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The Dark Phoenix Saga, Part Four: The Fate Of The Phoenix
Comparison By A. Magik, Media By Stu and James Harvey
X-Men often adapted stories from the comic to the screen. But due to the different nature of each medium,
no episode could be directly translated. Presented in the list below is a list of changes from the comics to the
episode. This episode is based on Uncanny X-Men #137.
Similarities:
 -Both versions of the X-Men have members in Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, and Beast.
-The roster of the Imperial Guard is the same in both versions: Gladiator, Oracle, Starbolt, Smasher, Warstar
(B'nee and C'il), Earthquake, Manta, and Hussar.
-Majestrix Lilandra captures the X-Men, declaring her official duty to execute Phoenix. The X-Men are
willing to defend Phoenix.
-Professor Xavier declares the Arin'nn Haelar, a Shi'ar duel of honor that cannot be refused. This means
that the X-Men will duel with the Imperial Guard, with the winner deciding the vindication or condemnation
of Phoenix.
-Beast has misgivings about the Professor having the team participate in this duel without their consent.
-Lilandra has a communications insta-link with the Supreme Intelligence of the Kree Empire and the Empress of the
Skrull Empire. They both consent to the duel.
-The X-Men have time to think about their decisions (some practice in a battle room). Beast
questions the ethical issues behind Lilandra's death warrant on Phoenix. The team unanimously
decide to fight for Phoenix.
-Phoenix, her powers supressed to normal levels, decides to fight the duel in her old costume
as Marvel Girl, with green miniskirt and yellow mask, gloves, and boots. She gets support from
Cyclops to fight on her side, whatever the cost.
-As Lilandra's flagship hovers over the moon, the X-Men and the Imperial Guard are separately
teleported to a "Blue Area" on the Moon, an old ruin with an atmosphere.
-The X-Men fight the Imperial Guard. The Guard owns most of the X-Men.
-Battles adapted from the comic:
· Gladiator pulls a floor off Storm and an X-Man, causing them to fall off a cliff. Storm safely
pulls the X-Man to a safe descent. Their ground is again upset by Earthquake. Storm uses her wind
powers to fling stones back at Earthquake. Her guard diverted, Storm gets surprised by the whip of
Hussar (in the comic, the whip winds around her neck. In the cartoon, it is her waist with an electric shock).
Earthquake dispatches Storm quickly (though it's more violent in the comic, Earthquake spraying a volley of
stones at her with the bullet-like speed).
· One X-Man gets toasted by Manta.
· B'nee and C'cil of Warstar separates into two attacks. Beast fights one of them.
· Oracle mindblasts one X-Man.
· The strongest X-Man fights with Gladiator. This X-Man drops a pillar on Gladiator, whose calm posture
proves more resilent than the pillar that breaks upon his head. The fight eventually causes their
surroundings to collapse on them. Gladiator arises from the wreckage, bearing the defeated X-Man
(From a tele-screen, Professor Xavier views this defeat and despairs. Lilandra reluctantly stays away from him).
· The only X-Men left standing, Cyclops and Marvel Girl are getting cornered by the Guard. They hide in an alcove,
with Marvel Girl providing a wall of lunar dust to hide themselves. They have a moment of love, then charge out to
fight again.
· Cyclops gets injured. The shock and grief Marvel Girl feels to this shatters the psychic blocks supressing
her powers. She becomes Phoenix again. She instantly defeats the Guard and hits Lilandra's flagship.
· Professor Xavier realizes things have gone too far. He telepathically revives his fallen X-Men, telling
them to destroy Phoenix while she is still weak!
· Cyclops reluctantly blasts a tower to fall on Phoenix.
· Storm hits Phoenix with a hurricane.
· The strongest X-Man pounces upon Phoenix, punching her.
· Her darkside consuming her, Phoenix pleads for her teammates to kill her. They refuse. She runs
away. Cyclops pursues her. Phoenix insists that she die. She can't fight this power, fearful that
she will slip and go insane again.
· Phoenix relies on an alien cannon to destroy her. A powerless Cyclops watches in shock.
Differences:
 -In the comic, Colossus and Nightcrawler are X-Men in this story, not Gambit and Rogue. Beast and Angel are guests.
-In the comic, Lilandra's declaration and Xavier's Arin'nn Haelar occurred on her flagship, not on Earth.
-Comic Xavier didn't need to rape Lilandra's mind to learn about the Arin'nn Haelar at that moment (unlike his
cartoon counterpart). In the comic, Xavier had a previous stay at the Empire before this, where he learned about
the custom.
-Comic Lilandra is somewhat glad that Xavier is using the custom (though she still plans to destroy Phoenix).
Cartoon Lilandra has misgivings.
-Cartoon Lilandra's motive to destroy Phoenix is fear that she might destroy lives. Her comic counterpart had
better reasons, since comic Phoenix destroyed an inhabited planet (and a Shi'ar cruiser, though that's small fry
compared to planetary genocide).
-Xavier doesn't try to reason with Lilandra in the comic.
-The cartoon omits the Kree and Skrull representatives sent to witness the battle.
-In the comic, it is Wolverine (not Gambit) who falls with Storm.
-Comic Storm is by herself in her battle with Earthquake and Hussar.
-Wolverine's adventures are different. In the comic, he gets pushed- and fades into- Uatu the Watcher's house.
After a brief warning, he gets kicked out, meets, and attacks the Skrull rep before getting blasted unconscious
by the Kree rep. The Skrull rep repays this gratitude by attacking the Kree rep (What happens to them is another
story...)
-In the comic, Beast fights the smaller Warstar B'nee (and gets shocked unconsious). In
the cartoon, he fights C'cil.
-In the comic, it is Angel (not Rogue) who gets mind-blasted by Oracle. It is Colossus (not Rogue)
who fights Gladiator. It is Nightcrawler (not Wolverine) who gets fried by Manta.
-In the comic, the battle wears upon the X-Men's costumes, getting ripped and torn (Storm is especially
dressed in tatters). The cartoon X-Men's clothing comes out fine.
-In the cartoon, Wolverine hesitates about killing Phoenix. In the comic, it is he who thrusts
Colossus down on Phoenix, throwing him to kill her (this becomes Rogue punching her in the cartoon).
-Unlike the cartoon, comic Phoenix doesn't turn Dark Phoenix during the final battle. She is getting there,
though.
-In the comic, Phoenix has an old alien cannon destroy her. In the cartoon, she moves
the Shi'ar flagship over her, letting Lilandra blast her from above.
-Most importantly, comic Phoenix is destroyed and remains destroyed. In the cartoon, the
Phoenix entity separates from its dead host. The entity allows allows the X-Men to use their
lifeforces to resurrect Jean.
-The comic shows nothing of how the X-Men got back to Earth.
Interesting facts:
-The Blue Area on the moon was a city created- and then abandoned- by the Kree aliens. Uatu the Watcher
stays nearby it. The area was later inhabited by the Inhumans of Attilan.
-In many ways, the cartoon conclusion to the Dark Phoenix Saga was faithful to the planned ending.
Chris Claremont and John Byrne had planned for Jean Grey to be stripped of her powers (via a psychic
lobotomy by the Shi'ar designed to strip Jean entirely of her super powers. The Shi'ar didn't plan to
kill the host, fearing it might undo the repairs she made to the M'krann crystal in UXM#108. They wanted
to remove any threat of becoming Phoenix again). Editor Jim Shooter accepted this, having read the original
script which gave no indication that Phoenix did anything morally wrong. However, this changed when Shooter
learned of John Byrne's last-minute addition of Dark Phoenix destroying an inhabited planet. Shooter now
insisted that Phoenix pay for her genocidal actions, even though Claremont excused it as a moment of insanity
where Phoenix was not in the right state of mind. Planning at one point for the punishment to be strapped to a
asteroid for all eternity, Claremont and Byrne decided that Phoenix commit suicide.
-Now, you must have noticed that I always put Phoenix instead of Jean Grey. It is because, from 1985 to now,
Marvel canon states that Jean Grey and Phoenix were never one and the same. It was retconned that the Phoenix
entity became curious with Jean's sacrifice in the shuttle back in UXM #100. The entity wanted to
learn about humanity through Jean. So, it promised Jean the X-Men's safety, but in return, taking her
emotions. She agreed. The entity absorbed Jean, the flush of humanity overwhelming its own consciousness
to the point that the entity actually believed it was Jean Grey. The entity then wrapped the dying girl into
a healing cocoon. When the shuttle crashed into Jamaica Bay, the coccon was forgotten and left there until a few
years later, when the Avengers located it. The cartoon kept the Jean-as-Phoenix idea originally used, though it
made the corruption the entity's fault instead of Jean (the comic still keeps the dark Jean factor, since the entity
did replicate all of Jean's personality, including the good and bad side of her humanity) Rather then keep writing
about this in every post, I decided to just call Jean Phoenix.
-I dunno, but the way the cartoon X-Men restore Phoenix to life is based on a Legion of Super-Heroes
story, where the team surround the dead Lightning Lad, ready to give their life energies to revive him.
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