X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga Prose Novel
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One of the most popular X-Men epics of all time, revealing the birth of perhaps the deadliest force in the galaxy--Dark Phoenix. Piloting a shuttle through a deadly solar flare, Jean Grey saves the X-Men, but is possessed by one of the universe's most powerful forces--the Phoenix. As she adapts to her new powers, the mutant team launches an assault against the clandestine organization known as the Hellfire Club. Once inside, however, Jean is tricked by the villain Mastermind into betraying her teammates. She becomes first the Hellfire Club's Black Queen and then Dark Phoenix, as the power to destroy worlds bursts forth uncontrolled. Shooting into deep space, Jean destroys an entire star system, then encounters a cruiser piloted by the spacefaring race the Shi'ar. When the cruiser is obliterated, the Shi'ar queen decrees that the Phoenix must die. But only the X-Men can hope to stop Dark Phoenix, and save Jean Grey.
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The story of The (Dark) Phoenix has always intrigued me, having first seen it adapted in the 1990s X-Men cartoon, but not quite taking in how complicated the X-Men/Marvel universe was at the time and more recently with the X-Men/Fox film franchise that started in 2000, culminating in 2019's “Dark Phoenix”, starring Sophie Turner as Jean Grey.
So, in the build up, I go looking for material and I come at this as a fan of the film franchise, which created an Earth based singular X-Men universe, rather than an aficionado of the comic books/Marvel universe which incorporates other characters from Marvel's universe with crossovers from other series as well as multiple timelines.
Here we have a twenty first century novelisation of the graphic novel that is recognised as a classic within the X-Men canon, a difficult task by Moore's own admission since the original Dark Phoenix Saga was published back in the 1980s - complete with Skype and mobile phones. The characterisation of the X-Men reminded me so much of the cartoon series.
Did I like it? Yes. Would I have enjoyed it more if I were more aware of the Marvel universe and read the comics before hand? Yes.
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11 primary booksMarvel Titan Books is a 11-book series with 11 primary works first released in 2012 with contributions by Stuart Moore, Alexander C. Irvine, and 6 others.
