A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

In 1980 Marvel Comics published a story which was to become known as “The Dark Phoenix Saga”. Running in the pages of its Uncanny X-Men title it told the story of how Jean Grey, a regular in the comic since its very first issue in 1963, gained God-like powers only to become corrupted by them and have to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the universe.

It’s still revered as a classic story arc, one which was instrumental in turning the X-men from a second tier super hero title to the biggest thing in comics. And re-reading it, you can still see why. It’s a storyline that encompasses both the smallest level of interpersonal relationships to cosmic-wide terror, and seems comfortable in both. It suits the format, the plots slowly building in the background of monthly comic book issues – teasing and hinting in a way that brought the reader’s back as well as any final panel cliffhanger. It’s also an insane mix of influences and ideas, from ’50s pulp space opera, to the ’60s British Avengers TV show, with added hints of S&M bondage, anti-prejudice metaphors and hallucinatory melodrama.

A highpoint in the creative partnership of writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne – who share a credit of co-plotters on this story – its status has, I think, been enhanced by the fact that nobody ever in trying to remake or play with the concept has come even remotely close.

The most obvious attempt was 2019’s Dark Phoenix movie, the last in Fox’s X-Men movie franchise. A mess of a movie and a box office bomb of such proportions, it probably helped speed up Disney’s takeover of the ailing Fox studios. Spin-off X-Men cartoons had hinted at the idea and even the comics themselves couldn’t leave it alone. Jean Grey was resurrected in the comics five years later, while the cosmic Phoenix force has repeatedly shown up in the comics, adding complexity and convolution to the mythos if nothing of any real substance.

Which to me maybe stems from the fact that the very best of concepts in monthly comics are the most transient. The Dark Phoenix Saga works so well because of the medium it was born in. A grab-bag of Great Ideas that can power a monthly 40-cent title, and then use them to built to an epic finale, are probably best left there. It doesn’t need retelling in different media, it was told best in the media it was made for. It doesn’t need to keep coming back, all the great essential details about the concept were told in its first outing.

Disney’s Marvel Studios have yet to make their own movies featuring the X-Men in their own Cinematic Universe. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the big meetings being held right now about how best to bring this franchise to the big screen will see “Dark Phoenix” scrawled on a white board. Maybe they can find a way to make it work – maybe they’ll put together their own crazy confection of 21st century ideas that will work on the big screen. Never say never, I guess, but I can never quite shake off the thought that it’s a shame that the original story wasn’t just left with its original ending, a God obliterated and a popular hero left as a glowing pile of dust. Making way for a new creation, and an inventive new hero. But that’s another story.

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