Marvelous May – Rogue vs Jean Grey

Welcome back to Marvelous May! Today, we’ve got two X-Men facing off, with Anna Marie, AKA Rogue, vs Jean Grey, AKA Marvel Girl/Phoenix!

Rogue

…I would just like to say for the record that this is my favourite member of the X-Men, and for many years held the title of my favourite superheroine. What can I say? I have a known weakness for tough, southern belles. 😉 Anyway, Rogue’s back-story is a little complicated (although I think her competition for today has her beat in that regard), but long story short, after finding out she was a Mutant with the power to literally drain the life from anyone she touches, Anna Marie decided from then on to wear body-concealing clothes to prevent anyone from touching her skin. Of course, it seemed as though this also caused her to drain their psyche, and in the case of Mutants and other people with superpowers, gain their abilities for a fixed amount of time. As such, her foster mother, Mystique, who drafted her into the Brotherhood of Mutants, gave her a job: Grab Carol Danvers and DO NOT LET GO. Having turned the girl to evil by playing off her loneliness and bitterness, Rogue did just that, holding on for so long that she permanently gained Carol’s strength, speed, flight, and seventh sense (Carol eventually got better, though). However, there was an unexpected side-effect: She began to see Carol’s memories as though they were her own, and went to Professor Xavier for help out of fear of losing herself in these memories. Either out of a genuine desire to repay them for their charity, or because of Carol’s influence on her mind, Rogue was eventually reformed and became one of the X-Men. Over the years, she’s even managed to gain control of her Mutant power (and lose it again from time to time), and lost Carol’s abilities, causing her to basically start over from scratch. Regardless, she is a powerful and adaptable member of both the X-Men and of the Avengers Unity Division, AKA the Uncanny Avengers.

Jean Grey

Oh God, I’ve been dreading this moment. I now have to talk about Jean Grey’s back-story, and considering how many different deaths, revivals, and retcons that character has been through, it’s kind of a mess. Here’s the important part, though: She’s one of the original X-Men, having joined when the team consisted only of Cyclops, Angel, Beast, and Iceman. So, for those that have only seen the movies, yes, there IS history to the X-Men that didn’t involve Wolverine. lol She’s also the first major psychic of the team, excluding Professor Xavier, originally only possessing telekinesis, but eventually was revealed to possess greater raw psychic power than even Professor X himself. She can read people’s thoughts and emotions, put up telepathic defenses and cloaks, can detect and locate other Mutants, is capable of astral projection, can levitate herself or other people/objects, and can even brainwash and mind control people if she so chose. It was also made apparent that she was the avatar of the Phoenix Force, one of the most powerful Cosmic entities in the Marvel Universe, and grants her both the power to destroy at sheer INSANITY levels, as well as resurrect the dead, whether that’s others or herself (the latter of which has happened frequently, lol). Despite this, she apparently died for good back in 2004…until her time displaced younger self was brought to the present and has opted to remain there until she’s cleaned up some of the messes her older self and her friends made over the years, despite the fact that the longer she stays in the present, the harder it’ll make things for when she eventually has to go back to the past.

Well, that’s all for now. Be sure to vote on who you think should win this match before May 12th, when the winner takes on either Storm or Gamora. Until then, check out the links below to learn more about these two, and come back to see the first match-up of the second round. Ja né!

http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Rogue_(Anna_Marie)_(Earth-616)

http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jean_Grey_(Earth-616)