Who Is Sara Grey? Jean Grey's Mutant Sister, Explained
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the villainous character at the centre of all the drama finally revealed herself - and if you don't want to know any spoilers for the film, then you might not want to read the next sentence...
... It was none other than X-Men legend Jean Grey, who was played by Sadie Sink.
Jean Grey has been portrayed on-screen before, most recently by Sophie Turner, but the mutant had a whole new backstory in this Spider-Man sequel.
Most significantly, in this movie, Jean isn’t (or, at least, wasn’t) alone. We also learn more about her sister, Sara Grey: a character that hasn’t been given much of a spotlight across TV and film in previous Marvel ventures. However, she is fleshed out a lot in Brand New Day, and while she is presented a little differently than she is in the comics, the core tragedy of her character appears to remain.
So, here’s everything you need to know about Sara Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Sara Grey In Brand New Day, Explained
In Brand New Day, Sara Grey is introduced in a flashback sequence. It is revealed that she has the same powers as Jean: telekinesis. In the flashback, it seems like Sara is more experienced than Jean in terms of her powers, as she showed her sister how she could effectively ‘hop’ into other people through their minds.
In the flashback, as Sara and Jean sat peacefully in the park, Sara got up to get an ice cream. At that point, she was kidnapped by Damage Control. Tragically, she used her powers to stop Jean from intervening in order to prevent her from being captured, too. It was these events that caused Jean to do what she did. Amid all her misdeeds, her primary aim was to find her sister and rescue her from Damage Control. Jean was fixated on finding out the meaning of “V-Max” after Sara apparently communicated that to her telepathically.
Ultimately, Peter used an inhibitor device to disarm Jean by blocking her powers, leaving her in the hands of Damage Control. But then, Damage Control’s true intentions became clear. As she finally worked out the meaning of “V-Max,” Jean discovered that Sara died in the very same room she was being held in after relentless experimentation by Damage Control. It had been alluded to by the pair in the flashback scene that their mother abandoned them because of their powers. Overcome by grief, Jean was able to overpower Damage Control, which set the scene for the film’s thrilling and heartbreaking climax.
Who Was Sara Grey In Marvel Comics?
Sara and Jean aren’t the only mutant siblings. They’re in pretty good company with the likes of Havok and Cyclops and Vulcan, Charles and Cassandra Xavier, and Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. However, Sara’s story in the comics is also tragic, albeit in a different way.
In the comics, she remains Jean’s older sister, but the main difference is that she is married with children.
She and Jean were kidnapped by Attuma, who had the frankly insane idea of ‘breeding’ with them in order to create some kind of underwater/human hybrid master race to help conquer the Earth. Fortunately, Jean and Sara escape, but that isn’t the end of her troubles.
After Sara and her husband speak out about mutant relations, they end up mysteriously disappearing. It later emerges that she and her husband were murdered by mutant haters who, in all likelihood, were acting on supervillain Cameron Hodge’s orders. Her body was absorbed by the Phalanx. Her children were left orphaned before being killed themselves by the Shi'ar Death Commandos.
Ultimately, it seems like Sara was always going to meet a deadly fate when her only crime was being born a little different. It’s a sobering commentary on how innocent people can face violence after being ‘othered’ by society.
