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Craig Earl
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 July 2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1478
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| Posted: 19 November 2023 at 11:48am | IP Logged | 1
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I think it's notable how often The Dark Phoenix Saga or Days of Future Past are referred to among comic book fans. I don't recall any of the non CC/JB issues being lauded anywhere near as much.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134277
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| Posted: 19 November 2023 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | 2
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And oh, how I wish they’d been forgotten!!!
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4635
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| Posted: 19 November 2023 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | 3
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I mostly just wish #153, Kitty's Fairy Tale, had not happened... that was almost a jumped the shark moment for me, and even that was revisited kind of in an Annual.
A couple entirely new things I did like that (I think) started after 1980 in X-Men would be Lockheed The Dragon and the Morlocks. I guess Rogue (first a really nasty baddie and then suddenly... not) would be another, but I really didn't completely care for the character. When they are adding Dazzler and Longshot later they also felt as out of place (Phoenix junior was supposed to feel that way I'm thinking).
So much post 1980 X-Men is either return appearances (Arcade, Starjammers and the Alien type brood aliens, Mastermind, Rachel/Phoenix junior), or kind of side stories with no mutant connection whatsoever focusing on one character (like the Dracula stuff with Storm, the Magick realm stuff with that dude from Ka-Zar, Wolverine in Japan).
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6868
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| Posted: 19 November 2023 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | 4
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When it comes to my complicated fan-opinion of Chris Claremont's work, I like to just remember: "Nothing Succeeds Like Success."
I wish I loved more of it, but I can't blame him for doing what worked!
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12892
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| Posted: 19 November 2023 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | 5
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Mark, would you explain why you wished you loved more of Chris Claremont's work?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134277
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| Posted: 29 November 2023 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | 6
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BTW — a comment on the first X-MEN page Steven Queen posted. We see there two Claremontisms. Across the top of the page, he ignores the art, resulting in Wolverine pointlessly pointing off panel. But across the bottom of the page he adds a little detail (the stench) and make the panel so much more than what I drew.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4635
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| Posted: 29 November 2023 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | 7
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Via some fanzine(s) a few years after that Savage Land story there was some question of if between "This guy's mine." and Snikt! if Wolverine killed the guard. I think a reader could read that either way if they want and it's visually very impactful and an asset that you might not be 100% sure about this Wolverine character. Today, or at least by the mid-'90s, I think they would have three pages of graphic disemboweling and text of thoughts of Wolverine while he's doing his thing, maybe about how he is 'the best at what he does' or whatever cod Bushido code stuff is fashionable.
'70s comic = cherished classic... so many others since (rated PG or R or Mature) = fish wrappers. Comics are a visual and verbal balance but too much visual, like too much verbiage, can unbalance the story-telling. I guess too it's the old Hitchcock trope about what the viewer might imagine via careful suggestion being far better (worse) than what could be spoon fed or shown explicitly. Who knows that the shark wasn't jumped the first time a mainstream comic showed a character on the toilet, and how do we find our way back to the garden from everything being shown? If Art is something that sensitizes it is also capable of desensitizing. So for the people who made the most noise about comics as significant Art and/or Literature... how come their idea of Mature and mine are so out of step? I've bought individual issues X-Men #108-143 as many as four times over the years, I've never had a Killing Joke, Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns more than once (as the most accomplished of that whole 'dark' superheroes for adults drive, so many others I've never even had once and in some cases wouldn't want around at all).
It's a bit like that ska revival group The Specials I like a lot and have all the recordings by them I can find, yet there's one number titled The Boiler sung by Rhoda Dakar that's pretty explicit about a rape... that one I need have heard only once as there is nothing to enjoy about it, it's not really music ska or otherwise, certainly not fun... it makes a point, breaks rules, makes history, but why would you come back for more of that? I think the way superhero comics went at times brutalized readers if it didn't basically mistreat them as some kind of collector addict... but something like those '70s X-Mens can be enjoyed multiple times like music (and I'm so glad The Beyonder was not around yet for them).
Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 29 November 2023 at 10:34pm
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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
Posts: 2241
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| Posted: 30 November 2023 at 12:47am | IP Logged | 8
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“But what have you done for me lately?”
Almost a corporate mantra at Marvel. See treatment of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, etc. And Chris Claremont.
____________________________
The irony is that years later they would approve stories by the latest "flavor of the month" or "buddy of the month" writers who would blatantly ripoff some of Claremont's planned or rejected story ideas. Two examples of this come to mind. The first is Claremont's Dark Wolverine story which Mark Millar blatantly ripped off and was praised for it. The second example is the definitive origin of Nightcrawler (which just came out today) that revealed Mystique is Kurt's father and Destiny is his mother.
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6868
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| Posted: 30 November 2023 at 2:05am | IP Logged | 9
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Michael: Mark, would you explain why you wished you loved more of Chris
Claremont's work?
***
This is an aging man wishing his childhood passions could live on. I spent
years reading Chris on X-Men and thinking I was loving it. But it no longer
works for me, outside what he did with John. My personal quirk is to not
simply accept this, but to yearn for a happier state where I still liked it all.
In the context of this thread, though, I also suspect that if I liked Chris’
approach more, I’d enjoy more comics that are currently being made. As I
say, his approach seems to have “won.”
Edited by Mark Haslett on 30 November 2023 at 2:10am
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ron bailey
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 October 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 1219
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| Posted: 30 November 2023 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | 10
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I hesitate to dismiss Claremont's talents and contributions quite so casually, but I can confess to outright wincing once his efforts led to indulgences to his excesses like the indecipherable Excalibur and all that eye-rolling swashbuckling Nightcrawler and his Bamfs.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134277
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| Posted: 30 November 2023 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | 11
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Much like the Thing, who became downright cuddly, Nightcrawler lost his starting premise very quickly. It was no secret that the character was Dave’s avatar in the book, and all his joyful swashbuckling flowed from that. The frightening monster to whom we’d been introduced in GSXM was gone. (One of my ideas in the formation of Kitty was that she would find Kurt disturbing. This was forgotten after “Days of Future Past”.)
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 31542
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| Posted: 30 November 2023 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | 12
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Fuzzy Elf
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