Jean Grey is generally considered one of the most powerful of all the X-Men. When Charles Xavier first assembled the X-Men, he put together a team including two of the most powerful mutants on the globe. Both Jean Grey and Iceman are Omega Level mutants, the top-tier in terms of power level - but how do her abilities really work?
Until recently, Marvel has studiously avoided actually providing a definition for an "Omega Level" mutant. But Jonathan Hickman, the legendary writer who's taken charge of the X-Men relaunch, prefers to lock things down as much as possible. According to Hickman, an Omega is "a mutant whose dominant power is deemed to register -- or reach -- an undefinable upper limit of that power's specific classification." But Hickman added an intriguing note in reference to Jean Grey.
NOTE: Omega level is a classification of a single mutant power. While it is quite common that mutants manifest multiple powers, only one is normally of Omega level.
FOR EXAMPLE: While Jean Grey is both a telepath and a telekinetic, she is only an Omega level telepath.
This left old-school X-Men fans somewhat bewildered. When Stan Lee first created Jean Grey, he focused on her telekinesis, and her telepathy was developed later on. What's more, in terms of sheer feats, Jean's telekinetic powers have often been far more impressive than her telepathy. So what's going on?
Where Does Jean Grey End... And The Phoenix Force Begin?
A core part of the problem is that Jean Grey is bound to the Phoenix Force, in a quasi-mystical way that's hard to understand. As a result, it's difficult to figure out where Jean Grey's powers end, and where the Phoenix Force's begin. This issue became particularly pronounced during Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, because he attempted to clarify the relationship between Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force by adapting the theological concept of "apotheosis."
In theological terms, "apotheosis" is the moment when a human being transcends their humanity and becomes a god. In ancient times, the concept was commonly linked to rulers like the Pharaohs of Egypt, who were believed to become gods the moment they took the throne. Christian circles reinterpreted this concept, referring to a human being united by grace with a pre-existing Divine nature. The teaching isn't especially common in the Western Church, more frequently discussed among Eastern Orthodoxy, and it was incorporated into the so-called "New Age" movement in the 1960s. This is the kind of mysticism Grant Morrison has always been fascinated by, and he allowed it to inform his New X-Men run.
Morrison suggested Jean Grey had always been linked to the Phoenix Force, coming ever closer to the moment when she would truly become one with this pre-existing cosmic being. Thus, on countless occasions when Jean Grey has used her telekinesis, it's entirely possible she has actually been tapping into the Phoenix Force itself, albeit on an unconscious level. That union apparently ended in the Phoenix: Resurrection miniseries, when Jean elected to leave the Phoenix and live a life of her own. Thus, logically, her telekinesis has been reduced - but it clearly hasn't ended, given she demonstrated tremendous telekinetic power in the X-Men: Red ongoing that followed her story from there. So just how does Jean's telekinesis now work, and why shouldn't she be considered an Omega Level telekinetic?
Jean's Telekinesis Is Directly Related To Her Telepathy
A possible answer is offered by Brian Michael Bendis in his story "The Trial of Jean Grey." This featured the All-New X-Men version of Jean Grey, a teenager who had been plucked from her own time and brought to the Marvel Universe's present. Jean lived in the shadow of her future self, including the atrocities committed by Dark Phoenix, and was ultimately arrested and put on trial by the Shi'ar for the crime of genocide. She broke free, and unleashed her most impressive telekinetic attack ever, beating down Gladiator himself - Marvel's Superman-equivalent. A telepathic Shi'ar named Oracle explained to Jean that she was using her telepathy and telekinesis in concert; Jean's telepathy was drawing all the ambient psychic energy of an area into herself, and she was then expressing it in raw telekinetic power.
Bendis clearly intended as an expansion of Jean's powerset, but instead, it could actually be central to it. Thus Jean could be a telekinetic precisely because she is a telepath; the secret of her power could be that she telepathically draws the ambient psychic energy of an area into herself on an instinctive level, releasing it as telekinetic energy. This would neatly explain inconsistencies in the portrayal of Jean's telekinesis because naturally there will be variances in the amount of ambient psychic energy around her. The theory would further explain why Jean Grey shouldn't be considered both an Omega Level telepath and telekinetic. Her telepathy fulfills the criteria of an Omega, in that it can register at an undefinable upper limit of the power, but her telekinesis is limited. On the mutant nation of Krakoa, surrounded by telepaths and the consciousness of a living island, Jean Grey will, of course, be at her peak.
This may further indicate why Jean Grey has always been able to go head-to-head with the world's most powerful telepaths and telekinetics. There's a sense in which she uses their own power against them; because the more powerful they are, the more they flood psychic energy into the background, and thus the more powerful Jean Grey becomes. All this is largely instinctive, although the events of "The Trial of Jean Grey" saw Jean learn to do it consciously, to far more dramatic effect; she demonstrated memories of that ability in Tom Taylor's X-Men: Red, meaning she's still able to pull it off in explosive fashion. It would be fascinating to see whether or not Jean could use this to essentially (and temporarily) de-power another psychic in battle, by drawing all their energy into herself; hopefully, it won't be long until we find out.