Volume 3 starts off with Sauron's reign of terror in The Savage Lands coming to an end as the people of the land finally finish their revolt that started with The X-Men taking out Mr. Sinister. But when a strange sorceress gives Sauron a way out of The Savage Lands in a plot to have him bring Storm back and unleash her weather-based powers, an ancient evil known as Garokk is revived and the X-Men must not only deal with an unleashed Storm, but also this new near-god villain.
This two-part episode is followed by an episode that focuses on Archangel's continuing quest for vengeance against Apocalypse for turning him into the monster he is today. When he thinks he has finally found a weak spot in the immortal mutant, he is knocked unconscious and wakes up in the home of his former friends, The X-Men. With the help of Rogue, Archangel once again goes after Apocalypse while the rest of the X-Men learn of a living ship that might hold the key to Apocalypse's power, as well as his destruction.
While those three episodes are nice, the main focus of this DVD volume is "The Dark Phoenix" four-part series that features a recovering Jean Grey as she is released from medical care, but quickly brainwashed by The Hellfire Club to believe that she, and the Phoenix Force residing within her, should become their Dark Queen. Almost immediately, The Phoenix takes complete control over Jean again and it's desire to experience more mortal sensations causes it to go mad, and the rest of the X-Men have to not only try and stop the Hellfire Club, but possibly put an end to both The Phoenix Force and Jean for good.
The second disc is filled with several good episodes including one where Cyclops finds out that the space-pirate Corsair is actually his father, one where Wolverine, Gambit and Rogue meet the monk-mutant Nightcrawler and one that features former X-Man Iceman as he reconnects with his old teammates and uncovers a new group of mutants called X-Factor, as well as an episode that delves into Wolverine's past in "Weapon X, Lies And Video Tape." In "The Juggernaut Returns," Xavier's step-brother reappears, but has his powers stripped away as another person finds out how to activate the Ruby of Cyttorak and in "Courage," Morph rejoins the X-Men, but is immediately faced with his worse fears as Master Mold reemerges and starts making a new batch of Sententials. The jewel of the second disc, however, is the two-parter called "One Man's Worth."
In these episodes, villains from Bishop's time have gone back to 1959 to kill Charles Xavier before he has a chance to realize his true potential and form the X-Men (resulting in a world very similar to the Age of Apocalypse comic series of the 90's). When Bishop and Shard stop off in the present time, they find that history has already caused major changes in history. Not only is the war between humans and mutants in full swing, but Magneto is the leader of the mutants and Wolverine and Storm are married. The couple end up joining Bishop and his sister to the past in order to stop Xavier's assassination in the hopes of putting the timeline back like it is supposed to be.
While X-Men: Volume 3 has a lot of good episodes that should be enjoyable to any X-Men or comic book fan, most of the episodes in this volume follow from events in the first two. Everything from Jean Grey's possession of the Phoenix to the X-Men's adventures in The Savage Lands and, of course, Morph's recurring issues with the Sententials are all events referenced heavily in this volume, but set up in the past one. Because of that, I can't really say Volume 3 is a very good starting point. If you are going to pick up the episodes, then watch the first two volumes first.
