One of the plots (if not the main plot) of the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline is that the Phoenix Force is coming back to Earth.

This is not the first time this happened - the last time it did, it was seemingly involved with X-Men only ( Jean Grey, Professor Xavier, etc...).

Was there any involvement of the Avengers in the prior Phoenix storyline?

(I mean those Marvel heroes who were NOT X-Men - I am excluding those who, like Wolverine, became affiliated with Avengers but were - at the time of the original Phoenix story - X-Men affiliated).


To the best of my knowledge the original Phoenix/Dark Phoenix sagas did not involve characters who weren't X-Men.

Especially in that time period, cross-overs between comics were much more rare, and tended to be the focus of the book - it wasn't so much about the villain or the world-shattering plot as it was about the interactions between the heroes, seeing them initially fight, and having the book's main character interact with another book's character. This is somewhat in contrast to today, where different books often reference or cross each other.

The Phoenix/Dark Phoenix sagas were very X-Men centric, and I think it would have been X-tremely unlikely for them to include X-traneous characters.


The Beast was involved in the Dark Pheonix Saga. At the time, he was a member of the Avengers.

  • But was he acting as an avenger? – AncientSwordRage May 3 '12 at 22:32
  • 1
    @Pureferret: No. – Jeff May 6 '12 at 14:39

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