Okay, at first glance, Jean Grey’s outfit seems to be nothing more than a green dress with yellow gloves and boots.Then looking closer, you realize…Yep, It’s a dress, alright!
So why do I love this costume so much?!
I don’t know, but I WILL say that in the era where Sue Storm was wearing the same outfit as Reed Richards and Wanda Frank & Janet Van Dyne were wearing their respective one-piece bodysuits, Jean’s dress outfit was positively original and sexy!
I know that a lot of people had an aversion to the new costumes of the Original X-Men, especially John Byrne ,who seemed to be obsessed with the original outfits (Kitty Pryde and later Jean in the Hidden Years reflect this) and Neal Adams, who quickly changed the Angel’s Yellow ‘n’ Suspenders look to a more sleek style, but, hey, one of the first classic comics I read was Avengers #53, and John Buscema’s depiction of the X-Men will always be THE defining look of the group for me.
One of the first 12¢ comic back issues I bought was Issue #39, which, of course, featured the X-Men for the first time in their “new” outfits, as illustrated by Don Heck, but it wasn’t til my friend James got this hardcover X-Men book published by Grandreams which reprinted the Neal Adams Sentinels stories that I really fell in love with Jean’s Marvel Girl outfit. He really made her look terrific in that dress!
For some reason, the original Marvel Girl outfit is one of the things that IMHO Byrne didn’t seem to care much for, and as I’d mentioned before, he couldn’t wait to find a reason to get her out of the green dress and back into the yellow and black suit in his HIDDEN YEARS strip. But that’s okay, because Jean gave the costume to Candy Southern to wear, and my didn’t she look nice in it!
Jean Grey:
First Appearance: X-Men #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
First Appearance in new Marvel Girl Costume:
X-Men #39 by Roy Thomas and Don Heck
Favorite Artists:
Werner Roth (X-Men 48,49)
John Buscema (Avengers #53)
Neal Adams (X-Men #56-65)
