X-Men 1975 – 1980: The Phoenix Saga

Reading the 1975 X-Men Relaunch By Chris Claremont

The 1975 relaunch of the X-Men until 1980 when the comic became The Uncanny X-Men at some point, I’m not getting into too many specifics here because it makes the page too long.

Let’s just say if you want to understand how to read the X-Men the Uncanny X-Men which is today’s big one started around 1980 after the demise of the complete original X-Men cast in the comics, that’s when Wolverine takes over and becomes their “somewhat leader”, not that he is their official leader it just falls to him in the books.

To get all this stuff and understand the Marvel Comics Universe you need to understand the 1975 relaunch of the X-Men.

This is called the Phoenix Saga and the Dark Phoenix Saga.

I’m trying to write this so that’s it’s not 600 pages long because the five year script is part of the official launch of the modern Marvel Comics Universe, this is where all the current modern stuff was written into the story.

When I say relaunch I not joking, this is some tough reading with a large production at Marvel to launch the modern Marvel Comics Universe and it’s not perfect and has some script issues because of it’s large scale, but that is the one that made the modern day Marvel such a huge success.

If you’re new to comic books or trying to catch up you probably can’t follow this, I mean they went from the failed Original X-men which was apparently too light to a huge production written by Chris Claremont top Comic Book writer that is extremely complicated and hard to follow, although this is a huge success readers can’t understand this.

Breaking some of this down may help people understand the series and help people get into reading comic books.

This is the setup of the Official Marvel Universe, one of the things people don’t get when reading the series is that many events in the book readers feel like they are supposed to know them already.

That is not true, reading the Phoenix Saga is the first introduction to these comic books and you’re not supposed to know what they are before reading the books, so when I say script problems I mean some readers can’t understand that this is their first introduction to the characters and story lines because the concepts are so complicated.

You have to understand that the 1975 relaunch of the X-Men is the last appearances in the comic of the original cast and ran until about 1980.

The Phoenix Saga Part 1 and the Dark Phoenix Saga Part 2 wrap up the original story and introduce you to the modern comics universe.

I’m going to try and keep this as simple as possible.

The Phoenix Saga Part 1 and Part 2.

The Phoenix Saga Part 1 is where Marvel Girl leaves the X-Men to live a regular life and becomes the Phoenix, Part 2 is the Dark Phoenix Saga where she becomes evil and dies – after this it’s the 1980’s Uncanny X-Men without Cyclops with just the all new cast.

When I say it has script problems I do not mean riddled with errors, I mean that is is so complicated that some readers can’t follow it and the story lines trail off and they along with some characters get abandoned.

This is because it is too large, but that is the point.

Running a big production like Marvel Comics in the board room is a huge task with many staff involved and planning and sometimes they can’t do all the scripts, finish the story lines and can’t make the points clear enough for readers.

That’s because they have hundreds of characters and stories due for print every morning and an ever revolving door of staff changes, in this line of work this leads to countless production problems that even a large business of this scale has.

The result is that things get abandoned and stories never get finished, don’t worry though if you’re an aspiring writer companies like this are always looking for people to take up these script plots, develop them and submit them for review because they are always looking for new writing talent.

Reviewing these old book scripts, which are the best ones, and showing you how they are written can help get you into comics and understand the stories better if you’re a fan or want to be but can’t understand them.

You have to remember that none of this stuff is perfect because it’s such a large production and story deadlines are always right now for tomorrow morning.

This is what I mean The X-Men Phoenix Saga Part 1 and Part 2 is a huge success and about five years long and the launch of the current Marvel Universe and man is it long and super complicated.

That’s why many people can’t follow it and this series like many large series has production problems because of the issues I mentioned above.

To understand the X-men relaunch and launch of the Marvel Comics Universe you need to understand that it is broken into two parts in the X-Men series, the Phoenix Saga and the Dark Phoenix Saga.

This is where the new characters and new Marvel Comics concepts are first introduced.

You do not need to know anything about Marvel Comics before reading these books, many of the concepts are first introductions.

The script problems with the books are that the concepts are so large people don’t understand them as a first introduction.

Like this…

They are not introducing you to one new character….it’s a “concept” like a different planet in outer space.

They say it’s a new planet full of “many characters”.

You do not need to know what any of that is before you read the books.

For example the X-Men travel to a new planet in the book….this new introduction is to a planet in the book full of “many” characters that no one has ever seen before.

Then they only show you one or two for the story.

They never said or showed you or anyone anything else that takes place on the new planet, when you first read the book all you need to know is that there is an new planet being introduced in the comic and that there are many characters on it.

Then they only show you one or two for the adventure in the Comic Book.

That is the main concept you need to understand to read the X-Men, what they are telling you is that there is a whole universe there in the background that’s full of characters that you never see, then when you read the comic you only see one or two from the other planets in the actual comic book story.

Researching these books what I found out is that the success of the comic books largely depend on the readers connection with the story that they relate to themselves, like girls relate to romance parts and boys relate to action parts speaking in general terms.

One of the main parts I found that people relate to in the books is when the characters take a vacation after their mission and go out and have fun.

In the books the successful parts are they do their work on a big mission and then come home and take a rest for a while and go on vacation, that is one of the top parts I found that readers relate to in the books when they read them over a long period.

Just like in real life you do your work and then go take a vacation and have fun and relax for a while, that’s the fun part for many readers of the comic books.

Reading the complete Phoenix Saga one of the parts that stood out to me as script problems were concepts that I didn’t relate to in the series, when I was a kid reading this in reprints in the 1980’s I could barely get through these parts.

It’s the Hellfire Club section in the Phoenix Saga, I find there are huge script problems with that.

In that part of the series which is super slow and drawn out in the books there is this evil club that tries to recruit Jean Gray (Marvel Girl) and they are dressed up in costumes from the 1800’s in an old mansion in this slow story line from the 1800’s.

I did not relate to this as a kid and I still don’t, I mean some people might but I don’t.

All I can assume is that in the 1970’s this section of the books, like most Marvel concepts, relate to outside events happening in real life and their must have been some kind of trend or something going on that they included in the books, to me it is super boring and the series would have been way better without it.

That is the main section of script problems I find in Phoenix Saga, I mean it runs for too long and I don’t relate to it as a reader and it goes on for too long.

If I was running Marvel I would have cut that from the series.

However, I understand the point to why they included it.

In the books after the big action missions they have downtime to reset the story and give readers a break to relax and ease back into the next story line, this is where the vacation story lines come in.

So this is a downtime story line, so I understand that.

Not only that in the script Marvel Girl (Jean Gray, Phoenix) has left and is on her own separate from the X-Men and begins turning into the “Dark Phoenix”.

What they are doing in the book is giving her and old character from the failed Original X-Men, which by the 1970’s must have been getting too soft and readers abandoned it, to kill off when she becomes evil.

The character is from Magneto’s “Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants” from X-Men #4 who Jean Gray kills I think, while becoming evil while he tries to recruit her so he can gain membership into the Hellfire Club.

So they took an old character from the abandoned X-Men series and let Jean Gray kill them off to become Dark Phoenix, no big deal there.

The character who is an illusionist tricks Jean Gray into thinking she is an Evil Queen or something in the 1800’s in a drawn out story that I find goes on for too long and I can’t relate to, later Jean Gray kills him or something while the X-Men are gone on vacation.

At the same point in the story Professor X is spending time on a different planet…that’s where people get lost, you don’t need to know anything about the other planet.

The planet is a new introduction for Marvel in the relaunch and that’s just where the story takes place with several other characters, you don’t need to know anything else to follow the story.

Later, everyone gets reunited.

At that point in the story everyone is just one separate missions.

The other concept introduced is that there are space people that they fight and gem stones in outer space.

The gemstones are super powerful and can open a secret portal on a far away planet if assembled there during an astrological alignment.

That’s all you need to know.

Just sometimes in the book they fight over the gem stones to open the portal which can transport you anywhere in the universe or trigger the “big bang effect” and destroy everything.

For example, in the book Jean Gray as Phoenix or Dark Phoenix may blow everything up or save everyone if she misuses the portal…that’s all you have to know to understand the story.

Then every once in a while people fight over the portal.

That’s only in the outer space story lines.

That’s all from the Phoenix Saga.

So what is the Phoenix?

The Phoenix is the “phoenix force” in the books, probably one of many super powerful forces in the infinite universe.

This force is part of the forces that create and destroy the universe during the big bang effect.

This is not a character, this is a force…called an entity in the book.

What they are saying in the books is that the Phoenix Force is part of the big bang effect that helps to create life in the universe at the beginning and destroy life at the end – like and impartial force of creation and destruction in the universe.

Helping give live to the universe at the beginning and destroy it at the end.

Marvel Girl, when she was a child, entered the after life trying to save her friend from being killed and witnessed the Phoenix Force of creation and destruction in the universe with her psychic power.

After this she had absorbed the Phoenix Force as she has the power to absorb other characters power in the books – it appears.

Later, Professor X blocked her pychic power to prevent her from using her powers for evil trying to give her focus on only her telekinetic powers – to movie objects etc. with her mind.

Later, Marvel Girl rejected this and began using her psychic forces to control the Phoenix Force of creation and destruction in the universe she absorbed as a child – that’s how they are saying it in the series and how I am writing it in my fan fiction script.

So Marvel Girl has “absorbed” the Phoenix Force of creation and destruction in the universe.

That is her power, then she begins living alternate lives and personalities in the stories changing costumes and characters through the phoenix force becoming different people and experiencing different lives by using the Phoenix Force, the power that creates life on planets or destroys it to experience different realities and personalities.

As if she is an “embodied” version of this force experiencing different lives on Earth.

This makes her one of the most powerful characters in Marvel Comics as she has absorbed and is controlling the Phoenix Force for the creation and destruction of the universe.

This makes her unstable as a character to the X-Men as you don’t know which person will show up – a creative or destructive force.

This makes her unstable and a failure to Professor X as she didn’t just use her powers for good only.

Although she says she is a good character I put her in the evil character section because she acts vain and selfish in the books, which is a failure to the X-Men, as she uses the Phoenix Force to create and experience alternate lives by using her telekinetic powers to control the Phoenix Force for just herself.

Although she helps the X-Men she acts vain and selfish and when she doesn’t get her way she uses the Phoenix Force as evil to get her own way even killing everyone for her own gain.

Although the Phoenix Force itself is neutral she is a person and is not, using it to experience things for herself only to get her own way, although she is a hero in the book I put her in the “serpent” category because she is selfish and you never know what you will get.

I even question if when she joined the Original X-Men if she was just lying for her own selfish purposes to get on the team and could have been guided by the Phoenix Force the whole time.

Those are the key concepts you need to understand to read the 1975 X-Men relaunch for The Phoenix Saga and The Dark Phoenix Saga as the story focuses on Jean Gray leaving the X-Men and turning into the Phoenix as she follows the path or the Phoenix Force for creating and destroying the universe experiencing alternate lives with the force embodied on Earth in herself.

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