One Of The Earliest Marvel Stars Feels Betrayed By The MCU

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 7 seconds ago

While the latest trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day has Marvel fans hyped, it’s just a prelude to what is guaranteed to be the biggest movie of the year. Avengers: Doomsday releases December 18, and it is promising to be bigger than Infinity War and Endgame put together. The main reason for this is, of course, all the cameos. In addition to all the familiar MCU faces (including franchise pillars Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr.), we’re going to get cameos from an earlier generation of heroes. This includes Professor X, Magneto, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops, all of whom appeared in the first trilogy of X-Men movies.

Understandably, old-school fans are hyped at seeing stars like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen stepping back into these beloved roles. One X-Men star who is conspicuously absent, however, is Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey. The fandom had been holding its breath that she might pop up in the upcoming crossover blockbuster since Marvel had not yet released the names of every actor making a cameo. Unfortunately, Janssen recently confirmed that she won’t be returning, and she actually sounds quite a bit miffed. She recently told audiences at a fan convention that Marvel “made a mistake” by not bringing Jean Grey back for Avengers: Doomsday.

God, Interrupted

Famke Janssen originally appeared as Jean Grey in 20th Century Fox’s first X-Men movie. She proved to be a favorite character, and fans adored the weird love triangle between her, Cyclops, and Wolverine. She returned in X2: X-Men Unitedwhere Jean seemingly dies, sacrificing herself so the team can escape in the X-Jet. She popped back up in X-Men: The Last Stand as the Dark Phoenix, a Big Bad who had to be put down by Wolverine. Speaking of which, we saw her in flashbacks in The Wolverineand at the end of X-Men: Days of Future Pastshe was alive and well in the new timeline created by Wolverine.

Given the changes to the timeline, it would have been theoretically possible for Jean Grey to appear in Avengers: Doomsday. But during a recent appearance at Spacecon, she confirmed that this wasn’t happening. The host, Nerdtropolis, brought up her previous denial about appearing in the film and teasingly asked her if she was good at keeping secrets. “I am so bad at keeping secrets that I always say to everyone I’m the worst actor in the world. It’s all on my face,” she said. “I think they made a mistake, but hey, who am I? I’m just a little me who thinks that.”

Why No Jean Grey In Avengers: Doomsday?

There’s still a chance that Famke Janssen is good at secrets, and her repeated denials about appearing in Avengers: Doomsday are just misdirection. Assuming she’s telling the truth, though, why would Marvel not bring such a popular actor and character into the MCU along with Cyclops, Jean Grey’s one true love? One simple answer is that the X-Men reality we see in Doomsday may be the original timeline rather than the one Wolverine changed. In that reality, Jean Grey is very dead, so that would explain Janssen’s absence. It would also prevent all those annoying fan questions (“wait, isn’t she dead?”) from fans who don’t remember her revived appearance in Days of Future Past.

The other likely explanation for keeping Janssen out of Avengers: Doomsday is Sadie Sink. While Marvel has been cagey about who she is playing in Spider-Man: Brand New Daymost fans think her character (who has wildly powerful telepathic skills) must be Jean Grey. We already know that Sink is returning for Avengers: Secret Warsand if she is Jean, she’ll continue to play that role in the rebooted MCU. Marvel may simply feel that two Jeans in Doomsday would confuse audiences. That explanation doesn’t hold water, though, since fans loved seeing three different versions of Spider-Man in No Way Home.

At any rate, it sounds like nobody should hold their breath about seeing Famke Janssen in Avengers: Doomsday. That’s too bad, really: she is a wildly gifted actor, and she was easily one of the best parts of the original X-Men movies. It may be damning her with faint praise, but she was certainly the best part of The Last Standa film most Marvel fans hate. Does this mean we’ll never see her Jean Grey again, though? Nope. In a world of endless multiverses and endless reboots, one ancient aphorism is truer than ever before: never say never.