A review by a_writer_guy
X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont

3.0

This is, by far, the oldest comic I've ever read from cover to cover. Time has not been kind. It's surreal to see how comics used to be written as opposed to how it's done today. Constant reiteration of the obvious and recap of previous events (even from the previous page!) was annoying and had me skipping large chunks of text because I'd already read it four times. I know Wolverine has unbreakable bones! I know Cyclops can shoot optic blasts! Everyone knows that! This series came out about twenty years after the X-Men first debuted. If you don't know what their powers are by now, you have horrible reading comprehension.

All that being said, this was still an interesting story. The Dark Phoenix has always been one of those terrifying villains that you know is just going to eff stuff up when they come around. It was cool to see the original series that spawned the character. The experience definitely suffered from the writing and dialogue, but I can't hold it against them too much. It was how they did stuff at the time. If I could go back in time and give them one piece of advice it would be this: the pictures are there to take the place of descriptions. Stop writing out what we're looking at as we're looking at it!

Anyway, if you love the good ol' X-Men, I recommend this one simply because it's neat to go back and look at some of their history. As anything other than a campy re-look at the good ol' days? Don't waste your time.