The Incomplete Wolverine – 1984
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983
Welcome to the era of event comics.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #178
“Hell Hath No Fury…”
by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Bob Wiacek, Brett Breeding & Glynis Wein
February 1984
Wolverine doesn’t appear in the January issue, in which Lilandra and Binary leave with the Starjammers, and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants attack Kitty and Colossus.
In this issue, the X-Men come to the rescue. It turns out to be a diversion to draw the X-Men away from the Mansion, so that Mystique can kill Professor X as revenge for taking Rogue away from her. Rogue talks Mystique down, and Mystique spares Professor X in exchange for safe passage for the Brotherhood.
So not a Wolverine story, then. He does note that Storm is taking on some of Yukio’s traits, and suggests that he doesn’t think this is a great idea – understandably, since Yukio’s role in the Wolverine miniseries was to offer the temptation of succumbing to his instincts.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #179
“What Happened to Kitty?”
by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Dan Green & Glynis Wein
March 1984
A group of Morlocks led by Callisto kidnaps Kitty Pryde to force her to keep her word and marry Caliban. (Wolverine missed the Morlocks’ debut, which happened while he was in Japan.) A dead teenager, altered by Masque, is left behind as Kitty’s supposed body, but of course it doesn’t fool Wolverine’s sense of smell. By the time the X-Men arrive, Kitty has decided to go through the wedding, partly out of guilt towards Caliban, and partly so that the Morlock Healer will cure Colossus (which he does). Of course, Caliban realises that she’s miserable and releases her from her vow. Oh, and this is also Wolverine’s first meeting with Leech.
Not much for Wolverine here either, aside from using his senses. Kitty upbraids him for attacking the Morlocks without waiting to find out if she wants to be rescued, and accuses him of looking for an excuse to fight. To be fair, she doesn’t know about the violated corpse.
At around this point, Magma (Amara Aquilla) joins the New Mutants and moves into the X-Men Mansion. Wolverine must be introduced to her, but we don’t see it.
X-MEN & THE MICRONAUTS #1-4
by Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, Jackson Guice and various others
4-issue miniseries
January to April 1984
Baron Karza, arch-enemy of the Micronauts – Arcturus Rann, Marionette, Acroyear, Bug, Huntarr and Fireflyte – shows up at the Mansion with the Micronauts’ living Bioship in tow. The two have just escaped a devastating battle in the Microverse against the mysterious, all-powerful Entity, and Karza has traced the Entity’s power to Professor X. The X-Men go into the Microverse, get mind-controlled by the Entity, and wind up attacking several planets for him alongside the similarly-enslaved Micronauts. After Kitty frees both teams, they join forces to defeat the Entity, who turns out to be a projection of Professor X’s dark side. Completely inconsequential for Wolverine, unless you count the fact that he meets the Micronauts.
No placement for this story is ideal, but this official position is as good as any. There’s no mention of Colossus’ injuries, which are still troubling him in Uncanny #180… but maybe he has a relapse.
NEW MUTANTS vol 1 #14
“Do You Believe in — Magik?!”
by Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema, Tom Mandrake & Glynis Wein
April 1984
The X-Men cameo as guests at a birthday party for Illyana Rasputin, who’ll join the New Mutants next issue as Magik.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #180
“Whose Life is it, Anyway?”
by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Dan Green, Bob Wiacek & Glynis Wein
April 1984
Logan talks to Peter, who is brooding about his relationship with Kitty. Peter worries that he has lost her, either to the Morlocks (since she agreed to marry Caliban), or to New Mutants supporting character Doug Ramsey (who is closer to her own age). Logan’s advice is that if Peter feels that way about Kitty, then he should wait until she’s older, and that if he truly thinks he isn’t good enough for her then he’s already lost more than he realises.
This hasn’t aged brilliantly – the age gap between Peter and Kitty reads rather less comfortably now than it did nearly 40 years ago. Remember, we only just had Kitty turning 14 in Special Edition X-Men. In this issue, Peter actually says that if they were in Russia, they could be married already.
Later, the X-Men (minus Kitty, who’s off in a New Mutants storyline) investigate an enormous construct which has appeared in Central Park. Like a lot of other heroes, they blunder into the thing and get zapped off to…
MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS #1-12
by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, John Beatty & Christie Scheele
12-issue miniseries
May 1984 to April 1985
The mysterious, cosmic Beyonder abducts various heroes and villains to his patchwork Battleworld, made up of bits stolen from other worlds (including a suburb of Denver). He tells each side that if they kill their opponents then they can have whatever they want. Meanwhile, Magneto gets assigned to the hero team, but only the X-Men are prepared to try and work with him – which leads to Magneto walking out, and the X-Men following him to become a third force. In practice they wind up siding with the heroes, obviously, but the X-Men’s outsider status and Magneto’s face turn is duly worked into the plot. Eventually everyone teams up to stop Galactus from eating the planet, and Doctor Doom from stealing the Beyonder’s power. And then everyone goes home.
This is the very first line-wide event crossover – Wolverine appears in all but issue #8 (which does feature the rest of the X-Men). Like other heroes, the X-Men departed for Secret Wars just as the series began, but then returned home in the very next issue. Secret Wars itself lasted a year, and the gimmick was that the changes would all be explained over time. There aren’t any radical changes for the X-Men, unless you count Colossus becoming obsessed with a girl he meets on Battleworld, which leads to his break-up with Kitty. Professor X and Rogue get new costumes, to give the impression of a bit more change. And Lockheed meets an unnamed girl dragon at the last minute, in order to set up Uncanny X-Men #181.
Naturally, Wolverine meets a bunch of new people here. On the hero side, he’s met everyone but the new Iron Man (Jim Rhodes), who at this point is pretending to be Tony Stark anyway. On the villain side, the ridiculously random line-up includes Galactus, Kang the Conqueror, Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius), Ultron, the Molecule Man (Owen Reece), the Lizard (Curt Connors), the Absorbing Man (Crusher Creel) and the Wrecking Crew, comprising the Wrecker (Dirk Garthwaite), Thunderball (Eliot Franklin), Bulldozer (Henry Camp) and Piledriver (Brian Calusky). Wolverine also meets the debuting Titania (Mary McPherran) and Volcana (Marsha Rosenberg); the living alien Spider-Man costume later known as the Venom symbiote; Colossus’ healer Zsaji; and Galactus’ herald Nova (Frankie Raye). The new Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter) also debuts in this series; Wolverine doesn’t seem to actually meet her on panel, but they probably say hi before everyone goes home.
Despite his rising popularity, Wolverine isn’t particularly central to the story. Shooter writes a throwback Wolverine, who objects to Captain America as leader because he’s weak, and then bickers with him, like in the old days with Cyclops. Later, Wolverine gets to give Nightcrawler his familiar speech about not taking prisoners in a time of war. He does indeed try to kill the Molecule Man when he gets the chance, and he cuts off the Absorbing Man’s arm while he’s in stone form, even though nobody really knows if he can be put back together. (He can.)
Issue #10 gives Wolverine a more significant scene where he berates Captain America for doing nothing to help mutants. He argues that Magneto’s reaction to humanity is perfectly understandable, and that the other heroes’ reluctance to accept him even after he’s reformed proves that Magneto was right in the first place. We’re not meant to agree with any of this – Captain America duly reminds us that Silver Age Magneto was a terrorist and murderer, and Wolverine acknowledges later on that Cap does indeed care about everyone, including mutants. It’s still interesting that Wolverine gets to be the spokesman for a comparatively radical position, though it’s probably because Shooter saw him as the X-Man most suited to being angry and wrong.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #181
“Tokyo Story”
by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Dan Green & Glynis Wein
May 1984
Meanwhile, back in the regular titles… Lockheed’s new lady friend stows away as the X-Men leave. For some reason, this makes most of the X-Men reappear in Japan, and the girl dragon turn into a giant. She wreaks havoc in Tokyo, and the X-Men try to help. During this, Wolverine finds a dying mother and her daughter Amiko. Wolverine swears to keep Amiko safe and see that she is raised as if she were his own daughter. (A single panel flashback in Wolverine vol 2 #150 expands slightly on this scene.) Eventually the girl dragon vanishes, apparently after realising that Lockheed doesn’t love her.
Ah, Amiko. Wolverine adopts her in the heat of the moment, out of nowhere. And then… pretty much dumps her on Mariko and forgets about her. She winds up as a character who shows up every few years so that people can chide Wolverine about being a terrible father to her – hardly a direction that accords with the growing maturity Wolverine was meant to be showing in Claremont’s stories. Presumably she was meant to help keep Wolverine and Mariko’s relationship ticking over and give them reasons to continue to meeting up, but she’s ultimately an underdeveloped misfire.
I suppose, to be fair to Wolverine, he technically keeps to the letter of his promise: “I’ll see she’s raised as if she were my own.” Not quite the same as “I’ll raise her”. In fact, when you look at the children who have been retconned into Wolverine’s back story since there, “rais[ing] [her] as if she were my own” is a pretty low bar.
After this story, the X-Men return home. Wolverine doesn’t appear in Uncanny #182 (which is a Rogue solo issue). A flashback in X-Men: Liberators #3 takes place around here, showing Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler playing tag in the grounds as a training exercise.
Flashbacks in DAMAGE CONTROL vol 1 #4
“eXcessive Farce”
by Dwayne McDuffie, Ernie Colon, Bob Wiacek & John Wellington
August 1989
The Mansion needs repairing again, so Professor X calls in Damage Control to deal with the public parts. The X-Men meet Robin Chapel, Lenny Ballinger, Gene Strausser and Albert Cleary. Gene inadvertently releases a bunch of slapstick comedy into the Danger Room, and the X-Men have to sort it out. Professor X wipes Damage Control’s memories; they get them back in the framing sequence (which takes place shortly after “Inferno”). Damage Control is a fondly remembered series, but this really isn’t its finest hour.
The flashbacks really doesn’t fit anywhere. Storm still has powers, and Kitty Pryde is there, neither of which can really be ignored. So it has to be before Uncanny X-Men #183 – any later, and either Kitty is off in Kitty Pryde & Wolverine, or Storm has lost her powers. But Doug Ramsey is also wandering around as Cypher, and it’s far too early for that. Best just to shrug and stick it here, in the last available space before Kitty departs.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #183
“He’ll Never Make Me Cry”
by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Dan Green & Glynis Oliver
July 1984
Peter breaks up with Kitty. Logan drags Peter to a bar to yell at him about it, and Kurt tags along to make sure things don’t get out of hand. By sheer coincidence, the Juggernaut shows up, and Peter gets into a fight with him. Logan decides Peter has it coming, and lets him get beaten up.
Logan is clearly very protective of Kitty, and gives at least one good reason for being angry at Peter: she was willing to marry Caliban in issue #179 in order to get the Healer to save Peter’s life. According to Logan, Peter never even thanked her for that, which does sound pretty reprehensible. But Logan also accuses Peter of being scared of commitment now that Kitty is old enough for their relationship to become more serious (“Kitty’s not a kid any more – you two were going beyond playing games.”) He seems to believe that he’s also helping Peter by challenging him over his fear of commitment, and defends his own separation from Mariko, insisting that it’s a matter of honour and duty.
Once again, the age gap on this storyline really hasn’t aged well. This issue is quite clear that Peter is 19 and Kitty is 14, and it seems highly dubious, to put it mildly, for Logan to be pushing Peter to pursue that relationship, especially on the grounds that she’s “not a kid any more”.
As for Kitty, she takes a leave of absence to meet her father. We’ll see her again in the Kitty Pryde & Wolverine miniseries, and neither she nor Wolverine will appear again in Uncanny X-Men until next year. But before Wolverine joins her, he has a batch of Kitty-free guest appearances.
FIRESTAR vol 1 #2
“The Players & The Pawn!”
by Tom DeFalco, Mary Wilshire, Bob Wiacek & Daina Graziunas
March 1986
The New Mutants are invited to a dance at Emma Frost’s Massachusetts Academy. And they decide to go, on the grounds that since plenty of regular students are going to be there, it must be safe. Wolverine disagrees, because he’s not a moron, but the plot says they have to go, so he’s outvoted.
Yes, I know the cover shows Firestar fighting Wolverine. She doesn’t, though she does fight an illusory Wolverine for three panels in a training session.
(Firestar was a continuity implant filling in the back story leading up to the character’s debut in Uncanny #193, which is why this goes so far out of publication order.)
MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL #12
“Dazzler: The Movie”
by Jim Shooter, Frank Springer, Vince Colletta & Christie Scheele
October 1984
The X-Men (randomly including Cyclops, who’s meant to be in Alaska) make a brief cameo when Storm phones Dazzler to check in on her. This story can’t go any later, because it’s referenced in Uncanny #192.
1985 #6
“Nuff Said!”
by Mark Millar & Tommy Lee Edwards
October 2008
Marvel heroes and villains from roughly 1985 in Marvel continuity start appearing in the “real world” thanks to reality warper Clyde Wyncham; young Toby Goodman finds a portal to the Marvel Universe and alerts the heroes. Wolverine is among a whole bunch of characters who cameo here, none of whom actually seem to have been selected with any particular eye on their status quo in 1985. Still, this is where the official timelines put it. Wolverine ticks another bunch of names off his list here: Giant-Man (Hank Pym), the Red Skull (Johann Schmidt), Electro (Max Dillon), the Shocker (Herman Schultz), the Vulture (Adrian Toomes), the Abomination (Ivan Blonsky), the Hobgoblin (Roderick Kingsley) and some line-up of the Frightful Four. In the end, Wyncham surrenders, sends everyone home, and returns to the Marvel Universe with the heroes to be incarcerated.
Next time, the Kitty Pryde & Wolverine miniseries (which starts in November 1984, but runs through to spring 1985).
[…] Next time, the line-wide event era is upon us, with Secret Wars. (NB: Kitty Pryde & Wolverine starts at the tail end of 1984, but most of it came out in 1985, so we’ll get to it there.) […]
Ah, Kitty…wiser than her years. It was maybe a mistake to start her age at 13.
What a great year for Uncanny X-Men, though: a classic roster, amazing art by Romita and Green, storylines ticking over effortlessly with plenty of time for character development. This is the era when 12-year-old me couldn’t wait for the next issue. Not to mention the insanity happening over in New Mutants with Bill Sienkiewicz joining the team.
Interesting that Wolverine is hitting the height of his popularity here and yet is so easily removed from the lineup. I suppose that could be said of any one of the X-Men depending on who we’re following over time. Still, it’s quite different than the omnipresent Wolverine we’re going to get in years to come.
“But Doug Ramsey is also wandering around as Cypher”
That sounds like Doug.
I’ve been thinking about finally diving into the Claremont run after all these years and I thought I’d ask:
Is there a good jumping-OFF point for Claremont?
I know he was taken off the books last minute in the 90s with nothing resolved, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve never quite mustered the enthusiasm to dive into his stuff.
So can someone recommend a specific issue issue in the last third or so of his run which ties up some plot threads and works as a satisfying emotional/narrative conclusion? A good place fo stop reading, so you feel like you’ve read a complete story.
I’d also be grateful if someone could recommend a similar stopping point for his New Mutants.
Fall of the Mutants would be a reasonably good end point for the Claremont run.
“Is there a good jumping-OFF point for Claremont?”
The ending of Fall of the Mutants in issue 227 is the sort of sharp break you’re looking for, though it’s about 50 issues from the end of the run and leaves out the whole Australia era. Don’t think there’s as good a break after that.
Arrowhead: I’d argue ending when the “Inferno” crossover ends.
There’s about 30 issues more until Claremont leaves, but those stories seem far less coherent and have more editorial interference.
Otherwise I agree with Paul and James: End with the Fall of the Mutants crossover.
As far as New Mutants, I guess you could read up to issue #34.
Issue #35 features Magneto becoming headmaster of the school, so that could serve as a break point for that book. Especially as #34 wraps up the prior story-arc.
That will allow you to read the issues with Bill Sienkiewicz’ art, which are the high-point of the New Mutants title.
Arrowhead – Fall of the Mutants gets you a better “last moment,” but if you stay through Inferno you get more plot threads tied up (although then you have Louise Simonson writing the conclusion).
Staying through the whole thing isn’t that much messier than dropping out early. The downside is that Fabian Nicieza wrote what turned out the be the climax of his Uncanny run. X-Men #1-3 is a decent enough “final thought” for Claremont, esp. if you like his handling of Magneto, and it’s kind of fitting that his first story shipped off (most of) the original X-Men and his last had (most of) the gang back together.
I agree with Dave directly above.
Claremont was forced to rush his ending and had to make some major changes to his direction, but it does serve as an end-point for his run. Just one that was written to allow serial story-telling to continue with an ongoing comic.
There’s a pretty huge gap in narrative between Uncanny #180 and the start of the Jim Lee on full plotting era that begins in issue #181.
The final Claremont-penned story-arc still featured the final battle with the Shadow King. That was Claremont’s plan for his final story on the title.
The “Muir Isle Saga” just wasn’t initially supposed to be the point of that final battle. It was supposed to be a set-up story for the grand finale.
The main problem was that Claremont got so upset with Jim Lee and Bob Harras half-way through the three-part story-line that he quit the book.
It’s not a satisfying ending, but it is somewhat of an ending for the Claremont years.
That should read #280 and #281 in the above post.
I concur with the Fall of the Mutants or Inferno consensus, depending on how invested you are in seeing X-book plot threads tie up. The Scott/Jean/Madelyne/Phoenix mess, the original Illyana Rasputin arc, the Marauders/X-Men war, the first Mister Sinister story, all paid off during Inferno.
For New Mutants, I’m undecided between #28 and #34. #28 wraps up the original Legion story and is a pretty clean break for the series. #34 gets you three more issues of Sienkiewicz pencils, but he leaves mid-arc, and it’s a Shadow King story that I’ve always thought was lousy. As Chris V. notes, #35 puts Magneto in charge which sets up plot threads that continue until Claremont leaves with #54.
Funnily, though, I’d say that the best two issues of New Mutants after #28 are, of all things, a Secret Wars II tie-in issue and its aftermath. Because nothing says quality like a peripheral tie-in to Secret Wars II.
Uncanny #137 is as good as it gets, really. Or #138 if you enjoy reminescence issues with no action scenes of their own.
But if you truly want to soldier on, there is probably no better alternate jumping-off point than either the last Fall of the Mutants issue (#227) or the last Inferno issue (#243, but you will want to also read X-Factor #39 for the conclusion).
Allan –
That issue where the Beyonder murders almost the entire team, and then the lingering aftereffects of their resurrection–that storyline has haunted me for decades! But seeing the White Queen in a more sympathetic light as she helps them overcome the trauma, even as we see Empath at his most reprehensible (with poor Tom and Sharon) really was a jarring one-two example of Claremont’s strengths and weaknesses.
Fall of the Mutants is a better ending, but as Allam M points out, Inferno is the point where all the loose ends and plot points are tied up, so either work.
While I’m not a huge fan of that New Mutants SWII tie-in story, I still adore the Art Adams cover for the aftermath issue (#38). He was always able to make them look like distinct individuals and like teenagers. Not to mention that cover is seriously creepy. So good.
As for New Mutants in general, I’d stop after the Legion story. The book lost a lot of direction after that.
There’s a case to be made for #201 as the best Claremont endpoint. That gives satisfying resolutions for Xavier, Magneto, Cyclops, and arguably Storm and avoids the beginning of unresolved storylines about Nimrod, Mr Sinister, Gateway, the Shadow King, etc. #201 is the last issue before the resurrection of Jean Grey in X-Factor derails Claremont’s original plans.
Otherwise, the end of Inferno wraps up a lot of character arcs and stories that begin with Jean’s resurrection. Don’t be put off by complaints about Louise Simonson—her X-Factor is pretty good, especially with Walt drawing it. New Mutants is worse, but you can mostly ignore that series.
That said, the post-Inferno breakdown of the team in Uncanny 246-260 or so are some of my favorite Claremont comics. Editorial interference and meddling from Jim Lee take a toll after 260, as very little of what Claremont wanted to do comes to fruition, but even so there are good moments for Forge, Wolverine, and Magneto between 261 and 275. And then you’re just a few issues short of wrapping up the entire Claremont run.
The major segments of Claremont’s run, as I see it, are 94-138 (new team through Dark Phoenix epilogue), 139-175 (resolution for Cyclops post-Phoenix), 176-201 (resolutions for Xavier and Magneto, and Cyclops again), 202-243 (breakdown of old team, new team struggles with the Marauders, which is resolved at the end of Inferno), and 244-279 (breakup of new team, abortive Reavers/Shadow King epic). 138, 175, 201, and 243 are all pretty clean endpoints.
At the time, I stopped reading with 200. Don’t remember why, but ending at a round number was prob part of it.
“ That sounds like Doug.”
Ha! Poor Doug.
(And yet, between saving the entire mutant race in Second Coming and being the only one who can communicate with Krakoa, in-universe Doug’s got a pretty solid claim to being the most important New Mutant ever.)
“ I know he was taken off the books last minute in the 90s with nothing resolved, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve never quite mustered the enthusiasm to dive into his stuff.”
This isn’t really accurate. Claremont did leave (by his own choice) rather abruptly. But he took the time to write X-Men vol. 2, nos. 1-3 as a “swan song.” He wanted to end by killing off Magneto in a final showdown, which, of course, was promptly done by the next creative team. But the point is that there’s not a surprising abrupt change when he leaves, because he got a chance to write a finale.
While lots of folks take a dim view of some of the later work, I think some of it is pretty good. He was forced to draw some of his plots to a close that really needed better development. But in my view, it’s worth reading to the end.
Yes, but Claremont did leave Uncanny abruptly, quitting halfway through issue #179, which was chapter two of a three part story.
He only finished his plot, and Marvel got Fabian Nicieza to finish the script for #179 and write #180.
Geez, I did it again. #279, #280….
The underage love interest storyline was a kink that Claremont and Byrne apparently shared, and I doubt it was any more savoury in the 80s than it is now. I recall hearing that Colossus falling in love in Secret Wars was set up to deliberately derail the awful Kitty relationship.
There was also a dropped plotline of Psylocke and Cypher having a thing, and I’m pretty sure there was a third as well that I can’t think of right now. Then John Byrne retconned Fantastic Four to make Reed and Sue’s first meeting be another underaged love interest story, and in Alpha Flight the Hudsons were yet another underage girl romance.
I suppose one could argue that as the books were aimed at younger readers, it was a simple, innocent wish fulfillment for anyone who had a crush on an adult, but really that’s no better.
It was usually younger girls getting involved with older men though.
If the target audience were young women, then I could see your point.
Most of the target audience were young boys with a crush on the similar-aged Kitty though.
Seeing how many fetish-related kinks Claremont put in to his stories, and some things Byrne has written outside of comics, I have some doubts it was totally innocent.
Anyway, yes, Jim Shooter didn’t like the implications of the Kitty/Piotr relationship and requested that Claremont end the relationship.
I think that lead to the Logan tells Piotr to wait for Kitty to get older. The relationship still wasn’t ended.
So, Shooter took advantage of getting to write Colossus in Secret Wars, having him cheat on Kitty.
This forced Claremont to have no choice but to end the relationship.
Claremont has stated that he did intend for Kitty and Piotr to start dating again once Kitty turned eighteen.
I don’t know if this is an option that could have entered the mind of Claremont et al, but a lot of the ickiness could have been avoided if Kitty had joined the team at, say, 16 years old instead of 13.
She was always written as more advanced than her years, both in terms of technical know-how and emotional intelligence. Not to mention, she looks much closer to 20 years old on the cover to UXM 180 above than she does to 14. It’s like the creative team were straining against self-imposed limitations when it came to her character.
Or, alternately, they were writing/drawing a fantasy girl who is young, innocent, and impressionable while also being able to keep up with the adult men around her. Which fits the real-world context much better even if that explanation is super yucky.
You can see the rationale going something like “shes older mentally and he is a naive foreign farmboy, so they are closer emotionally than their physical ages.”
Of course “waiting until she’s legal” is known these days as “grooming” and is just about as low as you can get. The “kid who’s really mature and is actually the pursuer not the pursued” idea is pretty much textbook pedophile self-justification.
I want to make it clear that I’m not accusing the creators of promoting anything, as such. But as I mentioned above the Kitty-Peter love story wasn’t the only one like that, and it sure as hell wasn’t right by any justification, not even in the 80s.
Byrne’s Next Men (a book that was much more direct about sexual relationships than anything I ever saw in the X-Men) had a significant situation arising from a youngster getting involved with an adult woman.
It wasn’t exactly condoned, mind you. But it happened.
Pete Wisdom.
The much better Kitty love interest.
To be fair, Warren Ellis had no idea about “Marvel time” and thought that Kitty was in her 20s.
(1) X-Tinction Agenda was a great jumping off point IMO but I never used it as such
(2) Doug Ramsey and Psylocke had a VERY brief love interest thing going on that was never consulated.
Yeah, I’m not sure Pete “Warren Ellis wants to have sex with Kitty” Wisdom is better than the relatively innocent relationship with Colossus.
Well, the best jumping off spot is the one where you’re tired of reading.
But Walter Lawson’s summary is pretty good:
“The major segments of Claremont’s run, as I see it, are 94-138 (new team through Dark Phoenix epilogue), 139-175 (resolution for Cyclops post-Phoenix), 176-201 (resolutions for Xavier and Magneto, and Cyclops again), 202-243 (breakdown of old team, new team struggles with the Marauders, which is resolved at the end of Inferno), and 244-279 (breakup of new team, abortive Reavers/Shadow King epic). 138, 175, 201, and 243 are all pretty clean endpoints.”
I’d add #227, and #279, v.2 #1-3.
From about #138-150 there are a bunch of unrelated stories that often have little connection to what comes before and after. You can really stop anywhere in there and not feel like you’re missing the end of anything.
Warren Ellis undoubtedly writes Kitty as older, but there’s still meant to be big age gap between those two. Given the pub issue, I’d assume he thought she was 18.
I’m not much of a “stop at Fall of the Mutants/Inferno” person, because it includes the dire #189-209 stretch, which is for me the nadir of the Claremont run as a whole. It’s a complete mess that is constantly interrupted by crossovers/tie-ins to New Mutants, X-Factor and especially the awful Secret Wars II, with a string of random solo adventures finishing destroying any sense of narrative coherence from the book.
In theory there are some potentially interesting story threads there (Nimrod, the birth of Freedom Force, the trial of Magneto…) but they barely get a couple of issues each, in favour of a dozen of issues of Rachel Summers whining. (She may later become a more interesting/rounded character, but she’s just insufferable in this string of issues.) Oh, and the team randomly relocate to San Francisco… for a grand total of three issues before the status quo at Westchester must be restored.
#176-188 at least benefited from still having a bit of momentum (with the Forge/Storm/Rogue storyline), but after that it got completely squandered until the Mutant Massacre gave the book a good kick in the arse. #175 is the better stopping point.
@JD: That’s definitely an era of the book where the number of aborted or semi-developed ideas start multiplying. Rachel and Nimrod are two big examples of characters who were introduced and then never quite paid off. And we’ve chatted here recently about how everyone is set up for a big showdown with the government that doesn’t happen.
But I can’t imagine missing out on the resolution of Magneto’s arc that started in UXM 150, or Storm’s continued evolution (which won’t fully pay off until Fall of The Mutants), or the incredible fight in Central Park. There might be more “miss” issues than usual between 189 and 209, but there are certainly quite a few hits.
There are also a bunch of fill-in artists during this time. I wonder if JRJr was focused on other commitments or something. Claremont sometimes gets a little lost when his artists aren’t consistent.
The John Romita Jr. art period is my favourite run on the X-Men.
There’s a very dark and depressing feel to the book at that point, making the X-Men fit in with the general zeitgeist of 1980s comic books.
I don’t think I’d have continued to read end love the X-Men if it were not for they stretch in the X-Men title.
So, I’d definitely recommend reading that stretch of issues.
Claremont wanted the dystopian “Days of Future Past” time-line to be hanging over the head of the characters.
That was his reason for introducing Rachel and Nimrod to the book.
It tied in to the changes with Magneto.
The X-Men saw a potential future where mutants were being put in concentration camps and facing a genocide.
With that future as possible, it made Magneto seem less like a crazy, ranting lunatic.
After Romita left the book, the title never reached the heights of that run of issues again.
I found the Outback era fun and better than most readers seem to, but the book begins to lack direction at that point.
It just goes downhill after that point.
There are some good stories still, and I would recommend reading until the end of the Claremont era, but the book never recovers to the pre-“Fall of the Mutants” quality again.
There are so many missed opportunities coming out of the John Romita Jr. plots.
Claremont just let so many things drop with the post-“Fall of the Mutants” status quo.
The amount of unresolved plot-threads just seem to continue multiplying after “Fall of the Mutants” though.
Thom-There weren’t that many fill-ins during the Romita run, or at least not until after issue #200 anyway.
There were only three fill-in issues between #175-203.
I’m pretty sure Silvestri had a much worse record.
After #203, I think Romita began to lose interest on the title. I’m not sure why the tail-end of his time on the book got so spotty, as I don’t think he was working on any other on-going projects.
The next book I remember him drawing was Nocenti’s DD, which was after he had left X-Men.
I should also add that the first two other artists during the Romita period weren’t fill-in issues either.
Claremont wanted to work with Barry Windsor Smith for the two chapters of the “Life Death” story.
So, Romita didn’t miss an issue until #201. It was Claremont’s decision to use a special artist for the first two issues without Romita art.
Silvestri’s record on fill-ins wasn’t that bad. He was the regular penciller from #218 to #261. There are 12 fill-in issues, which isn’t too bad considering (a) that the book was double-shipping over the summer at that point, and (b) that the fill-in artists were Bret Blevins, Kerry Gammill, Rick Leonardi, Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee – an impressive enough line-up to suggest none of them were last-minute.
When I started reading comics in the early 90s I had no idea Kitty was supposed to be so much younger. She certainly didn’t seem written or drawn that way.
When she quits to leave for college I thought “wait isn’t she 30?”
Fair enough, but that leaves us with 201, 204 and 205 as fill-ins, which are all during the time period JD originally mentioned. JRJr comes back for half a year(ish) and then there’s a rotating cast of artists for just as long. It seems like Romita got a second wind, but petered out pretty quickly.
The artistic merry-go-round reinforces the disjointed feeling that JD mentioned. And it seems like Claremont was saving major plot points for JRJr. He drew all the battles with Nimrod, as well as Freedom Force and the Marauders. Other artists mostly drew character spotlights, although that doesn’t match up 1-to-1. The Danger Room fight for leadership seems like a pretty important character beat, but that was drawn by Rick Leonardi.
My point being: the pace of the story starts to wobble a bit during this time period, just as JRJr’s work on the title becomes less regular. Whether that indicates Claremont was pulling together fill-in issues at the last minute or was planning more interludes than usual, it still means that the narrative gets kind of broken up.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t stone-cold classics during this period. Clearly there were, and (getting back to the main discussion) I think those deserve to be read before abandoning the Claremont run altogether.
It reminds me a little of the transition from Byrne back to Cockrum. A collection of little one-off stories before things calmed down and got back into a groove. Also with a few guest artists along the way.
Perhaps it was because Claremont hit a brick wall of trying to push the boundaries of mainstream superhero comics as far as possible.
Once Xavier was gone and Magneto took over, it cemented the place of the X-amen transitioning from traditional superheroes (during the Byrne years) in to revolutionaries (after #200).
The problem then becomes the idea of writing a team of heroes in a shared mainstream superhero universe fighting against the government.
It really isn’t possible.
There are still good stories left to tell (ones worth reading), but perhaps the potential of Claremont’s X-Men did come to an end with issue #200, interestingly right when Romita did need a fill-in artist for #201.
Claremont did very little with the idea of Magneto as headmaster.
After “Fall of the Mutants”, the X-Men pretended to be dead and left Magneto alone with the New Mutants.
Claremont was no longer writing the New Mutants book, so all the impetus for the reformed Magneto was left to Louise Simonson.
Also, Claremont decided to write Rachel out of the X-Men and being her back in the much-less-serious Excalibur.
It was like Claremont had written himself in to a corner by issue #201, and had no idea how to proceed.
I think without the limitations of the shared Marvel Universe, perhaps the direction would have been different for Claremont’s X-Men.
As it was, Claremont felt the need to have the X-Men flee to the Outback instead. Leaving so much potential unfulfilled.
Maybe it’s my faulty memory, but when I think of people pushing the boundaries of mainstream superhero books in the mid 1980s, I don’t think of Claremont, as opposed to Miller and Moor and Chaykin (for better or worse, in hindsight).
Admittedly, I’ve never been a big Claremont guy, compared to his contemporaries at the time at the Big Two (Wolfman, Wein, Gerber, Stern, Bates).
Right, but Moore, Miller, and Chaykin were doing it from outside the confines of a shared mainstream superhero universe. They were being allowed to tell their own stories.
I’m not saying Claremont was doing anything revolutionary with the art form.
He was very much working in the shadow of Moore (Watchmen, Miracleman), Miller (DKR), and Chaykin.
What I’m saying is that he was attempting to move on with X-Men in the same sort of direction already trod by names like Moore, Miller, and Chaykin.
He was unable to make those same sort of moves though due to the pressures of being part of a shared superhero universe.
I’ll take Steve Gerber over Claremont any day. Gerber is definitely one of my all-time favourite comic book writers.
However, I think Claremont’s work on the X-books, especially around the period of the mid-1980s, is head and shoulders above the other names you mention at the end.
In theory, Moores’s Swamp Thing I’d still in the DCU (maybe on the fringes) since he was using the magic characters and had an issue set in Gotham where he “fights” Batman.
To be fair, as a DC loyalist, I would take the Wolfman/Perez Titans over Claremont X-Men, while acknowledging Titans was designed to emulate the Xmens success as soap opera superhero book.
Yeah, I’m more of a Marvel person, so Wolfman/Perez’ Teen Titans (while I found the writing to be well done), I didn’t really see it as being that great.
The characters didn’t have the same appeal to me as the X-Men.
For Wolfman, I’d choose Tomb of Dracula.
“It was like Claremont had written himself in to a corner by issue #201, and had no idea how to proceed.”
Significantly, #201 was published at the same time as X-Factor #1, when for the first time Claremont wasn’t the prime mover in the direction of the entire X-line. This was literally the first time an ongoing X-Book was given to someone else to write.
Si: The underage love interest storyline was a kink that Claremont and Byrne apparently shared, and I doubt it was any more savoury in the 80s than it is now.
Byrne was still on this skin-crawling topic in 2004 when he wrote Generations 3.
“This was literally the first time an ongoing X-Book was given to someone else to write.”
Which was, let’s face it, not an easy transition.
In all fairness, I can’t for the life of me picture a world where Claremont would not end up facing unwanted consequences of his own success with the X-Men.
There were only so much push and leverage available for him to use in order to steer the franchise towards what he would favor instead of what editorial and sales would want. He probably wasn’t in love with much of what Marvel promoted that made the X-Men more marketable at the expense of his creative freedom (such as the very existence of X-Factor, but also the Wolverine solo series and so many crossovers) but the IP is still Marvel’s as opposed to his.
He could probably have jumped ship at some earlier point and launched his own take on the genre (as Byrne did, most clearly with the Next Men), but there is only so much traction (and earnings) to be had that way.
At the end of the day, it was just not within his power to stop the X-Men from becoming a (at least arguably over-extended) franchise.
Oh, Sovereign Seven.