumes. That approach has occasionally caused problems – technically the Psylocke cover needed two bodies – but they’ve been absolutely loved by fans.

Presumably in honor of this, artist Mark Eastwood (@mrkstwd) has taken a similar approach on his Instagram. He’s created a superb gallery of all Jean Grey’s outfits – mostly her iconic ones, but also some of her more bizarre looks – and brought them to life. While he’s used the same pose like Dauterman, he has indeed adjusted the body to represent Jean’s growth and maturity as a character, making this fan art all the more effective. Here are all the pieces to date.

Jean Grey began her superhero career as Marvel Girl, with a costume designed by the legendary Jack Kirby. The original designs emphasized the team aesthetic, meaning all five of Professor X’s original X-Men wore a team uniform – and they all wore face-masks to conceal their identities. It’s hardly Jean’s best look, although amusingly it was enough to draw the attention of almost all her male colleagues.

The first Marvel Girl costume really didn’t work, and Marvel kept tweaking it. In one issue, they modified the face-mask to show more of Jean’s hair.

Like the Avengers’ Wasp, Jean Grey is supposed to be interested in fashion design – and as a result, in Uncanny X-Men #27 she modified her costume. She only made minor changes to the men’s, but Jean’s outfit became tighter, complimenting her physique, and she redesigned the mask in an interesting format that she’d reuse.

Jean Grey’s classic Marvel Girl costume made its debut in 1967. The X-Men finally dropped the team uniforms, symbolizing their graduation, and Jean finally got the chance to give each member their own unique costume. Her own was a sleek green minidress, with the mask design maintained – but the colors and aesthetic altered significantly. This is generally considered the classic Marvel Girl costume, and Jean’s adopted it many times since; in fact, she’s gone back to wearing the Marvel Girl costume in the current X-Men era.

The classic “Phoenix Saga” saw Jean Grey transformed into a cosmic being of almost unlimited power – the Phoenix. Writer Chris Claremont intended her to become the X-Men’s Thor analog so he could take the mutants into the stars on cosmic adventures, and artist John Byrne created what’s considered one of the most iconic costume designs ever seen.

Unfortunately Jean Grey fell foul of a manipulative mutant named Mastermind, who transformed her into the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club – and she was given a new aesthetic to fit in with the villainous mutants of the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle. The Black Queen costume is actually inspired by the classic British TV series The Avengers; in one 1966 story the heroes of that series infiltrated their version of the Hellfire Club, and Emma Peel donned a “Queen of Sin” costume so controversial the episode never aired in America, and was even edited in the U.K.. Claremont was a fan of The Avengers, and he decided to do his own riff on the idea, with Jean Grey becoming the Black Queen.

Jean Grey’s time as the Black Queen turned out to be a prelude to something far worse, when she was unleashed as Dark Phoenix – a cosmic force of death and destruction, responsible for consuming an entire star system before she was stopped. The design of Dark Phoenix was a simple riff on the classic Phoenix outfit, and it was just as memorable.

Classic X-Men #43 introduced the idea of Jean Grey as the ultimate White Phoenix, a being eventually revealed to sit at the heart of the Phoenix Force in a place of perfect balance. This was ironically closer to John Byrne’s original design for Phoenix in terms of color scheme; he’d intended Phoenix to wear all white, but the paper quality back then hadn’t been good enough, and he realized you’d be able to see through to the other side of the page when white ink was used. It was great to see White Phoenix incorporated into the comics nonetheless, as paper quality improved.

Jean Grey came back from the dead in the end, with Marvel retconning Jean and the Phoenix as separate beings (and they’ve kept retconning ever since). She became a member of X-Factor, with the original X-Men reforming as mutant hunters in a bizarre plot that caused major characterization issues down the line. Jean was initially given a team uniform in green and yellow.

Mark Eastwood has even rendered some of Jean Grey’s least iconic costumes – and some readers will be rather surprised to realize ever happened. She donned this aquatic, mermaid-style outfit in the “Atlantis Attacks” crossover, and naturally it didn’t last long.

Jean Grey’s second X-Factor costume was a riff on the first one, with the color scheme switched. It was arguably more fitting, and the red was an interesting aesthetic given it was reminiscent of the Dark Phoenix outfit.

Marvel couldn’t quite decide how Jean Grey should look as part of X-Factor, leading to yet another redesign. This one didn’t last especially long, but aesthetically it seems to have served as inspiration for Jim Lee’s more famous costume.

In what feels like another precursor to Jim Lee’s redesign, Jean Grey briefly adopted a modified version of the classic X-Men team uniform. The contrast between this and the one originally designed by Kirby points to the way superhero comics had changed; it’s tighter, sleeker, emphasizing Jean’s physique, with high boots and her face fully exposed.

Another of Jean Grey’s most popular costumes, the Jim Lee design became famous in part because it was the one Jean wore in the classic X-Men: The Animated Series. For many fans, this remains the definitive Jean Grey outfit – a form-fitting blue and orange bodysuit, with those distinctive ’90s shoulder-pads. No doubt the MCU will find some way to pay homage to the Jim Lee design when the X-Men make their official MCU debut.

One of Jean Grey’s strangest looks was adopted for one issue – and its origin was frankly bizarre. Cyclops and Jean Grey were found washed up on a beach by Nick Fury, who outfitted them both in SHIELD uniforms he happened to have at hand. That technically means this strange, mismatched outfit is a SHIELD uniform of some kind. Needless to say, it’s never been seen again – except in occasional fan art like this.

Hilariously, Mark Eastwood has even decided to recreate a suit of psychic armor Jean Grey was seen in occasionally during the ’90s – most notably in X-Men #38. It’s certainly a very different look for Jean, with the armor serving as psychic protection.

The “Age of Apocalypse” was Marvel’s best What If…? story, an alternate timeline in which the insane mutant Apocalypse had gained control of North America and brought the world to the brink of destruction. The story was relentlessly bleak, with loose storylines that allowed creative teams to tell whatever story they wanted, with no fear of repercussions. The Jean Grey of “Age of Apocalypse” was a riff on the main timeline’s one, Wolverine’s lover – and yet still drawn towards Cyclops. Her design was absolutely stunning.

One X-Men arc called “Revolution” redesigned Jean Grey, giving her a costume that was particularly interesting given it pointed to a closer association between the powerful mutant and the Phoenix Force. A lot of artists accidentally draw this outfit with open shoulders, but Mark Eastwood checked and confirmed they were originally covered.

The Grant Morrison-era saw the X-Men don more realistic costumes, designed by Frank Quitely to fit in with the kind of aesthetic seen in Fox’s first X-Men movie. Jean’s was one of the more impressive, although there were a few variations on the theme – including one in which she wore a trenchcoat. This lasted until Jean Grey’s latest death – one that stuck for years.

The Morrison era culminated in an arc called “Here Comes Tomorrow,” a vision of a future X-Men timeline – the X-Men always having been obsessed with time travel. Jean Grey was resurrected from a Phoenix egg, bonded to the Phoenix as never before and was given a remarkably distinctive look.

The original five X-Men were transported from their own time to the present time as the so-called “All-New X-Men,” and it didn’t take long for Jean Grey to try to reinvent herself in an attempt to escape her destiny. The costume she designed for herself was absolutely stunning, fitting in with the rest of the team rather well.

The All-New X-Men’s Jean Grey soon adopted an absolutely beautiful green, black and yellow costume that felt like a homage to so many of the designs associated with her history. This was the outfit she wore as star of her own series, with Jean Grey actually battling the Phoenix Force – and ultimately triumphing. She was ultimately returned to her own time with the rest of the team, her memories wiped.

X-Men: Blue #33-34 presented a vision of a future version of All-New X-Men’s Jean Grey (as if the timelines weren’t already confusing enough). The design was an excellent one, complete with a leather jacket in what felt like a strange ’90s homage that somehow worked rather well.

The real Jean Grey returned from the dead (again) in Phoenix: Resurrection, and she initially wore a variation of the Dark Phoenix costume. Stylishly redesigned, this focused more on the black than the red, making it just as effective as the classic look.

Jean Grey’s X-Men Red design is a firm fan-favorite, a minimalist, armored outfit evocative of the Jim Lee era but frankly far more effective. It only lasted for the one series, which is a real shame.

Designed by Russell Dauterman, Jean Grey’s Hellfire Gala outfit is easily one of her most impressive. This outfit comes at a time when the mutants are out of the shadows, no longer hiding, and as a result it even incorporates a nod to Jean’s telekinetic powers – because the headpiece is actually levitating. It’s generally considered something of a masterpiece, and many readers hope Jean will start wearing it more often in the X-Men books.

Source: Instagram/Mark Eastwood (@mrkstwd)

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Thomas Bacon
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Tom Bacon is one of Screen Rant’s staff writers, as well as a Peer Mentor for new writers and a member of the Care Team, offering support and a listening ear to members of the Comics group. A lifelong fan of major franchises including Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Marvel, Tom is delighted his childhood is back – and this time it’s cool. You can find him on Twitter @TomABacon.

A graduate of Edge Hill University, Tom remains strongly connected with his alma mater as a volunteer chaplain. He’s heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he’s into British politics too.

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