If you've seen Spider-Man: Brand New Day, you might be wondering, who is Sara Grey? The telepathic cat is out of the bag, and it’s finally confirmed in Spider-Man: Brand New Day that Sadie Sink is indeed mutant master of messing with heads, Jean Grey. Making for what feels like a huge departure from the kind of introduction we’ve been used to with the X-Men character in other movies, the Stranger Things star has easily become one of the most compelling and complex villains of Peter 1’s (Tom Holland) rogue gallery.
So why such a mean streak during her first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Well, as is often the case with any good villain, their evil deeds stem from vengeance, and in this case, it involves Jean’s sister, Sara Grey (played here by Olivia Booth-Ford). Now for movie fans of X-Men, Sara Grey might sound like a brand new addition to X-Men lore, given that she’s never appeared in any X-Men film up until now. Rest assured, though, Jean’s big sis is very much a real character from the comics with a history of her own and one that could help further mold one of the founding members of the X-Men before Jean is even enlisted by them.
Read on for all there is to know about Sara Grey in the comics and in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and when you're done, be sure to check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review and our guide to watching the Marvel movies in order.
Sara Grey in Marvel Comics
In the comics, Sara Grey was fortunate to have a considerably longer lifespan than the one we’ve recently met in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but her exit is perhaps far worse than the one we’ve seen in the MCU. To begin with, the biggest difference was that she wasn’t gifted like her sister; she was just a regular human.
First mentioned in X-Men #22 from 1966, Sara wouldn’t appear on the page until X-Men #136 in 1980, when Jean, imbued with the power of the Dark Phoenix, comes out to her family about being a mutant. While Jean’s parents are pretty vocal about their youngest daughter being different, Sara is just shocked to see her return. That’s before Jean goes on a typical Phoenix tirade right before the X-Men turn up to restrain her.
A year later, in a story from Bizarre Adventures #27, Sara Grey goes to visit the grave of Jean, who is presumed dead for one of the bajillion times everyone thinks she’s kicked the bucket in the comics. It’s during this moment of grief that it’s revealed in a flashback story that Jean blocked out Sara’s memories of her sister's secret, after all. In fact, at one point in time, the two were kidnapped by Atlantean general Attuma (played in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever by Alex Livinalli), who transforms the Grey sisters into one of his own kind. Jean saves the day and turns them back, but Sara continues to grieve her sister's loss and to advocate for mutant equality.
Unfortunately, Sara’s brush with danger doesn’t end there (such are the dangers of being a Grey, really). Besides her children being kidnapped and Jean and Scott Summers having to save them in X-Factor #35, X-Men #36 revealed that Phalanx had captured and consumed Sara, and when Phalanx was defeated, any hope of Sara surviving went with him.
That, as they say, was that. The older sister of Jean Grey was killed off-screen and endured a far more pitiful demise than the one we got in Spidey’s new movie.
Sara Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day
In what feels like a great effort to apply a fresh spin on Jean’s backstory, Sara Grey gets a significant upgrade on her comic book counterpart in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. In the seventh installment of Marvel’s Phase 6, Sara is revealed to share the same power set as her little sister and has a far better grasp of them, as well. We see in a flashback that Sara trained Jean to hop from body to body when a target was too far out of range, which Jean masters before her encounter with Peter.
Unfortunately, it’s because of this capability that she’s snatched up by Damage Control, who are doing far more than just tidying up the world from the regular super-powered scuffles. Sara is kidnapped and subjected to tests until she dies from the ordeal, sending Jean on a mission and leading to an eventual power upgrade that stretches her reach far beyond a mere 33 meters.
As is often the case with any good hero origin story, it’s the loss of a loved one that sets them on the path for justice and heroism. In the case of Jean from the MCU, however, she performs a few minor acts of terrorism and mental kidnapping before seeing the error of her ways. She’s last seen heading out of New York into a far more rural area that looks awfully Westchester-like (that being the location of Xavier Mansion, for the uninitiated). Who knows wherever she ends up, if Sara will get name-dropped in future MCU installments that Jean inevitably appears in. After reports that Jean's already set to return in Avengers: Secret Wars, there's a good chance she might.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in UK theaters now. For more, here's how to watch the Spider-Man movies in order, or see if you agree with our ranking of the best Spider-Man movies.
