X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga

Comics doivent rester dans les comics pas dans les romans....

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I wasn't sure what to expect from a novelization of the X-Men's arguably most beloved and well-known comic arcs, but, as The Dark Phoenix Saga is perhaps my favorite comic story of all, I knew that I had to try it when I saw it. Ultimately, Stuart Moore did a more than adequate job in changing the style of storytelling from graphic to prose novel, though not without its own downfalls. The strongest thing about this book is that the focus is mainly on Jean Grey's character journey, and that Moore was canny enough to include lines of both dialogue and thought processes lifted directly from the comics themselves. Beyond that, we do get some chapters or sections that give us quick insights into the other major characters, especially Cyclops and Wolverine and Storm, fittingly. The book also doesn't waste the readers' time with huge sections of exposition establishing the X-Men Universe; Moore assumes that the reader knows the world they're reading about and takes it from there. Moore also has an excellent way of succinctly describing the action and the fighting, both mutant-powered and physical. Jean's exercising of the Phoenix Force was visceral and immediate, and he also did a fairly good job with the psychic elements of the story - Mastermind's mental manipulations and hallucinations, the aftermath of such an invasive thing, and all the other psychics of the story (Emma Frost, Charles Xavier, and Oracle) get a great central focus. The complexity of Jean and Logan's relationship as well as his understanding her in his own way better than Cyclops was well-played while also maintaining a real strength to Scott and Jean's love for each other. There are two oddities to take into consideration when reading this, and that is that this novel is meant to stand alone, in a sense, so it is fairly reminiscent of the films in this way. So many forget that The Phoenix Saga takes place before The Dark Phoenix Saga, where Phoenix saves the universe - a beautiful story itself that's part of what makes her downfall that much more tragic. Here, that's completely skipped over, with Jean saving the X-Men in space and then Xavier sort of randomly being in Shi'ar space with Empress Lilandra for no really explained reason. The story really picks up right after Phoenix's confrontation with Magneto in Antarctica with the supposed 'death of the X-Men' plot, and speeds the timeline up to catch Jean back up with the X-Men quicker as they meet Kitty Pryde. This is offset, however, by the author's excellent treatment of Emma Frost, adding in details and different interactions with Scott Summers that are influenced by the White Queen's later character development. The characters use cell phones and the slang is updated to set it in more modern times without being completely overt over the change. Kitty gets a few new scenes to deal with the prejudice against mutants, and more emphasis is given on the mental rape-like nature of Mastermind's assault on Jean's mind and the misogyny and racism of the Hellfire Club, giving the novel more social issue weight. Xavier takes the place of the Watcher, and has an interesting new plot with Wolverine that really worked for the story being a more contained X-Men story. The brief cameos of Dr. Strange, The Avengers, and Spider-Man are reminiscent of the animated series and some of Jean's struggles look like they were inspired by the approach taken by the films. The author also does a phenomenal job of balancing Jean's own culpability in her actions as well as establishing that the Phoenix is an alien entity as well, with Xavier researching Shi'ar 'legends' of the Chaos Bringer explaining why the Shi'ar knew about the Phoenix as well. Ultimately, it's a good, solid book that I tore through in a day that gave a solid story that made The Dark Phoenix Saga stand by itself as its own self-contained story. It's referential to the beloved 90's animated series, the films, and the comics all at once with a nice updated feel to the story. I would highly recommend it to fans of X-Men, and of the Dark Phoenix story, as well as sci-fi or Marvel fans in general.

I really thought this is a comics but it wasn’t it’s just a book

Llego algo dañado pero la historia está bien