For the few of you paying attention/giving a damn, so far all the Classics Corner reviews have been about DC books. I’ll admit, I prefer DC. This is not to say I dislike Marvel, though. Marvel has the ability to sustain a character for years, creating not just strong story arcs but strong runs, some of which go on for over a decade. It’s just easier for someone getting into comics to stick with short bursts of brilliance rather than, say, Brubaker’s entire Captain America run.

Considered the greatest X-Men story ever told and the peak of Chris Claremont’s record 16-year run on Uncanny X-Men, The Dark Phoenix Saga is a landmark in comic books and one of the most influential stories ever told in the medium. It’s an incredibly moving tale that incorporates personal tragedy, epic action, and strong characterizations of the entire X-Men team and not just one or two members. However, it’s not without flaws.

**spoilers and more after the jump**

We start of meeting two new mutants, the first of which is the awesome Kitty Pryde (a.k.a. the intangible Shadowcat), who proves to be mighty useful over the new few issues. The other is Dazzler, who is atrociously dated. She can create incredible displays of light, which she uses to enhance her disco routine. In the metaphorical world of superheroes, Dazzler apparently represents cocaine. The X-Men split in two groups to meet these new mutants, and men in armors suits ambush both.

Dumbest. Hero. Ever.

Wolverine, Colossus, and Storm attack with all their might, but the baddies’ armor is completely undamaged. But lo! Turns out each suit of armor is designed to withstand one of the mutant’s abilities. So the X-Men all shift one to the left and soon the men are defeated. Their defeat costs them dearly as the spying Hellfire Club explodes the men’s armors for their failure. Now, one could argue that it’s the Hellfire Club’s fault for spending all the money to find ways to negate the X-Men’s powers to only give one ability to each like some weird ass version of the Five Chinese Brothers. But don’t dwell, true believers. The other group is saved by Dazzler’s sensory overloading light show, and escapes. Hell, Jean, the titular subject of the arc, is barely featured. However, Claremont is brilliantly setting up her story.

Slowly being psychically seduced by Mastermind, Jean loses herself more and more to the Phoenix Force that she has been the host of since her resurrection after saving the universe (this story arc is inexplicably not included in this trade or even in its own separate volume). At first, she breaks free of the illusions Mastermind casts and only shows change in behavior slightly; her confidence and flirtatiousness has increased and she demonstrates more power than usual.

However, finally Mastermind casts too powerful an illusion and, when she finally breaks free, gives in to the force within her and transforms into the Dark Phoenix, a psionic creature so powerful her mind can cross dimensions and read the impure thoughts of young boys reading the comic and staring at her anatomically impossible physique. Within seconds, the mutants, having just waged and won an epic fight with several powerful mutants, are defeated. She then flies into space and detonates a star for shits and giggles, killing 5 billion inhabitants of the star’s orbiting planet. Oh, and some nearby alien cruiser sees this and for some reason thinks it can pose a good fight to something that just killed a star; I’m reminded of those images of people throwing rocks at tanks. At this point, Claremont has made it painfully obvious we’re dealing with the ultimate badass, and the creature is returning to Earth.

Enter the time-proven X-Men deus ex machina, Professor X. He wages a mental war with Phoenix, and manages to trap the Phoenix in a series of mental barriers, thus freeing Jean’s personality. All is saved! Oh, I almost forgot, the aliens want justice for that there exploded planet. Jean is sentenced to death, but in comes deus ex machina on wheels once more, who challenges the alien queen to a duel: X-Men versus her finest warriors.

What follows is an ass whooping of the highest order, as the alien gladiators make mincemeat of Xavier’s best. Eventually, Jean becomes so stressed that out comes Dark Phoenix once more. But this time, Jean manages to come out on top by sacrificing herself before she is once again consumed by the Phoenix and commits further atrocities.

Claremont’s story is a powerful bit of humanity in a medium in which self-worth is measured in the quality of powers. Dazzler, for instance, is the X-Men equivalent of a Star Trek red shirt; the fact that she lived is actually kind of surprising. However, a character who is potentially the most powerful being in the universe, and one who is fundamentally good even if her power comes from being bad, is gold. The final line, “Jean Grey could have lived to become a god. But it was more important to her that she die…a human” hits home Claremont’s argument that the most epic, heroic, and worthwhile thing these mutants can do is to remember they are still human, no matter their abilities.

Making the story even more interesting is the high quality action. The two issues where Wolverine tries to fight and sneak his way to the top of the Hellfire Club to save his friends and the one where the X-Men are freed and defeat the Hellfire Club are without question the two best back to back issues of a continuing series I’ve read thus far (not saying much I know, but these really incredible). The former issue shows Wolverine at his max potential: wild, animalistic and ruthless in battle, and yet with a generous portion of cunning and stealth. He is not some equally enraged foe of the Hulk (as he started out), his long, loner lifestyle, healing powers, and indestructible claws have made him a one-man army. The latter is just an all-out incredible fight that shows off Cyclops’ leadership capability and how tight the team functions. Even more epic is Phoenix’s swath of destruction and the final fight against the gladiators, yet they lack the strong team dynamics and moments-to-shine-for-all writing of those two issues.

However, the story does suffer from some painful dating. Apart from the aforementioned Dazzler, Claremont’s writing style is woefully indicative of the style of the time. In short, it is nightmarishly wordy. Not a single panel is without a speech, thought, or narrative bubble, and many of them are filled to the brim with paragraphs of redundant information. It’s not uncommon for these older comics to take a bit too much time explaining events that happened in previous issues in case you missed the last one (even Miller’s Daredevil does it), but Claremont will explain things all over again for stuff the happened on the last fucking page. Also, every time someone uses their powers, they must remind us and themselves what they can do, going so far as to intricately explain what is about to happen even though Byrne’s art clearly depicts the act in the next panel.

Worst of all, Claremont repeats even past sentences. Kitty Pryde says, “I did it!” after walking through a wall no less than three times. I get it, your powers are new and you’re obviously surprised. I would be too. But I don’t need to see it more than once. Oh, and if you want to play a drinking game, take a shot every time the phrase “psionic (or psychic) rapport” is used. But make sure you have life insurance first, cause if you play this game your loved ones will find you face down in a puddle of your dried vomit in the morning.

My old English teacher used to say that I always “told and didn’t show” in my papers. I thought this was dumb because we wrote critical essays, whose job it is to tell you what someone else showed. However, in the context of writing an actual story, his comment makes perfect sense; Claremont is so needlessly wordy that, at times, the story is so redundant I feel as though I’ve read the whole thing three times instead of one. And why does he feel the need to do this? He has someone drawing pictures for him! I never had that option! If I started drawing on my English papers I’d have been out of private school and on the short bus to Helmetland before you could say “magic shoes.”

I can forgive Claremont somewhat because he was writing in a time where comics were still just for kids and kids at heart, so it’s fair to assume young children would need help keeping up; however, it’s so wordy that a kid is bound to get lost. It’s almost as if Chris studied at the George Lucas School of Writing: take a fantastic overall story and kill it by making it simultaneously too childish for adults and too complex for kids. Still, the story is magnificent and the human elements are ingenious, so he makes up for his verbosity.

Claremont’s wordiness is all the more inexplicable given the astounding quality of the art. I’m not a big fan of older art; I find the palettes to be too soft and the lines to be a little too simple. However, John Byrne’s art is just insanely beautiful and detailed; the palette is still soft and cartoony, but Byrne manages to convey the darkness of the story, which is rare for a 70s/early 80s book. Overall, Byrne’s penciling only makes Claremont’s story even better.

Chris Claremont made a lot of amazing changes to the X-Men in his run. He introduced a number of amazing characters, and, more importantly, created a sizeable portion of strong female characters in a medium that, up to that point, featured women pretty much solely to be the romantic interest of the hero who suffers because the hero needs some sort of personal issue. When Jean dies here, she does not do so Scott can be miserable (though you can be sure he, and the rest of the team, is); she sacrifices herself in the ultimate show of inner strength. Whatever issue I may have with Claremont’s writing style, he has my undying support for this story and I can’t wait to read more of his classic X-Men work.

Grade: A-