many decades have passed since we were
first introduced to the Phoenix force
but its rival on earth remains one of
the biggest events in x-men history
welcome to story arc explained the
series that gets you up to speed on the
comics you didn’t read before we begin
we publish new content every day so be
sure to subscribe to our Channel and
ring the bell to get notified about our
latest videos today we’re recapping the
Phoenix saga as told in the pages of
1976’s uncanny x-men number 101 to 108
written by Chris Claremont as well as
1980s game-changing Dark Phoenix saga
from uncanny x-men number 129 to 138
written by Chris Claremont and John
burned forget everything you learned in
x-men The Last Stand the misguided a
much maligned third film in the original
x-men trilogy hardly scratches the
surface of its source material the movie
reduced the Phoenix to a split
personality of Jean Grey’s long
telepathically repressed by Charles
Xavier for her safety
and that of others the comics by
contrast tell a very different story of
an immortal extraterrestrial entity of
pure energy the Phoenix force
no wonder Fox decided to give this
storyline a second shot on the big
I’m looking at it now our tale begins as
all the best ones do on a damaged
spaceship fighting to safely re-enter
Earth’s atmosphere having survived the
dramatic offworld events of uncanny
x-men number 100 our heroes are a little
worse for wear Jean in particular having
telepathically learned how to fly the
ship
she’s simultaneously at the helm and
trying to protect herself from the fatal
radiation of a solar storm using a
kinetic shield she’s essentially
sacrificing herself for her friends and
allies they make it to earth but Jean
has been fundamentally altered rising
from the water near the site of their
crash landing she’s rocking a new
costume and declares herself to be the
Phoenix and power incarnate before
passing out her teammates are all
naturally concerned but after returning
her to the mansion and being informed
that she will recover
they breathe a collective sigh of relief
and returned to their crime-fighting
responsibilities while she regains her
strength they tangle with juggernaut and
black Tom you know the usual stuff Jean
eventually recovers and becomes well
enough to get up move around and even
visit her parents at first there are no
signs of her having changed but the
Phoenix makes his presence known when
empress lilandra of the Shiar empire
teleports onto the scene followed by
none other than Fire Lord this was our
first real taste of jeans new powers and
they certainly made a big impression
she’s more than capable of holding her
own against the one-time Herald of
Galactus and later shows herself
powerful enough to power an interstellar
transporter which she and her fellow
x-men obviously go through on the other
end of the warp gate Phoenix and the
x-men find themselves on an alien planet
and drawn into a rather convoluted
cosmic conflict at the center of it all
as the Makran crystal a massive ancient
and powerful object tied to the cosmos
that once every million years opens a
gateway to seemingly ultimate power
it’s classic 70s material don’t worry
about the technicalities of it the
crucial concern is that attempting to
access or harness this power risks
destroying the universe and all of
existence with reality itself blinking
in and out there’s only one hero strong
enough to save the day gene travels into
the crystal where things only get
weirder but with her newfound abilities
and a bit of life force borrowed from
her allies she manages to repair the
structure with the team safely back home
and the crisis averted everything
appears to be going back to normal
recognizing just how powerful she has
become she intentionally limits her
powers however
Cyclops who’s closest to Jean can’t help
but remark that there’s something
different about Jean now that she’s
adopted her new identity as Phoenix
little did he know just how right he was
for a number of years Jean would
continue to operate as the Phoenix
flexing her new abilities to the benefit
of her teammates little did they realize
however there was much more to Phoenix
than a power upgrade kicking off in
uncanny x-men number 129 the Dark
Phoenix saga dove deeper into the
mystery of genes new powers revealing
them to have come at a far greater cost
than anyone could have imagined the
storyline starts off with a little bit
of mental manipulation courtesy of
Hellfire Club member and master illusion
maker jason wyngarde
aka master might as part of his evil
machinations he’s projecting a fictional
history of he and jeans respective
ancestors having a shared romance
centuries earlier in an attempt to make
her fall in love with him creepy for
genes part
she’s seemingly just trying to work on
her relationship with Cyclops slowly but
surely however these fabricated
realities begin to affect Jean she’s
reliving the life of fictional Lady Grey
her supposed ancestor and Queen black of
the Hellfire Club as designed by the
mastermind to seduce her towards not
just him but a life of decadence
considering the sick and twisted
Weingard manages to get Jean to kiss him
in front of Cyclops no less it’s clear
that his efforts are paying off all the
while a larger conflict has been brewing
between the Hellfire Club and the x-men
in issue number 131 it finally comes to
a head and Phoenix comes to blows with
the white Queen Emma Frost and quickly
overpowers her but so colossal is her
display a force that it actually
frightens her fellow x-men member storm
what storm saw wasn’t Jean using her
abilities it was her being consumed by
the Phoenix between the mental
manipulations of mastermind which are
still unknown to Jean and her fellow
x-men and her ever more unstable nature
as the Phoenix Jean begins to feel like
a ticking time bomb waiting to go off
when the x-men take the fight to their
foes by infiltrating the Hellfire Club
they find the tables turned on them when
mastermind showcases just how strong his
influence over Jean has become
transforming her into the black queen
who attacks the x-men now the thing
about trying to brainwash and manipulate
a being of awesome power is they don’t
like to be tamed when Jean sees Scott
fall in psychic combat with Master Mind
his spell over her is broken but so too
is the final
grief separation between Jean Grae and
the Phoenix an unhinged Jean goes after
a fleeing mastermind except she’s not
Jean anymore just a storm feared she’s
given herself over to the Phoenix the
Phoenix corners mastermind and in a
mocking and cruel fashion overloads the
villains brain by showing him the
vastness of the cosmos cosmic beings are
not to be messed with
though this initially seem like just
another Phoenix episode upon returning
to the plane it becomes clear that the
Phoenix is now fully in control donning
a new costume she declares Jean to be
gone and then in a show of her power
incarnate destroys their aircraft ladies
and gentlemen behold the Phoenix and all
her terrifying glory she quickly and
savagely dispatches of the x-men before
soaring off into space this is when
things get really scary she literally
feeds on a star in shower space
destroying all life on a neighboring
planet in the process she then returns
her sights to earth now recognized as a
cosmic threat the Phoenix unites
countless species from across the galaxy
in a shared purpose destroying her the
x-men hoped to be able to dampen her
powers but they must also come to terms
with a very real possibility that they
may have to use lethal force against
their one-time ally and friend while
some fancy teleportation we’re courtesy
of Nightcrawler gets the synaptic
scrambler on the Dark Phoenix even her
limited abilities proved too much for
the x-men to overcome she’s in agony but
she continues to fight this is where
things start to get sad when Wolverine
gets close to dark Phoenix
some part of gene breaks through and
begs with her friend to kill her as you
can imagine the request weighs heavy on
Logan
and before he can bring himself to do it
the moment has passed worse yet the
synaptic scrambler has failed
returned to full strength the Dark
Phoenix proceeds to mentally assault the
x-men Scott almost brings her down but
in the end his Professor X who
ultimately overcomes Dark Phoenix
forcing it back down in genes mind the
Phoenix no longer poses an immediate
threat but it’s only a matter of time
before it reasserts its will over Jean
transported by the Shire on to empress
lilandra cruiser the x-men are informed
that the Galactic Council has sentenced
her to death
our heroes naturally refuse to accept
such a decision and so a challenge is
established between them and the Shiar
Imperial Guard to decide genes fate it’s
an emotional moment with Jean donning
her classic costume and sharing one
tonight with Scott in the ensuing battle
however the inevitable happens and the
dark phoenix is reawakened the x-men are
forced to once again fight their ally
but when none of them can bring
themselves to kill her Jean in a
heartbreaking moment finds the strength
to do it herself using an ancient weapon
that leaves her vaporized Scott having
witnessed genes death
realizes that this was her plan from the
moment they arrived on the ship Jean
could no longer go on living with the
deaths of five billion people on her
conscience thus concludes one of the
most influential and pivotal x-men
stories ever told
though Jean Grey would return to comics
was not for another six years making her
death one of the most enduring and
far-reaching in comics of course this
wasn’t the last we’d see of the Phoenix
force either do you agree with our picks
check out these other great clips from
WatchMojo and be sure to subscribe and
ring the bell to be notified about our
latest videos [Music]
first introduced to the Phoenix force
but its rival on earth remains one of
the biggest events in x-men history
welcome to story arc explained the
series that gets you up to speed on the
comics you didn’t read before we begin
we publish new content every day so be
sure to subscribe to our Channel and
ring the bell to get notified about our
latest videos today we’re recapping the
Phoenix saga as told in the pages of
1976’s uncanny x-men number 101 to 108
written by Chris Claremont as well as
1980s game-changing Dark Phoenix saga
from uncanny x-men number 129 to 138
written by Chris Claremont and John
burned forget everything you learned in
x-men The Last Stand the misguided a
much maligned third film in the original
x-men trilogy hardly scratches the
surface of its source material the movie
reduced the Phoenix to a split
personality of Jean Grey’s long
telepathically repressed by Charles
Xavier for her safety
and that of others the comics by
contrast tell a very different story of
an immortal extraterrestrial entity of
pure energy the Phoenix force
no wonder Fox decided to give this
storyline a second shot on the big
I’m looking at it now our tale begins as
all the best ones do on a damaged
spaceship fighting to safely re-enter
Earth’s atmosphere having survived the
dramatic offworld events of uncanny
x-men number 100 our heroes are a little
worse for wear Jean in particular having
telepathically learned how to fly the
ship
she’s simultaneously at the helm and
trying to protect herself from the fatal
radiation of a solar storm using a
kinetic shield she’s essentially
sacrificing herself for her friends and
allies they make it to earth but Jean
has been fundamentally altered rising
from the water near the site of their
crash landing she’s rocking a new
costume and declares herself to be the
Phoenix and power incarnate before
passing out her teammates are all
naturally concerned but after returning
her to the mansion and being informed
that she will recover
they breathe a collective sigh of relief
and returned to their crime-fighting
responsibilities while she regains her
strength they tangle with juggernaut and
black Tom you know the usual stuff Jean
eventually recovers and becomes well
enough to get up move around and even
visit her parents at first there are no
signs of her having changed but the
Phoenix makes his presence known when
empress lilandra of the Shiar empire
teleports onto the scene followed by
none other than Fire Lord this was our
first real taste of jeans new powers and
they certainly made a big impression
she’s more than capable of holding her
own against the one-time Herald of
Galactus and later shows herself
powerful enough to power an interstellar
transporter which she and her fellow
x-men obviously go through on the other
end of the warp gate Phoenix and the
x-men find themselves on an alien planet
and drawn into a rather convoluted
cosmic conflict at the center of it all
as the Makran crystal a massive ancient
and powerful object tied to the cosmos
that once every million years opens a
gateway to seemingly ultimate power
it’s classic 70s material don’t worry
about the technicalities of it the
crucial concern is that attempting to
access or harness this power risks
destroying the universe and all of
existence with reality itself blinking
in and out there’s only one hero strong
enough to save the day gene travels into
the crystal where things only get
weirder but with her newfound abilities
and a bit of life force borrowed from
her allies she manages to repair the
structure with the team safely back home
and the crisis averted everything
appears to be going back to normal
recognizing just how powerful she has
become she intentionally limits her
powers however
Cyclops who’s closest to Jean can’t help
but remark that there’s something
different about Jean now that she’s
adopted her new identity as Phoenix
little did he know just how right he was
for a number of years Jean would
continue to operate as the Phoenix
flexing her new abilities to the benefit
of her teammates little did they realize
however there was much more to Phoenix
than a power upgrade kicking off in
uncanny x-men number 129 the Dark
Phoenix saga dove deeper into the
mystery of genes new powers revealing
them to have come at a far greater cost
than anyone could have imagined the
storyline starts off with a little bit
of mental manipulation courtesy of
Hellfire Club member and master illusion
maker jason wyngarde
aka master might as part of his evil
machinations he’s projecting a fictional
history of he and jeans respective
ancestors having a shared romance
centuries earlier in an attempt to make
her fall in love with him creepy for
genes part
she’s seemingly just trying to work on
her relationship with Cyclops slowly but
surely however these fabricated
realities begin to affect Jean she’s
reliving the life of fictional Lady Grey
her supposed ancestor and Queen black of
the Hellfire Club as designed by the
mastermind to seduce her towards not
just him but a life of decadence
considering the sick and twisted
Weingard manages to get Jean to kiss him
in front of Cyclops no less it’s clear
that his efforts are paying off all the
while a larger conflict has been brewing
between the Hellfire Club and the x-men
in issue number 131 it finally comes to
a head and Phoenix comes to blows with
the white Queen Emma Frost and quickly
overpowers her but so colossal is her
display a force that it actually
frightens her fellow x-men member storm
what storm saw wasn’t Jean using her
abilities it was her being consumed by
the Phoenix between the mental
manipulations of mastermind which are
still unknown to Jean and her fellow
x-men and her ever more unstable nature
as the Phoenix Jean begins to feel like
a ticking time bomb waiting to go off
when the x-men take the fight to their
foes by infiltrating the Hellfire Club
they find the tables turned on them when
mastermind showcases just how strong his
influence over Jean has become
transforming her into the black queen
who attacks the x-men now the thing
about trying to brainwash and manipulate
a being of awesome power is they don’t
like to be tamed when Jean sees Scott
fall in psychic combat with Master Mind
his spell over her is broken but so too
is the final
grief separation between Jean Grae and
the Phoenix an unhinged Jean goes after
a fleeing mastermind except she’s not
Jean anymore just a storm feared she’s
given herself over to the Phoenix the
Phoenix corners mastermind and in a
mocking and cruel fashion overloads the
villains brain by showing him the
vastness of the cosmos cosmic beings are
not to be messed with
though this initially seem like just
another Phoenix episode upon returning
to the plane it becomes clear that the
Phoenix is now fully in control donning
a new costume she declares Jean to be
gone and then in a show of her power
incarnate destroys their aircraft ladies
and gentlemen behold the Phoenix and all
her terrifying glory she quickly and
savagely dispatches of the x-men before
soaring off into space this is when
things get really scary she literally
feeds on a star in shower space
destroying all life on a neighboring
planet in the process she then returns
her sights to earth now recognized as a
cosmic threat the Phoenix unites
countless species from across the galaxy
in a shared purpose destroying her the
x-men hoped to be able to dampen her
powers but they must also come to terms
with a very real possibility that they
may have to use lethal force against
their one-time ally and friend while
some fancy teleportation we’re courtesy
of Nightcrawler gets the synaptic
scrambler on the Dark Phoenix even her
limited abilities proved too much for
the x-men to overcome she’s in agony but
she continues to fight this is where
things start to get sad when Wolverine
gets close to dark Phoenix
some part of gene breaks through and
begs with her friend to kill her as you
can imagine the request weighs heavy on
Logan
and before he can bring himself to do it
the moment has passed worse yet the
synaptic scrambler has failed
returned to full strength the Dark
Phoenix proceeds to mentally assault the
x-men Scott almost brings her down but
in the end his Professor X who
ultimately overcomes Dark Phoenix
forcing it back down in genes mind the
Phoenix no longer poses an immediate
threat but it’s only a matter of time
before it reasserts its will over Jean
transported by the Shire on to empress
lilandra cruiser the x-men are informed
that the Galactic Council has sentenced
her to death
our heroes naturally refuse to accept
such a decision and so a challenge is
established between them and the Shiar
Imperial Guard to decide genes fate it’s
an emotional moment with Jean donning
her classic costume and sharing one
tonight with Scott in the ensuing battle
however the inevitable happens and the
dark phoenix is reawakened the x-men are
forced to once again fight their ally
but when none of them can bring
themselves to kill her Jean in a
heartbreaking moment finds the strength
to do it herself using an ancient weapon
that leaves her vaporized Scott having
witnessed genes death
realizes that this was her plan from the
moment they arrived on the ship Jean
could no longer go on living with the
deaths of five billion people on her
conscience thus concludes one of the
most influential and pivotal x-men
stories ever told
though Jean Grey would return to comics
was not for another six years making her
death one of the most enduring and
far-reaching in comics of course this
wasn’t the last we’d see of the Phoenix
force either do you agree with our picks
check out these other great clips from
WatchMojo and be sure to subscribe and
ring the bell to be notified about our
latest videos [Music]
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