This is a huge post, because these issues can’t be broken up–it’s one long story, and one of the greatest of all time.
The superstar team of Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin created the group that spawned future Cyclops lover Emma “White Queen” Frost in The Uncanny X-Men #129. They started as sort of an evil version of Professor X’s Academy for Gifted Youngsters.
Very quickly, the group became a formidable opponent to the X-Men. So far, we’ve seen Mastermind plotting to psychically “turn” Phoenix into a black version of Sebastian Shaw’s fuckbuddy Emma Frost, the White Queen. The other members have been in shadow. But now we see them.
The X-Men visit the Club through the front door, for a gala. And so we meet Donald Pierce…
…AKA “The White Bishop.” He’s actually a cyborg with heightened strength.
No sooner do they arrive at the Club’s party, then Wyngarde finally turns her into Black Queen.
The rest of the team spring into action, and we meet Sebastian Shaw–who can absorb blows and use them as his own.
And Harry Leland, whose mass-control powers make people heavier, so they can’t move.
He makes Wolverine so heavy that he falls through the floor and into the sewer.
Ah, the iconic picture of Wolverine in the sewer, looking at the reader, that has become a classic shot—one used as a reference point for everything that makes the character great.
He then slices through members of the Club’s guard–three of whom will become members of Donald Pierce’s Reavers group in the ’90s. Wade Cole and Angelo Macon:
And Murray Reese:
But they’re not identifiable in these issues because they wear the blank-face masks of the Club’s security team.
The team is captured, but Jean shakes off Mastermind’s psychic hold and enables them to free themselves.
And then she turns on her Hellfire Club allies.
Because she’s Phoenix.
Mastermind’s mind-messing has unintentionally unleashed the Dark Phoenix. The power is too much for her, and on their way home from Hellfire Club, she blows up the Blackbird aircraft. Beast sees the crash from Avengers Mansion and arrives to help.
Consumed with the hunger of her power, Phoenix flies into space and destroys entire planets, and then begins her return to Earth. Naturally, that gets the attention of the Shi’Ar empire.
The power surge and her imminent arrival back on Earth is recognized by several Marvel characters who get single-panel cameos, as well as President Carter.
The X-Men fight her when she returns, until Professor X seems to dislocate the Phoenix Force and return Jean Grey to her own body.
But the Shi’Ar teleport all of them to their spaceship–intent on holding Jean accountable for the actions of the Phoenix Force that possessed her.
The X-Men fight to defender her at first, but Dark Phoenix takes over again, and Jean uses her powers to force Cyclops to kill her.
That is suicide–and the most impactful one so far in Marvel history,
Jean knows she has to die, she knows her own power is too strong for her to contain. She doesn’t want to have live and be in constant vigilance against the power inside of her. So, she says goodbye to Scott. Scott sees what she’s going to do and cries out. And in that moment, she has doubt—she screams his name and puts her hand reflexively forward in a defensive position. She’s not reaching for him, because the palm is up—she’s telling him at once to stay back but also crying for him. At the moment of her selfless suicide, she realizes she doesn’t want to die.
And I’m sure that’s all John Byrne.
Watcher and Recorder offer an epitaph.
Yeah, it’s the most written-about arc in comics because it’s one of the best.
In fact, I can’t think of a single Jean Grey story written after Marvel unwisely brought her back to life that was better than any of the stories that happened before her death.
The death of Phoenix is one of the best stories of the 1980s.