X-Men: Enter The Phoenix

Rating:
Summary: Enter The Phoenix
Review: In Enter The Phoenix we witness the first (?) time (chronologicaly at least) Jean Grey merging with the Phoenix, a cosmic force so great that few but the creator can match it. My copy of the story is one of the "Marvel Masterworks" books (Uncanny X-men 101 - 110) and starts with the X-Men crashing a Space Shuttle into Jamaica Bay. During the flight in space the shuttle has passed through a solar storm with very high radiation. With a scientist and the rest of the X-men sheltered in a radiation chamber, Jean Grey, then Marvel Girl, pilots the shuttle through. Though it should have meant certain death, Jean merges with the phoenix force and survives. (Actually her nearly dead body is placed in a healing cocoon at the botom at the bay and it is the phoenix "borrowing" Jean's form that emerges from the waters in front of her astonished team- mates. See "Dark Phoenix Saga" and "Inferno" for further details.) Jean is placed in a hospital for recovery and the X-Men is sent on a vacation to Cassidy Keep (Sean Cassidy aka Banshee's ancestral home in Ireland). I wont spoil the fun by telling you everything that happens though, so I think I'll stop here. The plot, written by Claremont,is very good but not the best he has done. Dave Cockrum's art (at the end John Byrne takes over) is also very good and not like todays misproportioned characters. What I like most with the story is Claremonts ability to mix fast paced action with deeply emotional pasages like when Scott in the hospital finds out that Jean's going to survive. His sense of epic melodrama is no doubt one of the major reasons X-Men was/is so popular (altough he sometimes overdo it.) In this book Jean Grey/Phoenix almost Single-handedly saves the universe (though the raw power of the phoenix is not enough, she needs the aid of her fellow X-Men's spirits, their determination, so it's a significant 'almost'.) and displays the Phoenix as a force of goodness and harmony. The Fire is closely ascosiated with the Phoenix and here it is the fire the warms/heals. But there is two sides to most things. If you read this you must also read the "Dark Phoenix Saga" were the fire burns insted of warms...

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but not in color
Review: This story tells how Jean Grey became Phoenix, but is a small paperback book in black and white. The whole story (3 comics) is told in a flashback in X-Men: Phoenix Rising. This book is helpful if you want to see the original comics, but you'll get the same story in color along with the rescue and return of Jean Grey if you read X-Men: Phoenix Rising. I recommend that over this.