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 - A Decent Children's AdaptationThe Dark Phoenix Saga is certainly the most famous X-Men story line and quite possibly the most highly regarded Marvel story arc ever. In the original comic, written by Chris Claremont and penciled by John Byrne, Jean Grey, telepath and one of the original X-Men, is possessed by the spirit of the Phoenix and ultimately becomes one with this entity. She gains unlimited power, but Lord Acton's comment that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, at first seems all too prophetic. She loses touch with her humanity and causes massive destruction. Ultimately, the "real" Jean allows herself to die because she chooses her humanity over her own God-like power. (Sadly, Marvel later choose to bring back Jean Grey in one of the more unfortunate "hero returns from the dead" incidents.) All of this is pretty heavy stuff and naturally it is toned down, substantially, in the animated series. Jean Grey is resurrected immediately and the spirit of the Phoenix comes fairly close to an apology during a plea for understanding. The horror of Jean's destruction while acting as the Dark Phoenix is also downplayed. For the younger set (under 10?) this may be appropriate, but these revisions substantially undermine the power of the original story. That is sad, because for the most part the animated series did an excellent job of capturing the ethos of the X-Men universe. Bottom line: this is a decent video for younger kids, but teens and adults would be better off with the original comic X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga. If you want to see a decent revision of the story, the third movie X-Men: The Last Stand has the Phoenix as a suppressed part of Jean herself. This movie, however, is marred somewhat by tying the story line to the unrelated mutant cure story line. So in the final analysis, as is so often the case, the original is the best.
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