Any comic book fan worth their salt will tell you that “The Dark Phoenix Saga” is the seminal X-Men arc in their comics. However, after a horrid adaptation of the story in X-Men: The Last Stand, we thought we’d never get to see the story done right. That might not be the case, as images from X-Men: Dark Phoenix published in Entertainment Weekly give us hope that the magnum opus will get the proper respect in that film.
The seven images give us our first look at Sophie Turner as Jean Grey as she turns into the Phoenix, Jessica Chastain as Lilandra, and a very telling piece of production art involving a Space Shuttle. Fans familiar the Phoenix’s comic book origins will know that the character is a cosmic entity who took over Jean Grey’s form after an accident in a Space Shuttle in outer space involving solar flares endangered the lives of the X-Men. The Phoenix Force allowed Grey to save her teammates, but eventually corrupted her form and became an unimaginably powerful creature of absolute evil.
It appears that this part of the origin will be added to the film continuity, which will be a break from both X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Apocalypse which hinted that the “Phoenix” was in Jean Grey all along and just a natural escalation of her powers. In my opinion, this change is a good thing, because the comic book version is a much more interesting, and more tragic, presentation of the origin.
The images are presented below. X-Men: Dark Phoenix opens November 2, 2018.
