Someone asked this question on a different site and the number one answer didn't seem right to me. So I decided to ask here.

Scott Lobdell, Grant Morrison, and Chris Claremont had pretty good handles on the characters. It actually seemed like they were in an adult relationship when the drama wasn't in the forefront.

Claremont and Lobdell & Nicieza. Morrison also made them interesting, but I don't know if fans of the relationship really liked him.

Uncanny X-Men #132 had the most iconic Scott & Jean moment. We have seen that story retold in the comics and adapted to the cartoons and movies.

Morrison had a horrible handle on Scott....but Jean was on point.

Really Simonson had the best handle on the actual relationship from top to bottom

Lobdell I guess did stuff with it too..though I'm hesitant to give credit to he or Nicieza since they really integrated Jean and Cyke poorly to the rest of the team and fed the "Jean and Scott are boring" idea with some of the most dreary shruggable drama in their relationship

Claremont.

Claremont was the only writer that made their relationship interesting to me.

Morrison's jean was great till he killed her

loved the way Simonson's jean and scott fought, played, got all lovey dovey, then angsty, then fought, make up , play. Morrison's Jean was cool, but he ignored jean and Scotts history, his interviews show that he believed they only had a teenage crush.

Seagles take on their relationship was cool too, and very mature. The two had their differences and fights, but like adults, not like their younger xfactor versions that got really violent. my fave scene is in xmen vol2 where cable contacts jean early in the morning, and she's like " Scott, your son barged into my head again", and he's like, "why's he e my son only when he does something bad" lol. he also showed their love for each other really well.

Claremont, Hmmm, yeah he definitely wrote them best, he's also the one who wrote jean taking the first step and kissing Scott. I also like how during revolution he didn't pair off Jean, but had her mourn Scott in a way that didn't derail the tone of the character and dampen her.

Teen jean and teen cyke when written in their awkward moments together by bendis are actually, like that moment in black vortex

Claremont.

This guy:

At least the majority of people are not saying Morrison.

@krleavenger: Why do you think Claremont is better than Lobdell, Nicieza, and Simonson?

@koays: You stated your reasons for why you think Lobdell and Nicieza don't deserve credit, but what puts Simonson above the popular choice of Claremont?

Simonson probably is the best writer top to bottom. Claremont was great with them in the 70's and 80'see but by the time the 90's came around he was trying to shove Wolverine in there. Then there was also X-Men Forever.

That said, Claremont, Lobdell & Nicieza all have more memorable Jean and Scott stories than Simonson does. But Simonson was more cosistant.

@howlingwolves: Well he made Jean the best Female hero ever after Wonder Woman.

He killed Jean in the early 80s. She was either dead or in X-Factor being written by Simonson during the majority of his run. The main female heroes Claremont focused on were Storm and Kitty Pryde.

@howlingwolves: Claremont didn't write Jean and Cyke as two people in a relationship, he wrote them as "the couple" which was just one part of his ensemble cast...and even then not a very important or fleshed out one at that. Which given how stories witb couples are formulatively written now may be far more appreciated from a readers perspective.... But were not asking who featured the couple best or had the most memorable moment with them. Were asking who wrote them best as a couple.

Simonson portrayed Cyke and Jean rebuilding a relationship as adults where one person has moves on with their life and the other has to accept the loss and betrayal of that person while both still hold feelings for each other. They both resented each other for a situation they couldn't control but all the while you could see exactly why they still wanted to be together.

Claremont and everyone else picked up a book where Jean and Scott was a thing. Claremont and everyone else just had drama around them being a thing that could be replaced with a lot of other characters...Simonson, and even Morrison told stories that were about Scott and Jean and THEIR situation.

And while Morrison's can't be the best story because of an unexplained OOC writing choice for Scott (as well as a bit of crapsack world writing where they're was no way it could end well). Simonson evolved the couple by exploring where they were at that moment, which (likely by accident) lead to an interesting knot of drama for the two..."Scott and Jean want to be together, Scott can't because he's closed this part of his life and moved on, Jean resents Scott because he feels there book is closed when she was absent for the last 10 chapters. The more Jean is willing to understand and accept things the more Cyclops is realizing he doesn't want to understand or accept things."

To me that's far more interesting then "OMG Scott might like Psylocke..never mind one look at Jean and he changed his mind.", the perpetual Logan drama, and one story which despite being infamous and well written doesn't feature the characters acting in or of their own valition.

Lol basically Simonson wrote Jean and Scott relationship coming together and had to explore the drama within it.

Everyone else just picked up an established relationship and said "let's do stuff To it"

@howlingwolves: No! He made her one if the most powerful beings in comics, made her more interesting and greatest X-Men story is based on her as the Marin character of that story. Then he killed her but She left a legacy and great impact on X-Men. Not only that but he made everyone believe She was back but was actually cloned and brought back in 1986. You're talking like he killed her and She wasn't even mentioned for 15 years until some New writer came along (which isn't truth).

@koays: Claremont wrote them as two people. Jean wasn't even a part of the team for most of his run with her and Cyclops. She originally left the X-Men with the rest of the O5. Right after she came back we got the original Phoenix story and then the Magneto story that lead to Jean and Beast being separated from the rest of the X-Men and them each believing the other to be dead. During this time we got charecter development for Scott on his own and Jean while living with Moira and Havok. They reunited in Proteus Saga and had a moment together. Shortly after that we went into Hellfire Club and Dark Phoenix Saga.

There relationship seemed real during this time. They both seemed like two people who were falling in love. Claremont was the first to write them as a real couple. There was even a issue in the 70's where they kiss and then we see a cameo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby saying they never did that when they were writing the book. It was heavily implied that issue #132 was the first time they ever had sex. It was referenced in Simonson's X-Factor run whith Scott telling Rusty about it.

Simonson wrote them in a diffrent time of their relationship. She wrote them as older, scarred, and somewhat disturbed individuals who were trying to find the strength to be able to be with each other again. Claremont wrote them as two kids falling in love for the first time. Both seemed realistic.

@koays: Okay, I get most of what you are saying. Simonson did have them in a more interesting time of their relationship.

@krleavenger: So, powerful = interesting to you?

And, do you even read the comics? Madelyn Pryor was a diffrent person. She was also only a minor charecter in the X-Men. When Jean came back in 1986 she went to X-Factor. She didn't become a member of the X-Men again until the 90s. Which was right before Claremont left the X-Men.

@immolation: That really doesn't change the facts of what I'm saying.

Claremont wrote a book with an ensemble cast. The Jean Scott dynamic that came out of it was just the regular couples drama associated with two people being in a relationship. Aside from the twisted ending of the Phoenix saga and the ups and downs of early relationship stuff the two of them are just "the couple" and they do couple things. Its far better done then the current style of "relationship" writing where its all relationship drama all the time or the formulaic crush->will they won't they->love->break up/writer change style of today.... But it in no way makes Scott and Jean stand out as a couple. It just has the best integration of them within the X-Mens team writing

For the same reason early 90s Scott and Jean don't stand out as anything special among X-Men, Claremont Scott and Jean don't really stand out. The writing done was about their relationship and not the characters... Where as Simonson (and Morrison) wrote about the characters and who they were/ how they were effected by the relationship.

In the end were looking at who wrote the best relationship NOT who was the best writer..and for the Scott and Jean relationship the best stuff for them was Simonson.

@koays: You're saying that he wrote them only as a couple and not individuals, and that is not how I remember it. They did have moments where they only seemed like "the couple" and did couple things, but they had those same moments in the later X-Factor issues that took place after they got passed Madelyne.

This is simply not true. Cyclops and Jean were easily fan favorites during the Claremont/Cockrum run. You can see it in the backs of the issues where fans write in claiming Cyclops and Phoenix were favorites. Coincidentally, Wolverine was extremely unpopular during this time and not liked by the fans(or Cockrum).

Scott was not the stagnate boring charecter that we saw in the 90's. We saw them go on a journey from their home, to the Shi'ar Empire, to Asteroid M, to Antarctica, to the Savage Lands, to Tokyo, all while growing and evolving as charecters. We saw him thinking that he lost Jean and grow from the experience, kind of. While we simultaneously saw Jean thinking she lost Scott, leave the X-Men, and go to Scotland. Claremont actually did little with the relationship due to them being separated for the majority of their time together before Dark Phoenix Saga. But they always seemed like their own charecters. On the rare occasions that we would have downtime issues, where we would see the X-Men doing things other than fighting, is the only periods where they would only seem like the couple.

It's true that their relationship was the most interesting thing about them, but it's not like Claremont had a lot to work with. He did add some things. He explored the relationship between Jean and her parents and added the story of Scott's father, which didn't get fully explored until after Dark Phoenix Saga. There was some foreshadowing to it in the Savage Lands arc.

Yeah, I already agreed to this at post #13. But I agreed largely due to the way Claremont wrote them in the 90's and X-Men Forever. His work in the 70's and early 80's all seemed good to me.

@immolation: Your completely missing what i'm saying actually.

I'm NOT saying that Claremont didn't write Scott and Jean being a independent couple with things going on that didn't involve each other or that what he did when they were written together was bad or uninteresting.

What I AM saying, is that in the confines of Jean and Scott as a relationship, what Claremont wrote for the them as couple isn't any better for them and their relationship story then what was written in the 90s. In fact (up till the end) it shares the 90s theme for the two of them that the most important story in Jean and Scott's relationship isn't either of them or what their going through but both of them being a couple. Which again isn't a bad thing in general, but because we're talking the "best of Jean and Scott" the worst thing they can do is "just be a couple".


To even be considered as the best of Jean and Scott it needs to do more then the most basic of "will they, wont they/what are we doing today" relationship drama. And the thing about Claremont's run is that it doesn't progress it much until the end and doesn't prevent much uniqueness to Jean and Scott as a joint entity compared to runs like Morrison and Simonson which have more developments, exploration and phases to their relationship.

When I compare them during Claremont to their 90s incarnations what i mean is that when you look at Scott and Jean's relationship you can't pick apart what one is feeling from the other until the end parts. Whereas Simonson and Morrison (even if Morrison underwrote for Cyclops) had them as a relationship but with differing sides of the relationship.

I'm not discussing whether or not they both had something to do apart from eachother but analyzing how what they were doing effects the relationship and how the status of the relationship effects what each individual is doing.

@howlingwolves: Hmm no. IT is not powerful = interesting but before Claremont Jean was nothing special, just some love interest of Summers so without Claremont we would never have those awesome stories with Jean and Phoenix (or Avengers VS X-Men).

And I'm aware of the X-Factor but what is the problem? For your info X-Factor is great because we have m original X-Men roster and Apocalypse was created in X-Factor and most if his stories happened there. Madelyn was minor? Lol yeah until Scott made a child with her which would become one if the coolest characters in MU (Cable) and when IT turned out that She was clone of Jean with portion of Phoenix's powers.

You just don't agree with me so you want to find the reason to make my point wrong just because you don't agree. Get the hell out of my face.

Avengers vs X-Men was one of the worst comics written. It did nothing but lowball the X-Men and make the Avengers look superior through insanely stupid WIS.

Yes, Madelyne was a minor charecter. She was still a minor charecter even after having a kid. She only became a major charecter in the Inferno storyline where she died. Cable being their son was a retcon that happened in 1993.

X-Factor had nothing to do with Chris Claremont. That was Lois Simonson's book.

@howlingwolves: Lois started with XF with 5th issue. Lol A VS X lowballing X-Men? Haha. Charles defeated Thor easily, Namor destroyed Wakanda, Storm and Panther Were no longer together and Summers was the most powerful being in the story (or Hope Summers). Anyway, Jean would not be what She is without Claremont. Deal with it.