PIck up the latest issue of Empire (out today) and you'll find a three page feature on X-Men: Dark Phoenix rising from its pages – metaphorically if not literally. The new generation's Jean Gray, Sophie Turner, talks us through the third sequel to X-Men: First Class, and we've also got this tantalising new image of Michael Fassbender as Erik "Magneto" Lehnscherr, looking like he's enjoyed better days.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix allows Writer-director-producer Simon Kinberg to right a wrong he still feels from his past with the X-movies, when the Dark Phoenix storyline was subsumed into a larger plot of X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006.
This film is set in 1992, roughly a decade after Apocalypse and finds the X-Men dealing with being heroes. An unfortunate side effect is how that fuels Charles Xavier's (James McAvoy) ego. He starts sending the team on more dangerous missions, including one to space that ends with Grey going to some very dark places. "It's about duality," Turner tells us, "darkness and light, this sense of her being a completely other person and struggling with that..."
Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Alexandra Shipp and Kodi Smit-McPhee are all among the other returnees, which is out in the UK on 2 November next year.
The new Empire, on the other hand, is out now. Subscribe here or buy the single issue online here{