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So, how badly has Claremont lost it this time?

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:25 / 23.05.04

I confess to having read the last couple of issues of X-Treme X-Men, being fond of the character of Rachel Summers from her NM/Excalibur days. Fuck me! Awful. Corsets'n'bondage, people being encased in evil black BDSM goop, and of course the team being forced by sadistic telepaths to act out their worst nightmares/fondest wishes/feelings of separation from the team, before rising above and shattering the mental hold upon them through the power of love/teamwork/being an X-Man. For two consecutive episodes. And not just as in *over* two episodes. No. It happened, it finished, and then it happened again. Fuck me...

Glutton for punishment as I am, I then find myself flicking through the new Excalbur. Fuuuuuck. This is *dire*. Moira MacTaggert showing her Scottishness by *not using any vowels* I can just about take, having been desensitised by years of abuse, but when Charles Xavier starts doing the same? Fucknuts.

So, is this just an unlucky pick, or has Claremont now gone utterly to shit? And if so, is it because he has failed to change with the times, or because he *has* changed with the times, and the times have encouraged his worst stylistic and psychosexual excesses?

Oh, and when did Rogue get a name, anyway?

18:02 / 23.05.04

So basically, you don't like scat but you want Chris Claremont to take a big steaming dump in your mouth because he's associated with someone you like?

Matthew Fluxington

19:06 / 23.05.04

Excalibur and X-Treme are pretty bad, but that first issue of Uncanny with Alan Davis was probably the best comic Claremont has done since 1988. I think that Claremont is only ever as good as his collaborator - Alan Davis, like Byrne, Romita Jr., Silvestri, and Paul Smith before him, seems to give Claremont enough of a charge to rise about mediocrity. Going on the first issue, Claremont/Davis X-Men breaks no new ground, but plays well to both of their strengths. Most post-80s Claremont writing seems heavy and overly verbose, but Davis brings out a lightness that is very much welcome.

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:10 / 23.05.04

The issue of how following creators rather than characters is the way forward for comics has been discussed elsewhere, Triplets.

I don't believe I expressed the opinions you represent as mine at any point about Claremont, nor any particular "association" with "somebody I like", Rachel Summers not being a real person. Since Claremont has always been "associated" with the character, having as far as I recall introduced her and written her for a pretty long time in New Mutants, X-Men and Excalibur, this doesn't really signify. My inquiry was simply into how bad Claremont had got.

Matthew Fluxington

19:27 / 23.05.04

Haus, if you want to read some really bad recent Claremont, you should pick up those issues of X-Treme that he did with Salvador Larocca. It may be hard to imagine, but they are far worse than the Kordey issues of X-Treme.

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:55 / 23.05.04

Wowser. Really? I had the odd flick through X-Treme, and it mainly just seemed very muddy, but I put that down primarily to a lack of interest in most of the characters, and that oddly alienating style of Salvador La Rocca's, where everything was either a shade of grey or crimson.

Claremont/Davis probably ranks with Claremont/Sienkiewicz as my favourite Claremont pairing - and, by the same token, Davis without Claremont has often left me cold. However, I suspect that that is primarily because the Davis stuff I have read without CC has primarily been self-penned, and I just don't think he can do dialogue. His Marvel UK DoFP was pretty mighty, though...

22:20 / 23.05.04

Pretty much Claremont lost it at the beginning of the nineties, and with the exception of a couple of half decent stories hasn't shown any sign of regaining the highs of his earlier work. He seams to be out of ideas, and the ones he gets poorly executed.

It's like when you favorite band splits, then ten years later reform and releases a really crap album that ruins everything that has gone before it.

23:59 / 23.05.04

CC's current run of JLA is utter poo. I keep hoping it will improve but it disappoints with each issue. I think both he and John Byrne have gone to seed creatively. The whole arc is so vacant and poorly thought out. The addition of Doom Patrol so genericly pointless, the villian so bland, the dialogue so stilted I wonder if any editors actually read it before it went to press. It seems they realise its just their names and resume that sell the comics these day, and then just go through the motions, like some souless sex machine that never cums.

05:38 / 24.05.04

Claremont/Davis probably ranks with Claremont/Sienkiewicz as my favourite Claremont pairing - and, by the same token, Davis without Claremont has often left me cold. However, I suspect that that is primarily because the Davis stuff I have read without CC has primarily been self-penned, and I just don't think he can do dialogue.

I don't think either Davis or Claremont does dialogue very well, but for contrasting reasons. Davis' dialogue is robotic, Claremont's is melodramatic...and so when they team up their faults tend to cancel out.

Regrettable Juvenilia

06:32 / 24.05.04

What was all that business in the last issue or so of X-Treme with people hiding in the closet, and then coming out of the closet? And then Gambit was getting it on with a shapeshifting person who he thought was Rogue but it turned out Rogue was hiding in the closet and has set the whole thing up to help increase his powers, or decrease his powers, or some shit? I'm not actually making any of this up.

07:26 / 24.05.04

It's actually Iron Man wearing a suit of Gambit-armour, so it's o-kay.

Matthew Fluxington

11:47 / 24.05.04

When Claremont is in his zone, he can write pretty decent dialogue, though it's highly stylized and melodramatic. If you aren't taking it too seriously, it can be pretty fabulous - a lot of his best work from the late 70s/early 80s had totally respectable dialogue for a melodramatic superhero soap opera.

I'd argue that Claremont has always been losing "it" and getting "it" back, and it all depends on who he is working with. Check out Essential X-Men Vol 3 - most of that stuff is TERRIBLE, especially when you consider that it's right in between the John Byrne and Paul Smith runs. It's the X-equivalent to the Jean Doumanian/Dick Ebersol years of Saturday Night Live.

Claremont does okay up through about halfway through Silvestri's run (at which point he's held hostage to editorial mandated crossovers every year and he finally "jumps the shark" with Inferno), and then he loses it BIG TIME in the period after Silvestri leaves and the Australian X-Men disband, and Jim Lee signs on as a full-time artist.

12:54 / 24.05.04

Obviously he has to go on some kind of Spirit Quest just LOADED with symbology, confront his innermost demons, deconstruct his character, and return with purpose renewed, new powers, and a spiffy new costume.

Spyder Todd 2008

13:31 / 24.05.04

Wait, isn't Moira MacTaggert dead?

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:45 / 24.05.04

Yeah - he's hallucinating.

I don't think either Davis or Claremont does dialogue very well, but for contrasting reasons. Davis' dialogue is robotic, Claremont's is melodramatic...and so when they team up their faults tend to cancel out.

This actually makes a degree of sense, although how much Claremont allowed AD to impact upon his scripts I'm unsure. Possibly it's just that AD's very clean style detracts from the curlicues of Claremont's dialogue.

Flyboy. It was a metaphor. For coming out of the closet. Do you see?

Haus of Mystery

16:27 / 24.05.04

When I first encountered Claremont, on the Jim Lee 90's X-Men relaunch, I actually found the dialogue unreadably bad, and stopped that little experiment, having no real fondness for the characters either. Recently though, I read his seminal run with Byrne (Collected in Essential X-Men vol.2) and was blown away by how pacy, exciting and downright sexy the whole thing was. No doubt had I read a it as a kid, I'd have been as in love with the X-Men as a lot of people seem to be. So at what point did he fall off? Is he ,like Pat Mills, a writer who's time has passed, whose writing style is now totally out of vogue? I recall his early Excaliber was OK, but mainly cos of Alan Davis' lovely artwork, and the great characters already established by other writers. What other stuff has he written that people rate?

Matthew Fluxington

16:57 / 24.05.04

Collaborations which have brought out the best in Chris Claremont:

Dave Cockrum (only the first year of the all-new, all different X-Men; the second post-Byrne run isn't very good at all.

John Byrne (obviously)

Paul Smith (it only lasted a year, but it ruled)

John Romita Jr. (I would argue that their run on Uncanny X-Men is just as great and iconic as the Byrne period)

Bill Seinkiewitz (why has their run on New Mutants never been released? Marvel really should start putting out New Mutants in Essential volumes)

Marc Silvestri (it kinda falls apart towards the end, but Claremont is still going strong from Fall Of The Mutants up through the first Genosha storyline)

Alan Davis (I'm not a huge fan of the original Excalibur, but Davis brings a smooth lightness to his collaborations with Claremont that forces CC to rein in his excesses.

Pooky Is Just My Pornstar Name

20:01 / 24.05.04

So, is this just an unlucky pick, or has Claremont now gone utterly to shit? And if so, is it because he has failed to change with the times, or because he *has* changed with the times, and the times have encouraged his worst stylistic and psychosexual excesses?

It's funny, but there's a similar thread over on rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks. As one poster put it, "Claremont, as much as I hate to admit it, can't write anymore. He's also become quite the pervert in his old age with a strong lesbian fetish." See this: link.

Oh, and when did Rogue get a name, anyway?

Issue #31 of Xtreme Xmen. She reveals that she's calling herself "Anna Raven" now. Personally, I think that the "Anna" part is an homage to the actress, Anna Paquin, who plays Rogue in the X-Men films. I say that because as soon as Rogue reveals the new name, the very next page has her, Bishop, and Sage inside her home. In the background is a giant poster of The Piano in which Anna Paquin made her film debut. The "Raven" bit may be a tip of the hat to Mystique, whose's real name is Raven Darkholme.

What was all that business in the last issue or so of X-Treme with people hiding in the closet, and then coming out of the closet? And then Gambit was getting it on with a shapeshifting person who he thought was Rogue but it turned out Rogue was hiding in the closet and has set the whole thing up to help increase his powers, or decrease his powers, or some shit? I'm not actually making any of this up.

Rogue asked Sage (whose mutant power is to actualize/activate other mutants' latent powers) to jumpstart Gambit's powers (he lost them a while back). In order to do it, they needed him to have the right surge of adrenlin...thus the masquerade - Sage posed as Rogue in sexy lingerie, kissed Gambit, and baboom! Gambit's got his powers back. IMO, I think this scene was just an excuse for Claremont to get his perv on. In a previous issue, Sage jumpstarted another latent mutant's power without having to kiss him.

Matthew Fluxington

20:33 / 24.05.04

But Claremont's always been pervy, it's one of the best things about his work. The problem is that these days he's losing grasp on how to keep things in the subtext.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:54 / 24.05.04

Is he losing the grasp of keeping it in subtext, or is he just *allowed* to take it out of subtext now?

00:10 / 25.05.04

The "closet" bit was actually Storm and Yukio entering Rogue's house through some kind of tesseract portal that can open through any door anywhere. They could have walked in the front door from the tesseract, or out of the bathroom door.

So why the closet? Because it made for some VERY FUNNY LESBIAN JOKES. VERY VERY FUNNY.

Claremont needs his medication.

-Jeph!

00:12 / 25.05.04

Part of the problem is that Claremont hasn't really brought any new ideas to the table in a while now. He seems to be continually mining the same areas, all of which were exhausted a long time ago (just how many more mind control plots do we need). I'm trying to think of a Chris Claremont story in the last 10 years that I actually enjoyed reading, and not one springs to mind.

The current relaunch seems to be an attempt to turn the clock back, which I'm not sure is the best of ideas as other writers have proved that with the right tweaking there is certainly enough scope in the X franchise to revitalize the properties without drifting too far away from the core concepts, while still keeping things fresh.

Haus of Mystery

18:59 / 25.05.04

Y'know, the naffest thing Claremont introduced was the idea that massive psychic powers would manifest themselves as pink energy-knives that come out of people's fists. Really thinking about the potential there Chis! Morrison is one of the few 'X-writers' to have actually explored the psychic stuff in an interesting way, rather than having it as an extension of fisticuffs.

04:49 / 26.05.04

Wow, good point.

"I'm a telepath! I STAB YOU!!"

-Jeph!
who wrote this post using the focused totality of his psychic powers

12:57 / 27.05.04

Actually the first issue of Uncanny I ever read was 148 (Spiderwoman and Dazzler to the rescue as Kitty falls to the Shadow of Death!), part of the second Claremont/Cockrum run and I loved it. It was totally campy trash but got me hooked on comics for... well I'm still reading the things today.

Claremont has definitely lost it though.

Over the years I got irritated by the little dialogue 'ticks' Claremont seemed to suffer from. 'Chum'. 'The more things change the more they stay the same'. 'The thing about the X-Men is that you can generally tell where they've been', etc. Under Claremonts pen every character acquired the annoying habit of dispensing dubious moralistic advice to each other, over and over again.

And now? Bah, he's lost his ability to plot too.