The uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont

This volume features the 1st appearance of Madelyne Pryor, Wolverine's Wedding, and the Return of the Phoenix. When Jean Grey unwittingly became the Phoenix, she attained power beyond conceptions, and then she died. But now a woman, Madelyne Pryor, has appeared who could be Jean Grey's twin. Is she the Phoenix reborn?

If you needed a model of why X-Men became so popular/relevant in the 1980s, this is it: not flashy art, or huge crossovers, or even super villains to fight. Instead, we have a strong, thoughtful piece of character work that looks at tolerance, group identification, and the changing political and cultural landscape of 1980s America, and how that would be reflected in a superhero setting.

What saddened me, re-reading this book for the first time in over a decade, is how relevant the whole thing still feels today. I mean, Rev. Stryker might have a youtube series rather than a cable channel, and he'd be hawking certain brands of fried chicken as a way to “stand up for traditional DNA”, but otherwise, it could be published today as a statement on tolerance in the 2010s with little alteration.

I first read the Dark Phoenix Saga (as individual comics) during college in the early 90's. Given the release of the Dark Phoenix movie, I thought I'd re-read it to see any similarities. I'm not going to spoil either the comic or the movie, but I will say that similarities between the two are loose. Very loose. That said, the comic omnibus is fantastic. It covers Uncanny XMen issues 129-137 wherein Jean Grey is struggling with the Dark Phoenix, a cosmic entity that coinhabits her body and slowly gains control over her.

This is a classic XMen story arc and it occurs at a very key point in the history of the Xmen with many long-lasting effects going forward. Events from this arc essentially set in motion enemies for the XMen that lead to Days of Future Past, the Sentinels, the political adversaries that lead to the mutant registration act, Genosha, and essentially sets the broad course of the XMen for at least the next 20 years in print.

The artwork by John Byrne and Terry Austin is absolutely fantastic. It was IMHO the best artwork in comics during that era. The other thing to keep in mind is this is what lead into the explosion of mutant comics at Marvel. The XMen was changing. There's something of a reunion of the original teammates with the new members during Dark Phoenix. Not long after this run, mutants would go from 1 comic (Uncanny Xmen) to so many that it was difficult to keep up - X Factor, New Mutants, Wolverine, Excalibur, Longshot, XMen, and I'm sure there are tons of others.

Read this one before the X-Plain the X-Men podcast on it, hey it's pretty good who knew? Definitely less impactful to me however because every single plot point has been riffed on a thousand times in the decades since, but glad I went back and read it.