They Saw it Coming:

Moments where a character knew they’d die

Jean Grey: X-Men The Dark Phoenix Saga

Few people get to choose how they die. Even fewer get to know their death is imminent a lot of the time. This applies to fictional characters as well. They have even less control over their deaths, as it’s entirely at the whims of their creators. That being said, sometimes these characters are allowed to recognize when the grim spectre of death has finally come to their doorstep. This is another new topic for me that I’m planning to cover in more posts, but for now, let’s get started with this new series about all those fictional characters, whether comic book, television, animated, or film, who saw their deaths coming.

As the title of the topic indicates, I’m once again dipping into the original X-men comic book arc, The Dark Phoenix Saga, which I’ve mentioned in previous posts.

To bring us up to speed, Jean Grey, currently, Phoenix of the X-Men has been corrupted due to the efforts of one Jason Wyngarde, aka Mastermind. With all her darkest impulses unleashed, she utterly pastes her X-Men teammates and flies off to kick the living crap out of the entire universe.

The good news is, when she returns to Earth, the X-Men, with the help of their former member current Avenger, Hank McCoy, aka the Beast, formulate a plan to stop her, and with Professor Xavier engaging her in a psychic battle to seal her phoenix powers away, the team gets their friend back.

The bad news….

…Is that some people are a bit unhappy with little Miss Grey.

Before the team managed to stop her, Jean not only destroyed an entire star, and with it, a populated planet, but then took out a Shiar Cruiser. The Phoenix has proved itself to be a massive danger to the entire universe, and the Shiar empire–and Emperess Lilandra–means to fix that, by putting an end to her.

The X-Men have one chance: Xavier invokes a trial by combat, wherein they—along with Beast and Warren Worthington, the Angel, who was also not an active team member at the time–will fight against the Imperial Guard, with Jean’s life on the line.

The gauntlet is thrown. The merry mutants (yes, they’ve been called that) vs the Shiar Imperial Guard, with the life of one of their beloved team members on the line. But it’s no problem, right? They’re the X-Men. They’re all about facing impossible odds and winning, right? They can do this right?

……Uh oh.

Well eventually, only Jean and Cyclops are left, and they are outnumbered. And that’s when Jean makes a choice. She unleashes her full power as Dark Phoenix once again, but she doesn’t plan on letting herself rampage. She is the Phoenix, and she’s going to decide how that power is used. Jean knows the truth: there’s only one way to prevent the destruction of the universe. So while her power isn’t at its maximum, she flees into a cave, pursued by Cyclops. The two lovers share one final talk, but then Jean makes her move, using her powers to fire an ancient hidden weapon at her position. She has pulled the trigger quite literally and ended the threat of the Phoenix with her own hands.

When did Jean decide this? Was it something that she only decided on when she saw her team was losing, and realized it was her life or that of her friends? Cyclops, on the other hand believed she had she planned it from the start, deliberately using the battle to wear herself down, so that when the time came, she could finish things. 

Who knows? One thing for sure is, Jean realized where the wind was blowing, and knew what she had to do.

There are some behind-the-scenes details about why she died that I’m leaving out. That’s not relevant to the story, and I won’t even get into how she was revived either. The point is, Jean knew she was going to die, and she came to grips with it to prevent more destruction from Dark Phoenix.