8 Comics That Almost Had Better Endings

6. The Dark Phoenix Saga

Spider Man Clone Saga
Marvel Comics

One of the biggest and most impactful events to sweep across the Marvel Universe was the Dark Phoenix Saga. In it, Jean Grey is overtaken by the Phoenix Force, and her powers exponentially increase to the levels of a god. She destroyed a star and wreaked havoc across the cosmos.

In the end, she sacrificed her own life to remove the threat she had become, and that ending proved controversial, as it removed Jean Grey from the X-Men books... for a while anyway. The original ending was much different than the one that was ultimately published in X-Men #137.

Originally, the X-Men were all defeated and were taken aboard a Shi'Ar vessel. While there, Jean was subjected to a machine that removed her powers, and once it was finished, she and the rest of the X-Men were permitted to leave. The last five pages had to be completely redrawn to what was ultimately published.

Killing Jean Grey created the first true "event" in comics history, and seeing as publishers have been trying to one-up the Death of Phoenix storyline, it would probably have been better for everyone had she been permitted to live. In the end, Jim Shooter insisted she die, and that's the ending Marvel published.

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Jonathan is a graphic artist, illustrator, writer, and game designer. Jonathan retired from the U.S. Army in 2017 and enjoys researching and writing about history, science, theology, and many other subjects. He writes for ScreenRant, CBR, NerdBastards, Listverse, Ranker, WhatCulture, and many other sites online. You can check out his latest on Twitter: @TalkingBull or on his blog: jonathanhkantor.com