6 Years Ago Today, the X-Men Movies Introduced the Worst Comic Book Movie Villain Ever

Despite dips in quality now and again, Fox’s X-Men movies have some great villains. Magento comes out of the gates swinging, attempting to turn a large portion of the population into mutants using a machine. William Stryker picks up the baton in X2: X-Men United, and while he’s more of a mental threat than a physical one, his experiments on mutants do a lot of harm, including leading to the death of Jean Grey. However, sacrifice doesn’t stick, as she returns in X-Men: The Last Stand under the control of the Phoenix Force. The movie doesn’t really do the Marvel Comics storyline justice, though, so Fox gave it another go in 2019.

With a new cast and a few different characters, X-Men: Dark Phoenix retells the story of Jean losing control and hurting people she cares about. But the 2019 movie adds an extra wrinkle: an alien race hunting down the Phoenix Force across the galaxy and setting their sights on Jean. The new enemies don’t really add much to the movie, and their leader is easily one of the worst comic book movie villains.

Dark Phoenix Puts Jean Grey in Between a Rock and a Hard Place

At the start of Dark Phoenix, the X-Men are in an unfamiliar spot. The United States government is relying on them as their protectors, so they ask them to save some astronauts in space. Things are going pretty smoothly until Jean comes into contact with a cosmic energy that changes her and unlocks dark memories from her past that Professor X suppressed. Jean starts lashing out, and after returning to her childhood home to get answers, she kills Mystique, who comes to try to calm her down, by accident.

Mystique’s death splinters the X-Men, with Beast leaving the team behind and teaming up with Magneto, who is also angry about his old friend’s death. The two mutants bring some friends to track down Jean, and Professor X and Cyclops bring their own group to stop them from hurting her. Both sides get more than they bargained for, though, as they run into Vuk, the leader of D’Bari, who is already manipulating Jean. Vuk wants to absorb the Phoenix Force, but she can’t do that until she gets Jean on her side.

Right before Vuk can complete her mission, Jean and some other mutants get taken into custody by the Mutant Containment Unit. The remaining mutants jump into action and attempt to free their allies by fighting the MCU soldiers and Vuk’s forces. During the conflict, Jean gains control of her powers and kills Vuk with the Phoenix Force before disappearing. Remnants of the Phoenix appear in the sky toward the end of the movie, confirming that some part of Jean is still out there, but her battle with a pretty one-note villain puts a damper on the major reveal.

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Dark Phoenix Focuses on the Wrong Conflict

The most frustrating thing about Dark Phoenix is that there’s a legitimately good story in there somewhere. The battle between the two mutant factions is engaging, especially because it sees an unflappable character, Beast, embrace his dark side. Unfortunately, the movie drops that subplot too early, choosing to give more screen time to Vuk, who has nothing going for her. Sure, she wants to gain control of the power that’s responsible for her home world’s destruction, but that’s as deep as her backstory goes. She’s really only there to provide an outside threat for the X-Men to fight at the end of the movie.

Dark Phoenix ended up being the last movie just about the X-Men that Fox produced. The powers that be may not have known that when they were writing the script or filming, but it fails to act as a proper swan song for the franchise. While Vuk isn’t the only reason for that, she doesn’t help matters, acting as a roadblock for a much more interesting conflict.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is streaming on Disney+.

How do you feel about Vuk in X-Men: Dark Phoenix? Do you think she’s one of the worst villains in comic book movies? Let us know in the comments below!