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As much as I loved the original Phoenix saga, in retrospect I would have to say I wish it never happened. The ongoing (and mostly nauseating) storylines, alternate realities, character deaths, resurrections and the overall convoluted mess that marvel has become is directly linked to that one event.
It's a quagmire.
Once that genie was out of the bottle only Jim Shooter could put it back in... alas, when his control over Marvel disappeared the focus became "anything that sells books" and storytelling became a cycle of re-hashing the past, upping the ante... and repeating the same narrative.
Year after year after year we had another storyline somehow connected to that damn Phoenix nonsense... and what never made any sense to me was "How can such an enormously powerful concept, not draw the attention of the most powerful beings on Earth (in Marvel) or the rest of the Universe"?
Seriously?
Thanos threatens half of all life and every sentient power in the Universe is brought into play... yet a primordial force that has the power to consume the Universe draws only the attention of a handful of pimple-faced teenagers with relatively minor powers?
Needless to say that absurdity (because I always felt continuity in the Marvel Universe was one of the strongest aspects of their stories) drove a wedge between myself and all those X-Men fans.
My loathing for everything X-Men really began around the time the Madelyn Pryor & Rachel Summers storylines began. That's when I sensed pandora's box had been opened and it was just a downward spiral. Stroylines that had anything to do with alternate realities or time-jumping became the McGuffin. A storyline that should not happen, makes no rational sense, has no logical place withing the overall continuity yet exists as a weak plot point to simply drive a narrative. It's terrible writing... literally myopic in it's application. The worst part about it is that every Marvel book seemed to function in the Marvel Universe except the X-Men titles who had their own rules and just existed outside of everything else with no consequence.
Damn mutie scum!!!
Quite honestly the whole concept of mutant phobia and hatred made total sense to me. I longed for a storyline that truly addressed the mutant problem. They really are an absolute menace.
The Phoenix saga is not to blame (and I will reiterate I truly love the story) that's just the high-water mark that every writer aspired to... but that storyline eventually overwhelmed EVERYTHING and it won't go away.
To this day one of my favorite moments in any comic is in What-If #32... "What If The Avengers Became Pawns Of Korvac".
There is a single panel where Korvac acknowledges that Dr. Strange, The Silver Surfer and Phoenix are legitimate threats to his plans to re-shape the universe. So with a single bolt of cosmic energy he banishes all three from this reality unable to ever return.
I wish I could do that with the Phoenix saga.
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