Written by Chris Claremont
Penciled by Dave Cockrum and John Byrne
Published 1976-1977
For most comic book fans, whenever you hear mention of the Dark Phoneix, you immediately think Jean Gray flying around on fire, looking all possessed and being mad, essentially. But before you can jump headfirst into that realm of the Marvel universe, one wonders where the phoenix force came into contact with Jean in the first place. The following is a quick summary of those events - before the dark part. Encapsulated in Uncanny X-Men issues 101-109, this is the Dark Phoenix Saga - part 1.
From 1970 to 1975, the Uncanny X-Men were just publishing reprints of the books' classic issues with new covers. The book had seemingly run it's course until Giant Size X-Men #1 introduced a new team of mutants to take the original team's place. More importantly, the title brought on the man who single-handily took Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's creations and slowly turned them into a comic book phenomenon, the incomparable Chris Claremont.
In Uncanny X-Men 100, the team fights Dr. Steven Lang, head of the Armageddon project on SHIELD's long abandoned orbital platform. During their re-entry, they realize the ships controls are jammed and as they hurtle towards a deadly and radioactive solar flare, the only way they can survive is if Marvel Girl Jean Gray takes control of the plane telepathically. As they near it, the radiation seeps through her shield... presumably harming her as the plane hurtles towards earth.
After a water landing, all of the other X-Men surface from the planes wreckage except for Jean, whom they all assume is dead. As Cyclops plans to dive in to save her, she suddenly flies from the water enveloped in flames and introduces herself, screaming I am fire, and life incarnate! Now and forever, I am Phoenix,.." and with that, a super hero saga was born.
As she recovers in the hospital, Professor X requests only Scott stay, and sends the group of new X-men: Banshee, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine on vacation to Banshee's childhood castle home in Ireland, which unfortunately turns out to be his evil cousin's lair. Together. Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut fight the new X-Men before eventually losing. Meanwhile, Jean is alert and awake in the hospital, but quietly tells friends that.. no big deal.. she's come back from the dead.
Throughout the next few issues, the X-Men face various foes, old and new. Including Magneto, Erik the Red, even Havok. Eventually Jean is released, and when the herald of Galactus shows up, Firelord as he's called, he gets the first taste of her wrath as the Phoenix. At one point, Jean's new powers are strong enough to open a portal to space, allowing a showdown between the Sh'air Empire and the Starjammers, but as their battle rages, the light part of the powers she possesses sees their climax. She becomes an ethereal force, and is able to literally save all of mankind by holding the lattice of the M'Krann Crystal together. It's here that she realizes that with the release of her phoenix force, she has nearly unlimited powers. After the battle, the rest of the team find themselves back on earth. And this time, they know what Jean Gray can do. Over the course of the rest of the books in this series, she uses her powers to help the team and works to understand them. But coming for them all is a time when she realizes she can do anything. And it's only human for that power to eventually become corrupted.
This run of comics to me really show what Chris Claremont meant to this title. Although his wheelhouse was always dealing with the mystics of space, he gave this legendary group of X-Men their first chance at real life. Although I'm the first one to pretty much gag anytime the Starjammers showed up in these old books, you had to take the good with the bad, the elf with the Ruskie, Cyke with the furball, the bamfs with the banshee screams, and so forth. It's a good run of books and it gets even better in the next few years from this point.
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