Welcome to Adventure(s) Time's seventy-sixth installment, a look at animated heroes of the past. This week, we're moving past the prelude and getting right to it. We're going to be examining the first appearance of the Phoenix outside of comics, along with the comics inspiration for the storyline.

Debuting on September 5, 1994, "Phoenix Saga - Part I: Sacrifice" comes from writer Michael Edens, responsible for some of X-Men: The Animated Series' strongest episodes. Inspiration comes from Uncanny X-Men #97 through 100 (February to August 1976). These are the earliest moments of the Chris Claremont/Dave Cockrum team, creators responsible for much of the material still being mined by the comics and films.

The episode opens with Professor Xavier, haunted by images of alien spaceships at war. This sequence is clearly inspired by the opening of Uncanny X-Men #97.

In the animated series, Xavier orders the X-Men sneak aboard the Eagle One space station. They’re soon attacked by Erik the Red, an emissary of the alien Shi’ar.

Actually, not all of the X-Men are here. Jubilee is ordered to stay at home with Storm (no space adventures for this teen), which is understandable. Rogue, however, is missing with only a vague explanation. If you think about it, she has to miss this part of the story. Rogue’s powers would totally eliminate Jean’s role in the climax of the episode. She's invulnerable and can absorb someone's psyche -- there's no justification for Jean's heroic sacrifice with Rogue around.

Amusingly, in the comics, Xavier's response to his nightmares is to take a vacation. The X-Men dutifully send him away at JFK airport, and this is what leads to the Erik the Red confrontation in the source material. And he's brought along a brainwashed Havok and Polaris!

How the X-Men end up in space in the comics is far more convoluted. It involves an anti-mutant conspiracy, the earliest incarnation of the Hellfire Club, the Sentinels, a S.H.I.E.L.D. orbiting platform, robot duplicates of the original team, and Xavier's friendship with recurring Claremont character, Peter Corbeau. Corbeau's also here in the animated adaptation. Watching the X-Men strongarm their way onto his spacecraft, the Eagle One, is pretty amusing.

As will become clear in coming weeks, the cartoon has the advantage of knowing where the story is going. Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum lacked any intricate plan; they were just coming up with a cool story for each specific issue. The animated adaptation, however, doesn't indulge any digressions. They know this arc is telling the story of Jean Grey's transformation, so that's what they're doing.

In the adaptation, the X-Men save Corbeau's team from Erik the Red. Eagle One is destroyed during their fight, however.  They escape in a shuttle, as an alien aircraft emerges from a nearby wormhole. In order to shield the shuttle from radiation, Jean Grey surrounds the craft with a telekinetic field. She pilots the Starcore shuttle back to Earth. When the shield weakens, she screams out in pain.

The comics take four issues to accomplish what the cartoon does in twenty minutes. Given the bimonthly schedule of the book at this time, that's eight months before Jean is piloting the shuttle. Here, it's the battle against the robotic X-Men doppelgangers that destroys the spaceship. The X-Men escape with Corbeau in the shuttle...after Jean apparently murders anti-mutant bigot Stephen Lang.

It's important to remember there's a manic energy to these issues. If Claremont had more time to really think some of this through, it likely wouldn't have happened. In fact, Claremont touched up all of these issues when they were reprinted in the Classic X-Men series. Jean's less a killer in the reprinted sequence. (Dave Cockrum drew many of the added pages. In this issue however, it's James Sherman.)

Not that Lang gets off the hook...

So, how do the X-Men escape in the source material? Well, the autopilot's destroyed, and an approaching solar flare will kill the pilot with radiation. Against the team's objections, Jean volunteers herself to pilot the shuttle back to Earth. (Her telepathy gives her Corbeau's knowledge of how to pilot the craft, and she hopes her telekinesis will protect her from the radiation.)

What follows is a sequence that's been revisited, retconned, and reimagined countless times. Jean's bathed in radiation, symbolized by a "TAC, TAC" sound effect. As she apparently dies, she calls out Scott's name. Even after all of these years, all of the retcons, it remains a powerful sequence.

NEXT PAGE: How Chris Claremont Wrapped Up a Dangling Uncanny X-Men Plot Thread

THE WRAP -UP

CONTINUITY NOTES

It's difficult to appreciate today just how significant Uncanny X-Men #97-100 are to the mythos. These stories have Lorna Dane adopting the Polaris identity for the first time, while also establishing her romance with Havok. (So, why did Lorna stick with the name she adopted as a brainwashed villain?) It's the first time we see Wolverine without his mask. And, just as important, the first instance of him popping his claws barehanded. (The original idea was that the claws were a part of his gloves!)

 

We also have the first use of Nightcrawler's image inducer. (Him using it to imitate 1930s movie stars irritates Xavier.) And the first references to Colossus' older brother, the cosmonaut. He'll actually become a figure in the comics decades later, even though we're told he's dead here. Speaking of Colossus, issue #100 brings us the first instance of him throwing Wolverine in a "Fastball Special."

Finally, there's the "TAC, TAC" sound effect from #100. Hardcore comics fans will surely recognize this as a reference to Fantastic Four #1. Originally, the Phoenix was no cosmic force. Jean merely had her powers upgraded by the cosmic radiation -- the same radiation that gave the Fantastic Four their powers.

"HUH?" MOMENT

There have been complaints over the years, regarding Claremont's use of a second Erik the Red. As pointed out in #97, this is a cover identity once used by Cyclops himself in a previous adventure. So, how the heck did an alien end up adopting it? An added page in Classic X-Men #5, Cyclops speculates on an answer. Erik the Red has been monitoring the X-Men, so that's why he targeted Havok and Polaris. Recycling Cyclops' old identity is just another means of throwing the team off-balance.

LOOK UP THE TERM "CONTRAIL," KIDS

Doing a direct comparison to the comics, there is a glaring weakness here. These fight scenes are weak. The original comics have the return of Havok and Polaris as villains, Sentinels, and evil robot duplicates of the original team. The first installment of the adaptation jettisons all of this. Makes sense, in terms of plotting. But, dang, brainwashed astronauts don't make for exciting fight sequences.

That said, this is a promising start to the adaptation. The players don't pop in at random moments, they're carefully situated within the first twenty minutes. A wormhole that brings the alien figure from Xavier's dreams to Earth? Eagle One is investigating. Erik the Red suspects she'll be traveling through, so he's staking out the place. (Which now sets up the requisite fight scene.)

Jean's "death" inside a cosmic radiation storm? What if the shuttle is caught in the contrail of Lilandra's ship instead? It's less arbitrary. It also ties the various elements together. (Additionally, this makes Lilandra indirectly responsible for creating the Shi'ar's fabled death-bringer.) The plot's set into place quickly, but also logically. And if you're a kid unfamiliar with the source material, this is one intense ending. Jean very possibly sacrificing her life for the team? Good thing this aired as a five-day weekday event.

So that’s all for now. If you have any suggestions for the future, just leave a comment or contact me on Twitter. You can also check out some of my fiction writing for free over at Smashwords.