Note: This is a classic archive episode from the vault, originally broadcast back in the ill-fated year of 2019!
Welcome back to Collecting Issues, ladies and gentlemen! This week, Mick and Ben are looking into an absolute titan of comic book history: Marvel’s The Dark Phoenix Saga (collecting Uncanny X-Men #129-137), first published in the bloody 1980s by the legendary creative team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne.
Join us as we tackle a comic run that is somehow marginally older than both of us and infinitely more packed with leather corsets than we remembered. We’re digging deep into the cosmic epic that has been adapted by almost every X-Men cartoon and movie timeline (with wildly varying degrees of success).
In this episode, we cover:
Whether you're here for the definitive tragic tale of Jean Grey, the introduction of Kitty Pryde and Dazzler, or just to watch Cyclops stumble around in a gimp hood, this is a veritable smorgasbord of juicy X-Men goodness.
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Time Stamps:
00:00 Archive Episode Setup
00:32 Dark Phoenix Overview
01:50 Adaptations and Legacy
04:20 Plot Kicks Off Muir Island
05:24 Wyngarde and Hellfire Club
07:49 Hellfire Battles and Big Twist
09:58 Claremont Kinks and Controversy
14:30 Young X Men and Early Wolverine
17:54 Modern Wolverine Born
19:10 Trade Extras And Covers
20:02 Dialogue And Stereotypes
20:58 Low Powered Early X Men
22:22 Cyclops Melodrama Era
23:06 Why This Run Matters
26:21 Hickman Era Comparisons
28:43 Dark Phoenix In Space
30:29 Byrne Art And Origins
31:51 Recommendations And Wrap