In this thread I want to talk about an under rated X-Men writer you probably haven't heard much about....lol, just kidding, I am going to talk about legendary X-Men writer, Chris Claremont.

Chris Claremont wrote the X-Men for over 15 years and is heralded as the best writer the title has ever had, and it's quite hard to argue, seeing as most of the franchise's most famous ideas came from him. Whether it was the concept of “Days of Future Past” which he created with John Byrne, or the idea of Magneto being a survivor of the Holocaust. Developing characters like Storm, Nightcralwer and Wolverine into the characters you know today, or the countless amount of indelible X-Men related characters he created like Sabertooth, Moira MacTaggart, all of the New Mutants, Kitty Pryde, Rogue etc....It is sort of hard to argue that the guy deserves his praise.

The guy also basically did everything first and people have been copying off him for years. Seriously, after he left he apparently had notes that people would pillage....Wolverine losing his adamanitum?? Was his idea originally that wound up happening. Legion trying to kill Magneto but kills Xavier instead?? That happened (although Shadow King wasn't possessing Legion like in the original idea). Dystopian futures and characters that are refugees from them?? He did that first.

Picture of Phoenix Force Cyclops debuting in “Uncanny X-Men/Teen Titans” 30 years before AvX is relevant.....

He is often celebrated for writing women and minority characters extremely well, as up until the sales of his X-Men books skyrocketing they were commonly afterthoughts or lesser characters in super hero books. He was certainly one of the only comic writers at the time who commonly passed the “Bechdel Test”.

However I always think that's a bit of a shallow assessment of his run. The accolade of his treatment of non male and non white characters always unfortunately over shadows his writing ability. He was able to make every character feel like they mattered, he was able to seed long term story lines, for example, he would have an interlude during a story and you then that sub plot would slowly play out over months and culminate a year or so after that.

I am not saying he invented that form of storytelling in comics, but he definitely utilized it in a way not many other writers did at that point in time. That point also goes for characters, as someone like Forge was a character that showed up in the mid 80's and evolved over the years before joining the X-Men in the early 90's or Wolverine and Storm's respective arcs as they wind up in totally different places as characters than they were from when they were first introduced.

He was also able to use metaphors from other stories or sometimes just make some his super hero stories analogous for real world problems, like prejudice obviously, but also things like child abuse, conflict within oneself, faith and religion, something as simple as his entry in the “Fall of the Mutants” story arc generally being an analog to the famous “Battle of Thermopylae” or something sort of complex and serious like Storm's “Life/Death” story and aftermath sort of being about someone who was a victim of rape or has lost something valuable and personal, like a child, and how they might feel and try to cope. He was able to write around editorial mandates, crossovers and silly character promotions, and still make everything engaging. In the end, he was a “writers writer” through and through.

Nevertheless, as big of a fan I am of the guys work, the guy wasn't perfect, and people tend to praise him endlessly any place where you might discuss X-Men. So, in this thread, feel free to discuss anything about his run that you really didn't like.....or if you just outright didn't like it altogether.

I am personally going to largely criticize his initial run from the 70s and 80s. Because I am the most familiar with that.

Oh, and before someone says “dude, it was the 80's, comics were different back then, stuff was supposed to be silly” I would preemptively counter by saying that the most serious and adult comic books DC and Marvel have ever published came out of the 1980s. Frank Miller's work on Batman and Daredevil, "Watchmen", "Hellblazer", "God Loves, Man Kills". It was probably one of the best times for more mature, “realistic” stories, so, that isn't much of an excuse.

Do I Even Need to Mention Mind Control

I feel like this goes without saying....

Now, I understand that he wrote this book for nearly 20 years, and nobody is going to be able to produce brand new ideas constantly, but I feel like he went to the well too many times with this one.

Now, I don't mind someone getting mind controlled if the X-men are going up against someone who has the power to control minds or hypnotize somebody, because that is the character's power and he would have to utilize it somehow. That's fine. However, this is something that happens to somebody nearly every other story arc..

Seriously...

Name one at random.

”X-Tinction Agenda”?? Havok was brainwashed. Shortly before that, Psylocke was brainwashed by the Hand, shortly before that, all the X-men's attitudes were altered by the effects of Inferno, technically mind control, around that time, the X-Men go to the Savage Land and the Mutate known as Worm is able to manipulate people's bodies...it's basically freaking mind control...Oh, that one Annual you say?? Which one?? The one where Storm is mind controlled by Loki or the one where the X-Men are mind controlled by Mojo to fight the New Mutants?? Mind Control!!!!

And it didn't begin and end there in the pages of X-Men, Claremont wrote a lot of stories for other Marvel publications where he also would have characters get brain washed. It's so ridiculous that some guy actually has a site dedicated to all the times Claremont went with this plot device...http://clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com/2012/07/dont-mind-control-me-im-crazy.html

Anyways, it was so silly sometimes that I thought I would post my favorite one, which is essentially Colossus getting brainwashed by a Russian general who I was never sure was a robot or not when the X-Men are trapped inside of Arcade's “Murderworld”. No magic, no mental powers, no technology apparently, this guy just randomly shows up and brainwashes Colossus into changing his clothes, changing his name, and attacking his friends For Mother Russia (USSR at the time)!!

Sometimes It Was Even Too Bizarre for Comics

Look, I don't mind the X-Men being involved in super science fiction and fantasy. At the end of the day, they are characters in a super hero comic that is targeted at younger people, so, these sort of things are excusable. I mean, what are you going to do just have the X-Men battle evil mutants and government shadow cabinets all the time??

In fact, one of the reasons I found the 90's X-Men comics to be so bland is because they seemed to step away from the wackiness Claremont loved to play around with.....However, I feel as if at times some of Claremont's stuff was a bit too wacky even for my tastes. The man had to be doing some potent LSD at the time....

Take something like Limbo for example. It existed beforehand but was tied to the character of Magik since it was introduced to the X-Men and the Inferno story line was basically the culmination of the power vacuum Illyana had left behind since she doesn't remain in Limbo all the time. So, that was self contained and was pretty consistent.

In comparison to the climax to Fall of the Mutants, where beforehand Forge's mentor Naze had accidentally unleashed some sort of entity from Native American lore known as the Adversary. It was a sub plot that carried on for a while but the conclusion played out with Storm and the Adversary, disguised as Naze battling creatures from Native American folklore, Storm and Forge entering a pocket dimension where they live together for like a year or something where only hours passed in the 616 reality, Forge basically builds and advanced technological device to restore Storm's powers even though he lives in the wilderness in this dimension, and Storm returns where they then use Longshot as human kite to get to the floating palace of the omniversal keeper lady where they sacrifice themselves to banish the Adversary and are immediately, secretly, resurrected.

And. That s just the abridged version....

During annuals it seemed like the X-Men would get kidnapped or abruptly encounter some random, extremely powerful intergalactic being which they would never see again. Which, again, I have no problem with once in a while.

However, if it was too often or random it would be offset to the story or distracting. An example of this is during what is called the “Brood arc” (X-Men 156-167) which is pretty much a sci fi, horror story with a really dour mood about it. The X-Men are infected by Brood eggs and Wolverine, who will survive as per healing factor, might have to murder his friends to spare them a horrific fate of turning into Brood. But look out, there is this weird sub plot where Storm apparently becomes one with the flying space whales that The Brood uses as ships. Storm is somehow able to become a spirit and communicate with the X-Men while willing the Brood egg out of herself in a series of events that I have not taken enough drugs to understand.

And you could make the argument that this stuff only happened earlier in his X-Men run....but you would be wrong. Towards the end of his run, after the Outback era is over, it is revealed that Storm, who everyone thought was dead at that point, had been turned into a little kid.

Yes, apparently Nanny and Orphan Maker faked the X-Men out by swapping their ship at the last minute and had an LMD (Life Model Decoy) of Storm handy so when Havok shot at it, everyone thought Storm had died. Then, with some sort of technology Nanny had, they turned Storm into an adolescent.

Now, Claremont was playing around with people “body swapping” at the time. This was when Psylocke's body was altered into that of an Asian Ninja, and Carol Danvers personality was assuming control of Rogue's body. However, the explanations behind those were a bit more succinct. Psylocke's body was altered through some sort of mysticism and Rogue's was a side effect of her powers. Nanny apparently just built the most ground breaking technology on the planet without being reed Richards and used it on Storm.

And to continue with needlessly bizarre stuff, Storm being a kid wound up becoming pointless as Claremont began to lose creative control and had the Genoshan mutate bonding process somehow return her to her previous age, where she could then conveniently give mutants their powers back. Just because.

The “kid Storm” story was apparently so important to Claremont that he carried over to “X-Men Forever” where he didn't reign in the weird shit and had like 3 Storms running around.

I feel like this stuff always happened to Storm.....

Women Wank

As I mentioned in the opening, Claremont was often praised for writing “strong, independent female characters”. Which he did. Good for him. I have no issue with women being at the forefront of the title. I do feel as though as Claremont let that praise go to his head and let it dictate his story telling and character developments to a point where it became a quasi negative in his run although.

Consider this, as long as he wrote the book characters like Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler, all males, grew as characters and had developments and relationships, but mostly physically stayed the same, perhaps Colossus received a bit of an amp in strength during the Outback Era, but, nothing too significant. Now, compare that to the female characters.....

Is it enough Kitty Pryde is a 13 year old girl who is able to join the X-Men and essentially be the lynchpin in several victories?? No, she is also a genius, a computer whiz with a pet dragon, a wise soul with a profound outlook on life despite being a teenager and later becomes a ninja.

Should I even mention Storm?? Is it enough that she is a very unique looking character that is already quite powerful in her ability to control the weather?? No, she is somehow knowledgeable enough in combat to defeat Callisto, whose mutant power was that she was basically physically super human, to gain leadership of the Morlocks while leading the X-Men, and at the same time, is invited to join the Hellfire Club with Magneto and Claremont would have probably had her lead that them too eventually. Not to mention every villain became obsessed with her for some reason, whether it be Loki, Shadow King, Nanny, Dr. Doom. She loses her powers at some point and is still able to defeat nearly everything thrown in her way....

Or Rachel, who was originally just a wayward refugee from a terrible reality that had moderate telekinetic and telepathic abilities that had a mean streak to match Wolverine's....pretty interesting as is, right?? Nope, she eventually was given the Phoenix Force and was essentially nearly invincible in the pages of Excalibur.

Do I even need to bring up what happened to Psylocke?? You get where I am going with this.

It just seems like he needed to insert woman as these characters that could do anything because that was missing in comics. It's almost what Marvel does now with minority characters...”Hey, we get criticized for not having enough minority characters, so lets have everyone we introduce be the smartest human alive!! That will appease the fans!!”

I find that characters like Rogue, Dazzler and surprisingly enough Magik, who had limitations to her abilities under Claremont's pen, were pretty consistent. But with some characters like Kitty, Storm, Dani Moonstar, etc, it was never enough. Even women with no super powers he had to have possess some sort of martial arts knowledge. I always half expected for Stevie Hunter to reveal she was a former Marine that hunted mercenaries in South America (not really).

It's like he got so much praise for what he did with Jean Grey and the Phoenix hat he decided he was just going to do that over and over....

Hey! Is that an image of Madelyne Pryor?? Speaking of which....

Madelyne Pryor

This will be a short entry,it's not a big deal, but it's just something that always bothered me.

So, Madelyne Pryor is originally introduced as a red herring, a red headed herring to be corny about it. And for the time around when she is introduced, it was a serviceable sub plot for Cyclops when he temporarily left the X-Men after Jeans death.

It's basically teased that maybe she really is Jean Grey returned from the dead, but after a year or two it just turns out that she is just some woman that looks like Jean Grey.....and her and Cyclops get married and have a kid. The only reason it turns out she is a clone was because they actually brought the real Jean Grey back from the dead and Claremont had write her out somehow.

Whether you look at this whole thing in hindsight, or are just reading it for the first time.....it's just weird. Also, if you are introduced to the X-men through cartoons or 90's comics, Cyclops probably seems pretty interesting to you, but if you are following comic continuity at this point, it just makes Cyclops seem like sort of an obsessive, pathetic oaf.

Doesn't it seem a little off putting to anyone that Cyclops falls in love with a woman that looks like his dead girlfriend?? Not resembles either, it is stated several times that she looks exactly like Jean Grey. He even asks her at one point if she is Jean Grey....not exactly the foundations of a healthy relationship....

It just seems like it was a harmless sub plot that just resulted in Claremont not knowing what to do with her....and in the end it just made Cyclops seem like a weirdo, and his friends weirdos for not being weirded out by it.

Danglers or Incomplete Sub Plots

Granted you can't really put 100% of the blame on Claremont for this one, seeing as he often had ideas for mini series that would either get rejected by editorial, or just get delayed to the point where his ideas never saw fruition, or he would lose creative control and another writer would force his ideas to change. But there are several times when he would just blatantly have dangling plots.

You could really blame any writer for this.....but Claremont had always ran a tighter ship, he was held at a higher standard so when he was sloppy it was much more noticeable.

First example is the “Mojoverse” releated characters....Ann Nocenti created Longshot in the 80s, then she took a job offer to be editor for a while and didn't really want anyone else “playing” with her characters, so she let Claremont, who she was good friends with, use them in the X-men series until she relinquished her editorial position and went back to writing. So basically that's the reason why Mojo, Longshot, and Spiral are considered X-Men characters these days, because Ann and Chris were buddies and he was just basically “keeping them warm” for her.

So, during the time Longshot and Spiral are involved with X-men lore.....there stories don't really go anywhere or have any build and nothing really plays out.

Spiral originally claims to join Mystique's Freedom Force/Brotherhood to learn about earth and track down Longhot....but after she finds Longshot, and he apparently “dies” at the events of “Fall of the Mutants” she stays with Mystique's team for apparently no reason....and is later seen helping the Hand alter Psylocke's body with really no explanation. She quits sometime later in the 90's. Claremont didn;t write that story however.

Similar to Longshot, who joins the X-Men, just because. During his tenure he never really mentions anything about his home world. In fairness, he did have amnesia at first but later his amnesia never seems to be mentioned again and eventually he just ups and leaves the X-men after the events of Inferno with no real culmination of anything of his time with the team. I don't think they ever even mention Mojo at all.

As for Mojo, he installs bionic eyeballs in Psylocke right before she joins the X-men.....this is yet another thing that doesn't really have any relevance or is mentioned as the series presses on.

There is also a story line with Mystique that takes place in the early 80s that gets completely dropped. In some random Marvel anthology book Rogue interferes with an Inner Circle arms deal which sparks antagonism from the Inner Circle upon Mystique. There is even several interludes where she has nightmares about being hunted in the colonial era by Mastermind.....this is a story that also winds up forgotten.

And speaking of Mystique, though she is a fleshed out character and obviously one of Claremont's favorites, her plans are never really consistent, or whatever she was up to seems to be completely dropped. She starts out trying to murder Seneator Kelly.....then she is working for the government under the guise of Raven Darkholme, then, she gets the Brotherhood pardoned by working for the government to capture mutants and is never seen in her Darkholme persona ever again....and then she seems to just be a government lackey up until Claremont leaves the book. Was she supposed to have a motive for all this subterfuge??

Up until that point you thought she had some sinister plan while being disguised and gaining tons of government intel...but nope. She was just do a thing for a while I guess.

Then there is the plot line with Magneto and Storm aligning with the Hellfire Club in a shady deal to preserve mutant kind. Now,understandably Claremont gave control of the New Mutants title, which Magneto was featured prominently in, over to Louise Simonson, who apparently was not interested in developing this story further, and Claremont moved the X-men to Australia....but again, like other things, there is never any mention of it by any characters ever again in the X-Men book.

A lot of characters that had been prominent in the mid 80's like Senator Kelly, Sebastian Shaw and Nimrod just have their plot lines absolutely stunted until a short story arc during the Outback era several years later where Nimrod gets destroyed and Kelly calls for the Registration Act again, (which I thought was already in place??) and Shaw just seems like he is back to his original plans.

It was sometimes a bit frustrating seeing as Claremont was usually good with story seeding and long form plot lines. Again, not all of these are completely his fault, but there is ones where he blatantly lost interest or just forgot.

It's a Gigantic Compendium

If you think you have read Claremont's entire 80's run, which is Uncanny X-men #94 through #279, then in reality you have only really read 3/5 of it. Which is not only a nightmare for anyone collecting but it is also a pain if you are trying to follow the story of these characters.

If you follow something like Wolfman and Perez's "Teen Titans" or Walt Simonson's "Thor" in the 80's for example, then there is issues out of the main title the writers wrote like annuals or guest appearances where they utilize the characters, however, no real concrete developments or character details are made apparent in these appearances, which is not the case with Claremont.

Not only is reading New Mutants kind of important to following the events in the main X-Men book, but it's also sort of a necessity that you read the Magik mini series, and the Wolverine mini series to know important details about those characters....

Hey, did you want to know how Kitty Pryde healed from the events of the Mutant Massacre?? Then you have to check out the "X-Men vs Fantastic Four" mini....

Did you ever wonder if Rachel ever encountered Wolverine again after he randomly gutted her way back in the mid 80's?? Well, she did. But it's the 2^nd story in X-Men Annual #14.

Were you ever curious why Cyclops acts like Rachel is a complete stranger in one issue and then acts like he knows her pretty well in the next issue.....that's probably because you missed the events of "X-Men/Alpha Flight" where he and Rachel have a touching heart to heart.

In the events leading up to Storm losing her powers, Rogue, possessed by Carol Danvers' personality, has an altercation on a SHIELD base and goes missing and Storm randomly finds her in Mississippi in the next issue. ...Only it wasn't random, there is a story in the “Marvel Fanfare” series where Storm meets with Mystique who gives her Rogue's location.

It's a very...er, mature story full of smoking, drinking, Mystique acting like a degenerate and sexually harassing a male waiter and hints of Mystique's relationship with Destiny being more than friends is also dropped in there. I highly recommend it actually. I think it's Marvel Fanfare # 40.

Ever wonder why Karma is already a student of Xaviers in "The New Mutants Graphic Novel"?? Because silly, you didn't read the story in“Marvel Tales” that Claremont wrote where Karma debuts as a villain and is sent to the Xavier Institute by the Fantastic Four.

Want to know why Magneto seems so close with the X-men in a short amount of time?? You must have missed the Marvel Premiere issue where they battle some intergalactic knob and Magneto saves the X-men's lives and goes full hippie....

This sort of happened with characters and stories he didn't create or write as well. Like Longshot for instance, you sort of have to read his mini series to understand what the deal is with all those characters related to him like Spiral and Mojo. Or Lady Deathstrike, who first appears in Daredevil and shows up during an X-men appearance in Alpha Flight that explains her backstory before she randomly shows up with the Reavers in the pages of X-Men.

Anyways, my point here is that I am okay with the X-men and X-men related characters crossing over and having mini series that push the story along, it helps the Marvel Universe feel like a more habitable , real place and obviously encourages readers to buy more comics, but with Claremont's run there is so much of it that it is difficult to follow and place the overall journey of each character. You don't really have this problem with any other character.....including Spider-Man, who appeared everywhere in the 80's, including his own “Team Up” book alongside his own title. You could avoid all the other stuff and just read the main Spider-Man series and follow what was going on.

He should have been more contained with important plot details and character interactions is all I'm saying.

So, those are some of my gripes. What are some things you dislike about Claremont's work?? It doesn't have to be from his 80's work, it could be from his Uncanny run in the early 2000s, or X-Treme X-Men, or just his general ideas behind things you might think should have been done differently.

The focus on women didn't bother me. He did seem to go a little too far with Kitty Pryde, but Storm didn't bother me. She seemed to get the same focus as any other major character would. A lot of the others mentioned were just minor things.

I actually like how everything was connected in a way. One of my biggest complaints about Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon is that their runs take place in a bubble, like they're meant to be read by themselves in trade. They never addressed important things that were going on in other X comics during the time period.

This might be a personal thing, but every time Claremont explored the fantasy genre it was a miss for me. I didn't care for Kitty's Fairy Tale Theater or that weird Avengers crossover that was #190-192, or the Asgardian crossover with the New Mutants that came in a annual right before Uncanny X-Men #200. His sci-fi would also be hit or miss for me.

I was not a big fan of the 70's. I do like it, and it was cool for the time period, but it still had too much of that Silver Age camp on it. His best years was from the start of the Byrne era to the end of the Silvestri era, in my opinion.

-- Claremontisms. They're amusing, but holy shit he used them too much.

* Ah'm nigh invulnerable when Ah'm blastin'

* By the white wolf!

* Cripes, Buster, Bub, Flamin' etc.

* Da, Tovarisch!

* Goddess!

* I'm the best there is at what I do. And what I do... isn't very pretty.

* No quarter asked, none given

* Selfsame

* Sugah

* The focused totality of her psychic power!

* Ungaublich!

-- I think he went a little overboard with exposition. So many long-winded paragraphs describing what we can clearly see on the page.

-- This one can be forgiven because superhero comics and the 80s, but his writing was sometimes overly hammy and the melodrama became unintentionally funny.

Mojoworld proof Claremont does drugs.

Also LMFAO at the layout of this thread... "Hey is that a picture of Madelyne Prior? Speaking of which...*rants about Maddie*"

@sprior93: You forgot one.

* It's your nickel/dime, talk.

He hasn't used that one in a long time.

Disagree. One of my favorite things ever is the Asgardian Annuals in X-Men and New Mutants drawn by Art Adams. I think Claremont handled fantasy very well as opposed to some other writers.

Yeah, his pre-Byrne stuff does seem like an anxious kid writing fan fiction, perhaps Byrne was instructive to him on how to better pace stories.

Ann Nocenti created Longshot and all Mojoverse related material. DID YOU NOT READ MY THING!!??

Mojoverse was supposed to be a parody of cable television executives and mindless television consumption of people at the time and all that jazz. Ann Nocenti was Grant Morrsion before Grant Morrison in some ways.

That is a good point. Most of the crossovers today are branded under the X label, while back then they were in titles that some new fans never heard of. The first time I read Claremont's run, I missed out on a lot of his stories because of this. I have since found guides that literally tell you everything to read, though.

I just have a hard time getting into them. Same with some of the sci-fi. I liked most of the dystopian future sci-fi that he did, but the space travel sci-fi was hit or miss. A lot of the times I wouldn't like how the tone of the book would immediately jump from Law & Order to Star Trek.

@cattlebattle: i read the parts with the pictures ?

**Still doesnt change that the use of Mojoworld and integratio of those characters is something truly Claremont. Integration of Franchises (even for the time period where it wasnt as strange) on such a level is something truly Claremontion

Well yeah, the story with Storm and Mystique I referenced in my post is something I didn't find about until earlier this year, and it is kind of necessary to read considering it ties into the direct events of the X-Men continuity at the time, which is what prompted me to make that point. How would you know to read it seeing it isn't really referenced anywhere?

This further proves my point because some reading order lists will include everything and a lot of it is truly hard to find. I mean, there is tons of stuff on the internet now but before that, you were sort of screwed, unless you scoured E-Bay for "X-Men/Micronauts" or something. Not that that mini series was a necessity to read, bu you get my point.

I have no issue with things like Lady Deathsrike appearing in issues of Alpha Flight before she becomes a cyborg or Rogue making her first appearance in an Avengers Annual trying to spring the Brotherhood from jail, I like when characters interact with the broader Marvel U, I advocate for that. I Just don't care for how there is some random story in some random anthology series or some mini series or "special" that's incredibly hard to find.

Understandable. I enjoyed how the X-Men faced down anything and everything, I think it helped them carve out their identity as opposed to the characters that just face "evil mutants" or to a lesser extent, the 90's, where they were primarily about "terrorists" the government and "muh feelz"

But Claremont barley used Mojo and the Mojoverse despite having access to it and having Longshot and Spiral around. That was sort of the point I made.

You......didn't read my thing.....did you?? T_____T

@cattlebattle: But...but...its a legit complaint. He really does include to many other series and franchises in the lure of his X-runs. Its like homework.

I don't think there was too much stuff. Unless you want to provide an example. Occasionally a character from another franchise would show up but nothing really would be related to it.

For instance during the "Asgardian Wars", the original Alpha Flight and X-Men story just features Madelyne Pryor and Cyclops stumble on to something Loki was doing, and after the X-Men defeat him, he swears vengeance and later accidentally abducts the New Mutants instead of the X-Men prompting the X-Men to get involved. It isn't like you had to read 45 issues of Thor to understand what was going on or anything.

I actually liked that about their take on the X-Men in my opinion. Gave it a self contained feeling in some ways. Thats just me though.

Great writing piece and while I disagree with some I can see where you're coming from. I liked some aspects of his take on sci-fi and other themes the X-Men would tackle. The Shiar for example.

Ann Nocienti told us where to read a lot of it in the editors notes, but yeah, there was some stuff that couldn't be found without a guide.

Actually, I feel like the 90's is what turned me off of sci-fi in X-Men. Everything had over-the-top sci-fi elements during the decade. They couldn't even fight Magneto without him being in space. The new villains, like Exodus and Phalanx, were inspired by science fiction. There was also men out of time like Bishop and Cable, and many cyborgs, like Cable, Liefield's Weapon X, Ellsie, Albert, and all of the new Reavers that came around during the decade. There was also a bunch of clone stories. It was revealed that with the exception of Sabretooth, all of the reavers were clones, because the originals had died in combat. There was also Joseph and Strife. The only down to earth stories seemed to be the "muh feelz" stories.

I read a lot of the 90's stuff before reading all of Claremont's run, so maybe that's what burnt me out on it.

It depends on how you look at it. It's cool if you only want to read those runs, but if you're reading everything, it seems strange how Beast never mentions Psylocke dying in his arms right before the start of New X-Men. Most of it isn't bad, but there are a few extreme examples that felt like they should of been talked about.

s Good read, and your right. Claremont (again i thinks hes the best so dont stone me) is one of those writers that with 15 years there is about as much bad as there is good. The good is just good enough to forget the bad lol, and your right he loved his women lol

A lot of these complaints seem to only be legit because of how long Claremont's run was. All writers have certain tropes that they use but most of them are not as noticeable since they don't write the same book for 16 years.

Okay, this seems like an interesting read. Going to have to put this on hold until I have time.

You like to make a brother read lol.

Claremont did seem use mind control a lot but it didn't bother me. He would find new ways to go about it that kept it interesting. The stuff with Polaris and Malice was very good imo.

I agree about most of his annuals being whacky.

Disagree about the women wank. Every writer has favorites that they use. Look at what has happened to Wolverine in the last decade. He has become a indestructible, immortal, killing machine. Iceman has become a immortal with infinite power. Cyclops has become insanely powerful, compared to his classic self. The point is that all writers "wank" certain characters and Claremont seemed to be more subtle in the characters that he chose to "wank" even if most of them did happen to be women. I guess it is true that he did wank them, but he was a better wanker than most writers, if that makes any sense.

I liked Maddie. Inferno was one of the best crossovers imo.

I agree about the sub plots. I wish he would of followed through with some stuff but a lot of it is not a big deal.

Didn't read op. I might come back to it later when I have more time.

I feel like the mid to late 80s are underrated and the Byrne run is overrated. Maybe Byrne was the pinnacle of his great storytelling but it was not his best work in all. As a character writer his best work was in the mid to late 80s and no one ever talks about that.

Wolverine wasn't powered up by one writer though. His healing factor was made instantaneous by the influence of the X-men films.....and his ascension to being a proficient fighter was just something that snowballed over the years from different writers. Same thing happened with most other characters.

This is different though. Iceman and Cyclops are characters that have been around for decades. Because characters are around for so long, and stagnate, writers will usually give them a power up to reinvigorate the character or at the very least do something different with them. Some of the females Claremont used and made more powerful had only been around for a short while at the time.

@cattlebattle:Wolverine was first powered up to the first movie levels in his solo by Larry Hama in the mid 90s. That is where we first saw him getting cut and instantly healing like he did in the movies.

Alright... so let's look at what you're calling "women wank" and double standards.

Consider this, as long as he wrote the book characters like Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler, all males, grew as characters and had developments and relationships, but mostly physically stayed the same, perhaps Colossus received a bit of an amp in strength during the Outback Era, but, nothing too significant.

Not true.

In a early issue of X-Men during Proteus we saw Wolverine about to fall off of a cliff and it was said that the fall could kill him. When Claremont was writing Wolverine in his first ongoing he was able to easily jump out of a plane without getting hurt and take bullet shots like nothing. In the 70s his healing factor was much slower than it was in the late 80s.

Nightcrawler originally couldn't teleport repeatedly without getting exhausted. He also wasn't a good fighter originally. All he would do in combat would be grab a enemy and teleport him until he was exhausted. Nightcrawler also eventually learned how to dismember people through teleportation.

Colossus started out very strong, but after his injury during Mutant Massacre he became even stronger.

Should I even mention Storm?? Is it enough that she is a very unique looking character that is already quite powerful in her ability to control the weather?? No, she is somehow knowledgeable enough in combat to defeat Callisto,

During the narration Claremont compared Callisto to Wolverine. It didn't seem like too much different than when regular Cyclops defeated Wolverine in Proteus. Cyclops did cheat, but Wolverine was also stronger and faster than Callisto.

Or Rachel, who was originally just a wayward refugee from a terrible reality that had moderate telekinetic and telepathic abilities that had a mean streak to match Wolverine's....pretty interesting as is, right?? Nope, she eventually was given the Phoenix Force

That was a plot point for Jim Shooter's Secret Wars II. The set ups for it first started in Secret Wars II. It was first shown that the Phoenix was still around in the issue where Storm first met Yukio, but it was not shown to have anything to do with Rachel until Secret Wars II. This might not of been Claremont's idea. It felt like it could of only been done to show how strong the Beyonder was. Maybe Claremont was already planning on replacing her with Psylocke and just used the Phoenix as a excuse to get rid of her.

It's like he got so much praise for what he did with Jean Grey and the Phoenix hat he decided he was just going to do that over and over....

Jean Grey was around for a couple decades. So that must mean that she doesn't count for some reason

I don't think that's right.

During the late 80s/early 90s Wolverine had lost his healing factor from getting beat half to death by The Reavers. Claremont never had Wolverine tanking bullets. He has has espoused in interviews several times over the years that he hated how Wolverine became near invincible.

Nightcrawler becoming more adept in battle and becoming a bit more focused in the use of his powers is a bit different than gaining god-like powers like that of a Phoenix or Binary, or being good at everything like Kitty, Dani or Storm.

I mentioned this. Also, if you go back and read my post, I didn't say every single woman was written like that, several of them were consistent. I just mentioned that he would tend to do that more with female characters.

False equivalence. Storm had never really shown any physical combat skills before fighting Callisto, that's one reason it was sort of silly, and during Proteus, Wolverine was shaken from Proteus and Cylops mainly used his optic blasts, and neither character was trying to kill the other....which wasn't the case when Storm fought Callisto.

The "Phoenix" visage Storm thinks she sees with Yukio is Japan is the product of of Mastermind who was screwing with the X-Men at the time as the story arc that follows that one has him kidnapping Madleyne Pryor and tricking the X-Men that she is the Phoenix. Also, Secret Wars 2 happens years after that story...so, I am not sure why you would link those 2.

Claremont gave the Phoenix to Rachel because he wanted to power her up likely. Because he enjoyed extremely powerful women. Also they brought Jean grey back to life at this time, and Claremont probably wanted to make the Phoenix more a of a cosmic thing as opposed to just being something Jean grey manifested.

Exactly!! Jean was around for a long time and was never really that powerful, so Claremont made her ridiculously powerful, got a lot of praise for it, and did it over and over......

@cattlebattle:

I don't think that's right.

I don't have these comics anymore so I can't make scans but I remember it. In Wolverine #88 we see Wolverine fight Deadpool for the first time. Wolverine's healing factor is still going slow from Fatal Attractions but he manages to easily heal Deadpool impaling his chest with both swords.

During the late 80s/early 90s Wolverine had lost his healing factor from getting beat half to death by The Reavers

He did make Wolverine weaker for a little while but he did the same thing with Storm when he took away her powers.

Claremont never had Wolverine tanking bullets.

Yes he did. This is from Wolverine vol 2 #1 by Chris Claremont.

Gallery

He also tanked bullets in X-Men comics around the time of Earthfall. During the time he was weakened and with Psylocke and Jubilee someone once threatened to shoot him in the eye because the bullets wouldn't work on his skeleton.

Nightcrawler becoming more adept in battle and becoming a bit more focused in the use of his powers is a bit different than gaining god-like powers like that of a Phoenix or Binary, or being good at everything like Kitty, Dani or Storm.

Storm was not good at everything. She never became as good a leader as Cyclops. We saw her make many mistakes in her leadership, even towards the end of Claremont's run in X-Tinction Agenda. She also had a lot more people get injured under her tenure as leader.

I have not read New Mutants in over a decade but I don't remember Dani being perfect. I remember her failing to save a couple people from death. I don't remember much about her from that time period. Claremont's Moonstar was boring to me.

Claremont did make Carol Danvers powerful, but she wasn't his character.

Storm had never really shown any physical combat skills before fighting Callisto,

It was already established that she was a theif that grew up on the streets of Cairo. People don't live that kind life without being able to take care of themselves.

The "Phoenix" visage Storm thinks she sees with Yukio is Japan is the product of of Mastermind who was screwing with the X-Men at the time as the story arc that follows that one has him kidnapping Madleyne Pryor and tricking the X-Men that she is the Phoenix. Also, Secret Wars 2 happens years after that story...so, I am not sure why you would link those 2.

I wasn't thinking clearly when I wrote that.

Claremont gave the Phoenix to Rachel because he wanted to power her up likely. Because he enjoyed extremely powerful women. Also they brought Jean grey back to life at this time, and Claremont probably wanted to make the Phoenix more a of a cosmic thing as opposed to just being something Jean grey manifested.

If he just wanted to power her up then why did he get rid of her? She left X-Men while mortally wounded by Wolverine in Septemper 1986. Excalibur didn't come around until over two years later in October 1988. It's like he didn't bring her back until he needed characters for a new book. She was powered up to fight Beyonder, gotten rid of immediately afterwards, replaced by another Psychic, and then disappears until Marvel calls for another book.

A lot of this sounds like nit picking. He didn't do anything different than most comic book writers do with men. Look at Simonson's X-Factor. Cyclops was given insanely good leadership skills. Claremont's Cyclops had flaws as a leader like Storm, but Simonson's was perfect. She made Beast super strong, Iceman's powers limitless, and gave Angel new powers and durability that came with Arcangel. Jean didn't get a power up though. She was powered down and even when her psychic powers returned she was not as strong as she was.

To me this scan embodies it all. Ain't that wacky...

Women... now you have me reminded of something purely Claremontian, and I'm still conflicted about how I feel with it:

Two badass Claremazons fighting over whose piece of male meat is that sexy thing going to be... pfft

I completely disagree with this shameless Acanti bashing! lol seriously, to me it's easily Claremont's magic right here and basically the best part of the whole Brood Saga, there was some artful elegance in gentle, space whale that communicate via songs. I mean, have you ever heard a whale song? It really is one of the most beautiful natural arts our world has given us, and here Claremont takes the advantages of something real and takes it to another level, and does so, again, artfully.

Admittedly, I didn't read the whole OP, but hopefully when I have more time I'll be back for more.

While I agree that Claremont was the man when it came to X-men, I agree with most of the op's thoughts.

I will add that sometimes he went overboard with the magical mystical stuff and long drawn out convoluted explanations. Both him and Morrison seem to at times get too smart for their own good. (don't get me started on Morrison's clusterf@ck)

He did go to the well a little too much on the possession stuff.

And this may be an unpopular opinion but I'm not the greatest fan of the Phoenix stuff just being some force that wanted to be human or whatever. I think there's a better explanation out there.

The same with the Maddie Pryor thing. I saw a redo of her origin written by someone and it was awesome and made a whole helluva lot more since than the overused clone thing. I know it's hindsight but really even when I was reading it back then it was just meh.. There is a better way that could have been done for sure

Claremont did miss a major opportunity I thought back in the day. He should have really pushed and made Storm and Wolverine a power couple similar to Jean and Cyclops. Nowadays it just feels forced and random but if he'd done that back in the day it would have been much more profound.

@jmc247: Umm, I'm not seeing where I mentioned Polaris.

Chris Claremont is easily the best X-Men writer for me. When I first started reading him, it was hard for me to get into it at first. I even skipped around some bits from the 70's and I was annoyed by his lengthy writing style. But during the course of reading his 15 year run, I feel in love with his writing style. Reading the run a second time; I loved every bit of it, and I was sucked in from his first issue to his last.

I love Claremont, but there are definite things that irk me when re-reading his monumental run(s, if we count New Mutants).

I think you covered it well, but for all that he had done in popularizing strong women (and very importantly, women of color), he often made these characters into caricatures. This is especially evident in his ill-advised race swaps (Psylocke, Sharon Friedlander, Tom Corsi) that seemed silly and unnecessary. #kwannonforever I also think he could've utilized more men of color.

I feel like the Demon Bear Saga would've been so much stronger had it not been for the weird transformations into Native American BDSM enthusiasts.

These female characters, like the OP stated, also became a cork board for 'amazing' attributes (ninja magician seemed like a popular one for him). This resulted in initially rich characters becoming less and less human and more like a dreamgirl fan-fic.

His New Mutants run is one I hold dear and I think it is an innovative piece of work with characters that I truly feel like I've grown with. However, the characters' hang ups became really repetitive, especially in Wolfsbane and Sunspot, whose respective religious xenophobia and hot-headed impulsiveness seemed to manifest identically from story arc to story arc. I think this may have been a narrative decision that, due to predating both Wikipedia/Comicvine and recap pages, helped readers familiarize themselves with these characters. It nonetheless affects the way I view those two particular characters.