The Weird Relationships of the X-Men — Wolverine and Jean Grey

Life as a member of the X-Men is always full of surprises. If the X-Men aren’t trying to save the world or their fellow mutants, they find themselves facing all sorts of strange developments in their everyday lives (usually involving time travel or death). When it comes to having a relationship, you can almost forget about having a normal one.

Take Wolverine and Jean Grey. Jean spent most of her time with Scott Summers. When Logan came into the picture, he was immediately smitten with her and Jean seemed to have a fascination with Logan. Logan never cared if she was with Scott. He knew what his heart wanted. With the different adventures, incarnations of the team, and even Jean dying a couple times, Jean and Logan never really had a chance to figure out if there was anything between them. Logan was often busy on other adventures or in other relationships but they both held a special place in their hearts for each other. When she died a final time, that was the end of it.

Then Beast brought the young version of himself and the other original X-Men into the present. This meant a teenage Jean was now around and Wolverine was running the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Their meeting was a bit awkward with the age difference but shouldn’t it always have been awkward?

Logan was born in the late 19th Century. That puts him around a hundred years older than Jean. Now that Old Man Logan is in the present and Jean is in college, the age gap is even bigger. We have to hope the dynamic between the two will evolve into a different state.

Logan feels responsible for the death of the X-Men in his timeline. Seeing the younger versions of them alive (in the present timeline) could be a constant reminder of what he was forced or tricked into doing. Because they are alive, perhaps he’ll overcome his reluctance to re-join the team in order to ensure they don’t face harm in other areas. Tension is high and the general public is, once again, extremely anti-mutant. Jean may be more than capable of taking care of herself but Logan may feel a grandfatherly connection and desire to look out for her.

Jean also was reluctant to spend time with the X-Men. She wanted to spend some time away, which is why she enrolled at Empire State University. With the failed relationships with and Scott, Hank, and that jerky kid in her class (seen in EXTRAORDINARY X-MEN #2), and knowing she'll possibly end up getting killed in the future, spending time with Old Man Logan could be the distraction she needs.

Logan needs to further heal from the horror he's likely constantly reliving. Jean can help him get passed than and continue on his path of being a great hero. In return, Logan can give Jean another purpose and reason to be part of the X-Men once again.

The main thing we should all agree on is the idea of a romance between the two should be completely off the table. Wolverine's always been super old compared to everyone else. This is an opportunity for Logan to continue what he recently started as headmaster of the Jean Grey School. He has a lot of experience and with mutants recently having become sterile and the threat of the M-Pox, the X-Men and mutants need all the help they can get. Logan can help the younger generation learn to protect themselves and live up to their full potential.

Logan has never had great luck in the romance department anyway. Many of his past loves have ended up getting killed. It's almost as if he's cursed. He can help Jean find her way back to the X-Men. While he's at it, maybe he can spend some time with X-23 as well since she was like a daughter to him. Bottom line, the debate as to whether or not there Jean and Logan should have a relationship is now settled. They are moving onto a new sort of relationship where they can help each other heal from their wounds and focus on being great members of the X-Men. Love never comes easy for the X-Men. They can learn to move beyond that.

Would you like us to look at some of the other weird relationships within the X-Men?

I am more interested in how they will deal with Laura with Old Man Logan. I mean from what I see, there wasn't a X-23 in Old Man Logan's timeline soo it might get extra weird.

As long as Jean is of legal age I don't see the problem. What do people want, Logan to date 90-year-old women? There probably aren't too many woman in the Marvel Universe that are as old as Logan is, much less any that he feels a special connection to (or that feel a romantic connection to him, in return). Wolverine is in an odd position and I don't understand why people think he should just turn off his emotions just because he's been around forever and a day. He's still human (albeit a mutant), after all...

People freak out everytime Mags and Rogue get close, I can only imagine the misplaced age phobia thats gonna go on as a result of this.

co-signed

@bl00dwerk: Well... but THIS Jean is the 15 years old original Jean Grey coming from the past...

Do we know at which point in time his timeline diverged from the 616 one? I remember seeing a newer cover of Old Man Logan which shows Daken on it. Now that may have been a mistake but if he existed in Logans timeline Laura should too.

I think Lemire will add a few more additional bits and pieces in EXM and OML that weren't present or addressed in the original story from Millar.

Really liking this series and looking forward to seeing more of Old Man Logan both in this and his upcoming solo. And like others have said above I wouldnt have a problem with young Jean and OML dating. Would be interesting to see OML meeting Laura now that she's Wolverine especially.

I want to see Laura and Old Man Logan interact, too, but more for Laura's reaction; she took Logan's death pretty hard, and it would be very interesting to see how she handles the idea of Logan being alive, yet is also not "her" Logan (especially if there wasn't an X-23 in OML's original universe).

@galerion: That's because the new OML series takes place in the current continuity. I believe the second or third issue has him trying to take out the new Hulk, Amadeus Cho (to try to prevent the possibility of a Hulk rising like it did in his timeline). So I think a lot of the things in the series are going to be him addressing things that aren't in his timeline. For example, in Secret Wars he met Jimmy Hudson (Wolverines son from the Ultimate Universe). I don't think they'll add things into his timeline.

@thatlyn_yoaeg_ill_rymmin: actually Lemire confirmed that she is 18

Uh, Wolverine can't get a break. Everybody else in the Marvel Universe gets the love of his life, even for a while. Hulk, Silver Surfer, Daredevil, Vision, and so on. Not poor old Wolverine. I was stoked that Disney was not getting rid of the X-Men or mutants, now this sterility and M-Pox. It's almost like Disney wants the option of removing them from the Marvel Multiverse at any moment.

Wolvy has always gotten the short end of the stick, ehen it came with the ladies...

I can see him and this jean possibly making a father/daughter relationship. Other then that i dont see them being together the way they could have been in the past

@dman1366: and 18 is Legal Age in America? I'm not joking, really asking :)

Here in Italy "Legal Age" is 18, but we know that in America there is different legal age for different things [drink, guide, have a gun, having sex]...

I didn't know she was 18 how old are the other O5 X-men I thought they were teenagers

This will be creepy only if they make it that way. I see it playing out as old school Logan with a unofficial kid sidekick, like he did with Kitty and Jubilee. I would HOPE it would be a more mentor/Student relationship along the lines of what I mentioned or Hope/Cable kind of thing

But you can't ignore the creepy old man fetich angle as being a possible route they will take, I just hope they don't

Yes...there is nothing technically illegal with an 18-year old dating an 80-year old. But it's just weird -fictional characters or not- so stop acting like it isn't.

It makes sense for Logan to love and mentor Jean like she was his child...but to date her seems like drama just for drama's sake.

First kitty and Colossus, now old man logan and 15 year old Jean gray. Marvel's pedo status confirmed. Lock the Children!!

@donmeca2020, @esparza3368: I always got the impression Logan never really had a single true love considering how much he slept around.

@thejman:

Kitty and Colossus didn't do anything sexual until they were in their 20s.

Jean Grey is 18.

@sprior93: Kitty and Colossus did not do anything sexually but it pretty much implied he was attracted to a minor. Being 18 does not change the fact that an 80 years is attracted to someone wayy younger than him. It was creepy when Anna Nichole Smith did it, it still creepy now.

For the love of God Marvel don't make them have a romantic relationship that is just gross and it kinda ruin the thing between them too, they will never actually be together.

I still hate they are pretty much killing my favorite characters, Wolverine, Thor, Hulk, Hyperion (liked the Supreme Power character not that much the new Hyperion), the only ones left are Deadpool, Iron Man and some x-men comics.

I'm willing to cut Wolverine some slack considering he is older than almost EVERY mutant on Earth. But I doubt the book will be going into a couple relationship regardless.

Isn't it weird that ALMOST EVERY defining hero of comicbook history is attached(loosely defined) to an iconic female except Logan? I talking flagship heroes.

Supes and Lois

Spidy and Jane

Hulk and Betty

Bats and Catwoman

Thor and Foster

Cap and Carter(s)

The list goes on.

this all reminds me of the early X-men issues when the Prof was secretly pining over Jean. ive always felt Logan's age didnt matter at a certain point. sure hes old but when youre over 100 years older then the guy standing beside you and you look like you in your mid-40s, what does it matter?

that being said im not down with a relationship between OLD MAN LOGAN and PERKY TEEN JEAN!

I am mostly against putting the two in a relationship. Not for the massive age difference but because it just doesn't feel right for either of them. Logan finding himself in a whole other world and Jean still suffering from the All New X-Men stuff. It just feels like if the two did gravitate towards each other at all it'd be as a father/daughter type thing. Jean can help him heal the scars he has from the events on his world while Logan may be able to mold her into the Jean Grey she's meant to be, not a nosey, mind invading psychic she is now, but a real hero.

I don't know. That's just what I hope. I'm not saying that if they are put into a relationship together I'm going to drop the book or anything. I'll just recognize it as pretty lost opportunity to put the two characters in a place they've never been before.

Hey... hey hey hey hey wwaaaaaaait a minute now. OK first of all I have two questions since admittedly I have not been keeping track of all this stuff but, 1st off, what happened to young Scott, and 2nd, ummm... they really aren't going to try to pair that young Jean and that ehh, very very old Logan yknow, "with each other" are they?

Cause I can think of quite a few reasons why that really, just really should not happen. Too far. TOOOO far.

@omegahans: Jean is pretty much avoiding Scott since she believes they're doomed to fail and because she probably thinks the relationship will lead to her dying or something. I doubt they'd pair Logan and Jean together since the age difference could rub lots of people the wrong way.

How abot Mariko Yashida? The guy was ready to settle down that time.

Anyway, remember than Jeen came from the x-men 8 (word of Bendis and Alonso themselves) so her age should be the one from that issue, plus eight months. I also remember than in the mini-series Children of the Atom, the X-men were depicted as in high school, but in the wake of Secret wars, who knows?

@truemarvel: I would take Stacy out of the Spidey thing. Sure, her popularity's spiked recently, but she's not MJ-level iconic. Whenever a random person thinks of Spidey's love interests, MJ is the first to come to mind.

I agree with your point though. I guess the closest he has is Mariko, but the public has no idea who she is.

As for OML and young Jean, no.

That is all.

@golden_cod:

So did Captain America, Batman, and so on. Was he supposed to celibate because Jean Grey was with Cyclops. The man was already over 100 years old, fought in several wars, and was basically James Bond for a while. Besides when he is with someone the man is loyal, Mariko Yashida for starters and then there was the much earlier mother of Dakken. He stuck with Tyger Tiger of Madripoor for a while and also Elektra. Only time he really got the "woman" (Jean Grey), was in the Age of Apocalypse (Earth-265), Wolverine fans loved it. The fact he has white hair and looks like a senior citizen is not a problem, Disney can make him look much younger down the road with some convoluted plot. Time for Wolverine and Jean Grey to be the new superhero pair of Marvel (like Superman & Wonder Woman).

@truemarvel:

Yup, either the women he wants are taken, circumstances forces them to separate soon, or they die tragic deaths after a few issues. No ex-girlfriends, with on and off relationships. No super heroine with whom he has a relationship for years or decades. Even characters with tragic pasts who are tortured by it like Batman, Hulk, or the Silver Surfer seem to have way better luck than him in that department.

Celibacy doesn't factor into it. Nor do I care about his age. I just don't see what makes his relationship with Jean any different than that of his many others. Like you said, he's shown devotion to other women so why is this the OTP?

@thejman: People don't get to choose who or what they're attracted to. We can only choose how we act on those feelings. Yes, an 18 year old Colossus was attracted to a girl that was 4 years younger than him, but that hardly qualifies him as a pedophile, especially considering he never acted on those feelings until they were both well into their twenties. As for Logan and Jean, well, they're both adults, so as long as their relationship is consensual then who cares? I mean, Logan is decades older than all of the women he's been with.

Marvel has characters who are in incestuous and interspecies relationships, so I don't think a pairing with a large age gap is all that creepy or weird.

The age thing doesn't bother me because Marvel operates on a floating timeline; age is relative when characters are forever written at the prime of their life. I agree Logan was serious about Mariko Yashida but in the hands of other writers he seems to take a flavor-of-the-week approach, that or they clone her as a different character for the same scenario to play out.

your correct, but obvisously that didn't pan out neither. As for there being a possibility with OML and young jean, I'm quite certain if they (Marvel) makes it happen, im sure the same group of whiney,nothing better to do type of people will make a big issue for that happening in the comics and it'll somehow offend someone because their supposed child read about it blah blah blah..... remember it's the same group of people that complained and whined about the whole Joker with batgirl crying cover that all of us wanted...... Watch mark my word. if they do it, people will ruin it for the rest of us.

@golden_cod:

Because its the big one. Yes, he has been loyal to others but its Jean Grey who he has the greatest feelings for at least in canon. Jean also has a great attraction to him that later developed into deep feelings for him, but due to the age difference & his violent ways never acted on it at first and later on she became part of the Summers bloodline story (with son Nathan), then marriage.

For a moment, it looked like she and Wolverine were going to pair up when Cyclops started a psychic affair with Emma Frost (which later became physical) but Wolverine being an honorable gentleman put a stop to that. Basically in the Earth-616 universe, it was a story of "unrequited love" between the two as they say.

Part of the reason that the Wolverine & Jean Grey pairing in Earth-265 (Age of Apocalypse) was so popular, and why Marvel later did for a while the Wolverine & Jean Grey pairing in the Ultimate Marvel reality. Pretty confident that Disney is aware of how popular that pairing is which is the reason they are doing this and wouldn't be surprised when down the road they reverse Logan's aging (it's a given) they also change the Wolverine + Jean Grey relationship from mentor to something more serious (perhaps even somehow aging her a bit).

@donmeca2020:

If they do it, which I would be more than fine with, most likely it won't be the December-May type. Highly likely that they will have a plot where Logan somehow gets younger (his body) by a few decades worth or Jean somehow gets aged by a decade or two. I would say the de-aging of Logan has the highest probability and has less of an "ick" factor for many readers.

Never liked the Logan/Jean relationship. I always thought Logan/Mariko is the best.

I think we have a better shot of them bringing back the 616 "real" logan back and him meeting OML as opposed to OML and young jean finally hitting it off.

I fail to see how a cover referencing rape has anything to do with a relationship with an age gap. You're grasping at straws.

@donmeca2020:

That's possible too, if they continue the Marvel Multiverse or create a new Multiverse down the line. Don't like the idea of only one universe and doubt that Marvel will restrict itself that way. If they do how to explain the Cinematic Universe or the Animated Universe. No more Marvel video games? No more What If comics? No more Kang the Conqueror? No more Shuma-Gorath?

Obvisously you were one of the complainers/whiners i see.... where or HOW did the cover reference rape?? all you see from the cover is batgirl crying. I'm sure You yourself would be crying if you had a homocidal maniac clown make you take a picture next to him.... Have you ever even read the killing joke?? even in the original there was no specific panel or anything to that nature that said he raped her.... before you find a picture of her striped down and beaten. that still doesn't say she was ever raped. try again

As far as the topic at hand. it would be someone like yourself that would complain that a relationship with an old individual and young one is just " morally wrong" there for the minute a comic with them doing anything from kissing or more were to be published. they would pull it immediately because Disney would put that order out. Tell me again how whiney and bitching for no good people ruining the batgirl cover coming out and how the same WOULD NOT happen with this.

@esparza3368: Thanks for the explanation. How do you feel about Origins and the character Rose? The Jean-Logan relationship predates the publication of Origins but it seemed to retcon Jean's role into that of a surrogate/rebound/etc instead of a true love.

I doubt it. Fall in love with the teacher (seduce him and being requited) still is a powerful teenage romance trope. Even if in real life is morally questionable and against teacher's ethic.

Still is weird. In some way resemble to much to the Professor X-Jean situation or the Reed Richards-Sue Storm first encounter. The kind of relations than later everyone want to retcon away.

But also, we are talking about a Jean from an alternate past (which could already doesn't exist) and a Logan from an alternate future (which could already doesn't exist). If things doesn't work, Marvel easly can send both back home and bring back the 616 versions.

There's always been a connection between the two but where do they stand with each other now?

It was their Last Stand.

@donmeca2020 said:

Obvisously you were one of the complainers/whiners i see.... where or HOW did the cover reference rape?? all you see from the cover is batgirl crying. I'm sure You yourself would be crying if you had a homocidal maniac clown make you take a picture next to him.... Have you ever even read the killing joke?? even in the original there was no specific panel or anything to that nature that said he raped her.... before you find a picture of her striped down and beaten. that still doesn't say she was ever raped. try again

As far as the topic at hand. it would be someone like yourself that would complain that a relationship with an old individual and young one is just " morally wrong" there for the minute a comic with them doing anything from kissing or more were to be published. they would pull it immediately because Disney would put that order out. Tell me again how whiney and bitching for no good people ruining the batgirl cover coming out and how the same WOULD NOT happen with this.

Do some research next time. The artist Rafael Albuquerque himself states that the cover pays homage to The Killing Joke.The hat and shadows cast on Joker's face references the scene where he shoots Barbara in the spine. And regardless of Moore's intentions, Brian Bolland's artwork show a woman grimacing while naked. When shown to the woman's father that's going to imply something very specific.

As for Jean and Logan, you're falsely assuming that I'd have a problem with it. Read my previous comments - I don't care about their age. You're making a mountain out of a molehill because the people you think who'd have a problem with this probably won't bat an eye at this when there's more "immoral" things happening in comics like gay relationships.

To sum it up, you're claiming that the people who have a problem with sexual assault would apparently have a problem with a consensual relationship between two characters. Those two things are not directly related in any way. Your logic doesn't add up.

Conflicted about the Origins series of stories, especially where they made Logan into an operative of Hydra during World War 2. As for Rose, it seemed to me the relationship was more along the lines of big sister, little brother. Though if we want to get Freudian, Rose may have had a subconscious influence on the Logan - Jean dynamic, just as that other redhead Remus. After all aren't we supposed to marry those who look like our mothers or some psychological babblem

What relationship should they have? Well, they could die together and and stop ruining books for me with their worthless presence.

@dman1366 said:

Wich proves nothing, besides that he cant count.

That deserves the punchline drums. ba dum chii