Uncanny X-Men #25 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #25
“Where Monsters Dwell, part 3”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: David Marquez & Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Wolverine fights Werewolf By Night.
This issue has legacy number #725, which is presumably why it gets a five-page back-up strip on top of the usual story.
THE X-MEN:
Gambit. Sadurang shows up in the middle of the fight to declare that a year has passed since they made their deal over the Left Eye of Agamotto, and to reclaim the Eye as bargained. Gambit acknowledges feeling addicted to the Eye (as shown in the intervention sequence in issue #23), and having an addictive personality generally, but rejects the Eye on the grounds that he has other reasons to live for. Unfortunately, the Eye refuses to be returned. The art is ambiguous about this, but Gambit’s closing dialogue seems to make it clear that he’s still stuck with the Eye, although newly determined to resist its temptations.
Rogue, Nightcrawler, Jubilee and Wolverine (along with Gambit) free the Legion of Monsters and then show up at Haven House to finish off Lady Darkhold. Wolverine’s transformation into a werewolf is simply cured by his healing factor between scenes. Curiously, Rogue changes costume from yellow-and-green to red-and-black in the final scene – I think this is supposed to be a side effect of her using her power to absorb Lady Darkhold, though it’s unusual for her costume to be affected.
For some reason, Rogue is still inclined to turn over captured villains to Graymalkin, even though they’re a specifically anti-mutant prison several states away. In this case, she thinks better of it and decides to call the Scarlet Witch instead.
SUPPORTING CAST:
The Outliers (Ransom, Calico, Jitter and Deathdream) listen to the remainder of Marcus’ story, which winds up mainly as a pep talk about how they could be mutant heroes. They all seem to find this quite inspiring, though to be honest it’s not obvious to me what this is telling them that they wouldn’t already have picked up from hanging around with the X-Men for a year. (And it must be a year, given the timeline for the Gambit/Sadurang plot.) Suitably inspired, the Outliers take on Lady Darkhold themselves, which seems like it’s meant to serve as a kind of graduation moment for them.
The mapping of the story onto the “real world” fight is a little weird, since it talks about the group being secretly mutants, and says that the “monsters” couldn’t have known this. But Lady Darkhold did know that this was the X-Men’s home. That said, while she claims to be looking for soldiers to enlist (presumably with her hypnotism powers), she only seems to want the Outliers as hostages.
Calico seems particularly struck by the realisation that the mutants can be the heroes rather than the monsters, which fits with her damaged upbringing. She’s now openly rejecting her mother. As usual, Ember joins her in battle.
Deathdream claims to be able to sense “death” approaching the building, though apparently not anything more specific that.
Jitter can use her powers to copy the Black Panther.
Marcus St Juniors. As noted above, his story winds up being pretty simplistic – and all the stuff about the Rawhide Kid falls by the wayside, since he doesn’t fit into the mutant pride angle that Marcus ends up leaning into. The obvious parallels between the story and what was happening outside remain unexplained, though.
He seems unfazed by Lady Darkhold, and confronts her singlehandedly with a shotgun – though he tries to talk her into leaving, rather than actualy firing it.
Chelsea St Juniors. Marcus knows about her powers in this issue – she was keeping them secret in issue #10. Either she’s told him off panel somewhere (or on panel and I forgot about it), or it’s another case of him knowing more than he lets on.
Waffles. He dutifully tries to defend Haven House from Lady Darkhold and her dog creature.
Sadurang. Despite being rejected by the Left Eye of Agamotto, he helps the X-Men by freeing the Legion of Monsters from Lady Darkhold’s hypnosis. Given how he talks about having to deal with the addictive properties of the Eye for centuries, it’s certainly possible that a year’s separation from the Eye has left Sadurang less than keen to get it back – after all, he changed tack over the course of the year to warning Gambit about its dangers, in apparent sincerity. On the other hand, he queries why Gambit still wants to fight for the X-Men after they tried to persuade him to give up the Eye (in issue #23).
He consumes Manphibian when rescuing Gambit, but regurgitates him unharmed in the epilogue.
He quietly leaves on his own at the end, without saying goodbye. Gambit suggests that he’s gone to find himself a home.
VILLAINS:
Lady Darkhold. The Legion of Monsters’ unnamed employer from the previous issue is a staggeringly obscure character: Agatha Timly, whose only previous appearance was in Marvel Spotlight vol 1 #3 (1971).
In that story, new werewolf Jack Russell is taken in by Agatha (or Andrea, the story can’t make up its mind) and her husband Nathan, who was a friend of Jack’s stepfather. Andrea is convinced that Jack has inherited the Darkhold (Marvel’s answer to the Necronomicon) from his stepfather, and imprisons and tortures him in an attempt to find out where it is. Unfortunately, Jack has no idea what she’s talking about, and escapes. Her main function in the storyline is to give Jack a reason to look into this Darkhold thing.
In an epilogue, Jack claims to have had a dream in which he saw her trying to invoke “long-dead gods”, and failing because she lacked the necessary information from the Darkhold. In his dream, she either passes out or drops dead, and is then set alight by a falling candle.
In this issue, Agatha essentially confirms that Jack’s vision is correct. She describes herself as having been a “monster hunter” and claims that she did in fact manage to summon “dark gods”, though she died in the effort. The term “dark gods” has been used for assorted Marvel Universe entities, but given her Darkhold connections, she’s probably talking about the likes of Chthon (Marvel’s version of Cthulhu).
Agatha claims that servants of “the Dark Lord” punished her effrontery by raising her as an undead creature and burning the entire text of the Darkhold into her flesh in “unseeable scars”. Whether she actually does have the text of the Darkhold on her body or merely believes that she does is open to debate, but she certainly is undead, according to Waffles’ readings. She claims to be a servant in turn of the Dark Lord’s servants, and says that she’s claming New Orleans as a home for them – though curiously, she expects to be treated as its queen. She seems to expect this to be treated as a positive vision.
She can be drained by Rogue, but it takes a while. She seems to fear (or perhaps welcome) death as a possible consequence.
She believes that the Darkhold is “inside” her and “lives through” her. However, what she has (or is) would appear to be a copy of the Darkhold; the original physical object is currently fused with the Scarlet Witch.
Salem. Just a hellhound thing, it seems.
The Legion of Monsters: Elsa Bloodstone, Frankenstine, Morbius, Manphibian and Werewolf By Night. They were all hypnotised by Lady Darkhold (which explains their out of character behaviour in previous issues) and they all return to normal when freed by Sadurang. The possible exception here is Morbius – the one who behaved closest to normal throughout the story – who really did seem very keen to use his serum to turn Jubilee into another vampire. Nonetheless, he’s standing with the rest of the team to confront Lady Darkhold at the end.
CONTINUITY:
- Gambit and Sadurang’s deal was made in issue #1.
- The X-Men’s intervention with Gambit was in issue #23.
- Rogue refers to the “second time I been bit in a day by one of my own”; she mentioned in issue #23 that Gambit had bitten herin his sleep.
- As per the footnote, Agatha Timly died in Marvel Spotlight vol 1 #3.
“They Dwell Too in the Human Heart”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Messina
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This is a five-page Outliers story in which the kids help to rescue a kidnapped girl from a serial killer. It doesn’t seem to have any wider implications.
It’s also issue #25, as regular X-Men #25 recently got extra pages for a back-up strip too. Either way, it’s hard to believe that Simone has stretched this story out to three chapters with one being an “anniversary” issue (hence, more expensive). When I saw this story-arc announced, I believe it was filler to get to a more important story for issue #25. It’s almost as if Simone doesn’t care about writing the X-Men, but she does seem to want that 3rd place spot. Some editor needs to get her a southern gothic tale starring some weird teens at Vertigo.
I’m just impressed/baffled that it’s been 25 issues and then some and we still don’t know exactly what Calico’s powers/the true nature of Ember are. Slow burn is fine but you’d think we’d get around to it eventually.
I think we’re supposed to assume that it’s merely coincidental that Marcus told the Outliers a story about monsters looking for a home just as Agatha decided to attack them with monsters looking for a home. As ridiculous as that is.
There was considerable debate on the internet about whether it’s accurate to say that Gambit has an addictive personality.
I’m still not sure about how Chelsea’s powers are suppposed to work. Can she basically create force fields, like Sue Richards?
I thought I knew how Jitter’s powers worked but now I’m not so sure. In issue 16, Shuvahrak claims that Jitter’s power enables her to “borrow the gifts of the long since departed”. But in this issue, Jitter borrows the Black Panther’s abilities. So can Jitter borrow the abilties of anyone, living or dead, or did she borrow the abilities of T’chaka or another of T’Challa’s ancestors?
(Gail is incredibly bad at this. She can’t seem to explain how her new characters’ powers work or what their limitations are.)
I’m not sure if I buy the idea that Rogue can absorb the undead. I realize that writers have been inconsistent about what Rogue can absorb (first she couldn’t absorb Wonder Man , then she could) but Rogue absorbing the undead just feels wrong. (I’m not sure if she’s ever done it before.)
Rogue: “Let’s turn a woman who has a book written by a demon written on her skin over to a nut job who blames mutants for the loss of her brother. Wait, that might not be a good idea…”
@Chris V- Gail has claimed that she will feature two traditional X-Men villains in the future. And the solicits for the next arc claim that one of the X-Men’s most powerful villains will be appearing. So let’s see if that’s actually true.
“And the solicits for the next arc claim that one of the X-Men’s most powerful villains will be appearing. So let’s see if that’s actually true.”
Dr. Doom!
I think Rogue’s power rules are more or less out the window. After all, she absorbed Foghorn Leghorn off panel at some point, and he’s not even a Marvel character
This really could have just been one issue.
Has it been a year of comic time across the X-Men books? That feels like a long time to leave the Graymalkin issue unsolved. To say nothing of various other plots that have boiling for a while.
I don’t really understand the point of the outliars having a big moment of joining in… only to do nothing because Sadurang already won the fight and then Rogue finished it. And especially because they always end up joining in.
I also don’t really get the purpose of the backup story here. Maybe Simone could have at least used it to give Nightcrawler and Jubilee another line of dialogue?
Sofia’s powers were better when they were defined as “becomes the best in the world at a particular skill for a minute.” Not borrowing/stealing, not channeling the departed, but just… invoking a specific skill. So yeah, best archer in the world (which she defines as becoming like Hawkeye?) or “fight like the Black Panther” or “better detective than Sherlock Holmes” or whatever.
I’m gonna be honest, I’ve been skipping all the cowboy segments since halfway through Part 1 of this story. I’m just not charmed by any of these characters at all, and even though it was obviously going to become thematically relevant to the A-story by the end, I had no patience for it.
More fool I, then, for not anticipating that the way in which it became relevant was making the main characters of the mutant superhero comic book series realize that they are mutant superheroes.
Turns out I should have read ONLY the cowboy stuff and skipped the first 20-something issues of this increasingly tepid book.
Rogue’s power’s limitations are inconsistent, and have been literally from before we even met her. That may well be intentional. After all, it is an incredibly intense and disruptive power, that changes both her mind and potentially her body with every use.
Besides, several decades had gone by. Wolverine developed a full healing factor in a fraction of that time.
I don’t think that we were ever told outright that Rogue’s power is emotionally taxing and therefore her level of control varies considerably, but it sure would make sense to me.
Any guesses on who the French detective that Jitter mentions might be? Hercule Poirot, perhaps?
The second feature is clearly meant to spotlight the Outliers. For good or worse, Gail Simone is standing for her new characters and writing plots that show what they can do. I think that she likes to play a bit loose on the specifics of any powers and their limitations in order to better accomodate the plot. I’m ok with that.
It may or may not have been intended, but there is a relevant difference between the Old West tale and the real situation that the Outliers faced; the heroic side was also the monstruous one in the tale, while the reverse happened in the current time. There may be a subtle incentive there for the youngsters to serenely, matter-of-factly accept that tales are just tales, not prophecies to be fulfilled. I’m ok with that too.
“Waffles. He dutifully tries to defend Haven House from Lady Deathstrike and her dog creature.”
I like that Paul seems to have grown bored during the annotations for this issue as he slipped into calling Lady Darkhold “Lady Deathstrike”.
That, and Sean’s review. We have to amuse ourselves how we can in this “brave new era” of mediocrity and tedium.
Hercule Poirot is Belgian, but maybe C. Auguste Dupin? Or if we are being silly, Inspector Clouseau…
“It doesn’t seem to have any wider implications” – I think Paul just gave us the cover quote for this entire run.
25 issues later and…I still don’t care about the Outliers.
@wwk5d At this point, you have to care about them or you don’t. I don’t think anyone’s mind will change until the Outliers have a new main writer, if anyone remembers them after this.
Not celebrating 725 issues of X-Men. Just the X-Men issues called Uncanny. The first 140 or so are honorary Uncannys. About 30 of those honorary Uncannys are reprints of old honorary Uncannys.
Anyway, you’re probably reading DC these days anyway.
@the new kid:
Also, the Krakoan [adjectiveless] X-Men series, they dual-billed the last issue as Uncanny #700, despite “Uncanny” not being used [Hickman didn’t like it, and it didn’t come back until Brevoort].
[Are they also counting X-Men Gold, during that no-Uncanny period?]
@The Other Michael: have the limits of Sophia’s powers been defined? Like, can she repeatedly use the skill set, or is each borrowing/mimicry a one-time thing? Can she use a skill once an hour? Once a day? Every 10 minutes?
I’m curious because that stuff should be settled by the time a character appears (although changeable in the future) and communicated to the reader, unless there’s a good reason not to.
SanityOrMadness-No, X-Men Gold is not counted as part of the official Legacy numbering for Uncanny X-Men.
Gail Simone doesn’t have the knowledge or ability to write the OG X-Men. She can’t do Logan, Kurt, or Jubilee’s character and voices. This issue only adds Gambit to the list. Not every skilled writer can sound like Claremont, Nocetti, or Al Ewing.
She is still a huge talent, and I enjoy much of her work with the Outliers. The characters having less defined power limits is not a flaw for me.
Creating a call back to historic, almost forgotten lore of Marvel from decades past is reference fun. Making it a parallel story that ties together is an advanced technique for an accomplished and talented writer. Gail Simone is very accomplished and talented. She didn’t tie it in. At all. What a miss. Thud! I finally see the slippage other commentators noted previously.
“What a miss. Thud!”
Could not have said it better myself @Woodswalked. what a perfect encapsulation of why this run just misses.
I remember when I used to re-read issues two-three times each. Simone’s book I have found myself even skipping parts – for eg I skipped through the rawhide kids story time parts.
And worse, I’m bored.
@Woodswalked: I don’t think it’s that she lacks knowledge or ability per se – she clearly has some understanding of who these characters are and how they’re meant to relate to each other, and she’s written successful group dynamics before.
It’s more that her specific choices in this run have been outright baffling – saddling Kurt with a bland love interest, not making use of Rogue’s actual power, this endless and dull Eye of Agamotto subplot for Gambit, Logan being scandalized when Rogue suggests he might have PTSD, etc. It’s all rather clunky for a veteran writer.
Is it possible that the Outliers are meant to be young children and Simone has just failed to communicate this to everyone else who’s worked on this series? Because they could be replaced by Power Pack at their original ages without updating any of their dialogue or actions.
Not likely, considering they’re probably meant to be around the same age as most of the OG New Mutants (high school students, with the St. Juniors girl being the significantly younger Rahne analogue)
If it has to be a RL detective, it could be Francois Vidocq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Fran%C3%A7ois_Vidocq
I like the cover. It’s very 1989.
“Wolverine’s transformation into a werewolf is simply cured by his healing factor between scenes.”
Obviously it’s waaaay too late to put the genie back in the bottle re: Wolverine’s healing factor, but I don’t love the idea that it can even cure supernatural afflictions. Like, there’s a reason Superman is vulnerable to magic — there needs to be SOME illusion of risk or there are no stakes. If Logan can regenerate from a skeleton and heal brain damage and his body can “recover” from being turned into a vampire or werewolf or zombie or whatever, you’re basically just telling the audience, “Yeah, he’s immortal.” Which… technically true, but we need to FEEL like he isn’t.
Unpopular and/or controversial opinion: Gail Simone is past her prime, and/or the details of what made her successful at DC in the past are hard to replicate in current Marvel.
Her best known runs were on Birds Of Prey and Secret Six. It is easy to forget that both ended around 2011 — fully 15 years ago at this point. The last work she did which I recall getting any kind of buzz was a run of Tomb Raider for Dark Horse, and that ended in 2015. So, about 9 years of relative irrelevence until she was assigned UXM, which would make ANYONE higher profile. I mean, she actually wrote runs of Punisher and Domino before that, and I imagine even people here who read those forgot until I just brought it up just now.
More to the point, Simone may simply have a better voice or passion for DC than Marvel. She spent the prime of her career there, in that universe; imagine Chris Claremont trying to write, I don’t know, a run of Titans. Jim Lee could offer him ten times the cash, I guarantee it would be rubbish, because Claremont’s out of his element. Atop that, BOP and Secret Six thrived not only either rotating casts (BOP) or obscure C and D-Listers nobody cared about if she wrote differently. Nobody cared if Simone drastically overhauled Catman or Ragdoll or Lady Blackhawk. Everyone loved Scandal Savage, at a time when “lesbian” was still taboo in comics. Even Deadshot was still a C-Listers nobody cared about back then, and even now I doubt he’s anyone’s Hal Jordan. At the time I vaguely recall some online griping when Bane joined Secret Six and acted like Scandal’s adopted dad, since it “softened” him (during a time when Bane wasn’t using venom either), but that passed and even aged well. Simone could even tall stories of varying types with them, and because they were all more obscure characters, it was fine. Even if 99% of them were still “morally ambiguous black ops.” You could argue the biggest character she wrote during that period for either book was Barbara Gordon/Oracle, and she was just basically running with what John Ostrander did in Suicide Squad in the 80s (or Chuck Dixon set up during BOP’s launch).
Those approaches don’t work with Uncanny X-Men. The established cast are all well known and have passionate fans — especially the one Simone was handed, which at the time may as well have been called “the X-Men ’97 roster.” You can’t just write Nightcrawler and Jubilee as lawn furniture or get the voices of Rogue and/or Gambit wrong and expect it to fly. And you can’t make all or most of them second fiddle to pet original characters (unless your name is Claremont and even fan tolerance of that ended in the 90s). And you can’t do flights of fancy with different genres in an X-Men story without it being distracting or underwhelming unless you either have a lot of experience with the franchise or REALLY know what you are doing. And Simone has neither, at least anymore.
It doesn’t help that editors don’t really try to get the best out of a writer anymore. Tommy B is just there to act like a human calander to enforce deadlines, and argue with people online. He isn’t going to help Simone keep the characters straight or maintain a standard; he certainly never did with Bendis. His entire modis operandi is “coast behind a hot writer” and “be arrogant in all situations.” The idea of editors actually maintaining and enforcing a cohesive universe more or less left with Jim Shooter. So if Simone gets X-Men characters or history wrong, nobody will correct her or steer her towards anything. They’re too busy being envious of MCU staff salaries and griping on social media. At best Tommy B might share a memo about a crossover (“Oh, do a vampire story next month”) but that’s it.
Out of all the titles that were relaunched post-Krakoa, this was the one that tempted me the most. My instinct told me not to bother; that as enticing as a Simone run was, she was past her prime and wouldn’t stick the landing. Having kept up here, I can’t say that instinct was wrong.
“the details of what made her successful at DC in the past are hard to replicate in current Marvel”
I’ve thought this for a while. Supernatural horror-lite has probably always sat a little more easily in the DC universe than the Marvel one. It definitely works better with an anti-hero lineup like the Secret Six more than full-on superheroes like the X-Men. Same for Wild West stories, for that matter.
Why Simone hasn’t recognized this herself is kind of baffling. If your cast includes two characters with unique visuals and voices and you can’t find *anything* for them to do, that should be a clue that it’s time to pivot. But she seems locked in for some reason: editorial indifference, inability to identify the problem, just wanting to cash a check — who knows?
For the moment, Marvel’s response has been to use whatever is happening with UXM to justify extra spare material fleshing out characters who SHOULD be given things to do there, but haven’t.
At least, that is how I justify the existence of a Jubilee one-shot coming in April by Gene Luen Yang (who is writing TMNT lately but wrote Shang-Chi for two years, albeit via two mini series, an ongoing and a one shot). I imagine the assignment was “have Jubilee do more in 25-30 pages than she has done in 2 years in her team book,” and I do not think that is a very high bar.
I would not be shocked if a Nightcrawler mini/one-shot comes later in the year.
For a publisher whose only strategy is, “more books,” maybe this is working out for them.
It’s being published as a Marvel Voices special so that Marvel can claim they did something to commemorate Asia Pacific Heritage Month.
Marvel might try another Nightcrawler mini-series eventually, as Brevoort is quickly running out of X-characters to put in titles for the purpose of stretching out the line.
Yes, it seems as if Simone’s last stand-out comic was back during 2015, as that was also when she wrote Clean Room for Vertigo, which was really good. A creator-owned series where Simone didn’t have to worry about long-term fans and expectations. That is quite a bit of time ago now.
I picked up the Battle for the Cowl tpb this week and simone’s Secret Six issue was the best chapter in the collection.
Her heyday was the pre New 52 DC era. I rather enjoyed her Deadpool/Agent X as well.
She has a certain similarity to Peter David that’s hard for me to put a finger on. As others have pointed out, hand her a character nobody is greatly invested in and let her fly seems to be a good recipe for critical success.
“…imagine Chris Claremont trying to write…”
Sovereign Seven existed. You don’t have to imagine. Either you liked it, or you didn’t. Claremont wrote DC well enough that Marvel paid him not to. Still, your point stands and I agree. Simone like Claremont and many other talented authors struggles with other writer’s voices.
“And you can’t make all or most of them second fiddle to pet original characters..”
I like the Outliers and the Dark Artery story arc. I want to read more of these pet characters. At this point I don’t feel a draw for more of her interpretation of how Jubilee flirts with a policeman. Perhaps it should be re-titled to Outliers instead of Uncanny X-Men.
Elsewhere/Elseworlds Simone just published to print that the Punisher is indeed prettier with a smile. This brings me joy as someone who doesn’t care for Frank Castle stories. Simone is probably best known for her social media outside of comic books. Lately she had been doing television scripts, conventions, and writing a novel. This is just to point out that the recent gap in buzz-worthy comics isn’t a direct sign of slippage. This story arc is.
Sovereign Seven featured a cast of characters created by Claremont. Sure, it guest-starred DCU characters, but Superman was falling for a 14-year old girl, that should tell you this was very much a Claremont project.
Claremont & Byrne do have a JLA run to their credit. It wasn’t great, but was it better than Claremont’s second run on Uncanny? Probably.
I do remember Claremont writing an Elseworlds Wonder Woman mini-series (“Whom Gods Destroy”) which was one of the stupidest comics I have ever read.
I can imagine Claremont writing the Teen Titans, because he did in the X-Men/Titans crossover from the ‘80s. I think he did a decent job in that one issue. Marv Wolfman bit his style pretty hard at the time, so I wonder how different it would have been.
‘90s Claremont on Titans would have been like ‘90s Claremont on everything else. Hell, it might be similar to what ‘90s Wolfman produced.
I haven’t read Whom Gods Destroy, but if it was the stupidest, then it probably is 2nded by a different Claremont story. I am a fan of his, but when he missed… whooo!
Final Flight should have had a sequel. Might be alone in that opinion.
*First Flight
sigh
@Woodswalked: First Flight had a sequel called Grounded! (The exclamation point is part of the title). I read and liked First Flight when I was a teenager, but I never read the sequel.
First Flight actually had two sequels. There was a third novel called Sundowner. Like you, I only read First Flight, and, yeah, it was decent. I was wondering if he meant to write he felt it should not have had a sequel, since it does have sequels. Since I haven’t read the other two novels though, I’m not sure if Claremont jumped the tracks to make one regret reading Grounded!.
!!!’Thank you Mike Loughlin and Chris V !!!
*leaves to place an order*
Is there any Claremont content after 1991 that anyone would actually recommend as *good* comics? Plenty of passable filler, but anything that should actually be sought out as good storytelling? Genuine question, because I’m a huge fan of his OG Uncanny run, but have never found anything else he wrote to be worth my time.
It’s long been my view that Claremont’s X-Men run worked because the characters were blank slates when he started and they evolved with him as a writer over 15 continuous years. When he has to jump in mid stream, it doesn’t work. When he gets a new blank slate that only lasts 15 issues, it doesn’t work. And now that he’s old, his ideas are stale anyway.
Aliens/Predator: Deadliest of the Species from 1993. I believe it was the first comic Claremont wrote after leaving Marvel. Apparently, Claremont still had one more amazing story left to tell, and the background/setting of the Alien Universe happened to fit his mood or needs. I’d rank it as the second best work of Claremont’s career, after X-Men (I’m including the spin-off series from his original run under that umbrella here).
I’m not sure I would rank anything after his short stint at Dark Horse as more than passable (and quite a bit of it is outright bad).
[…] X-MEN #25. (Annotations here.) This is the final part of “Where Monsters Dwell” and… um. Look, I like this book, […]
His second return to Uncanny with Alan Davis was decent. Not amazing, but decent. Of course, it helped that he had Davis on art…and the Chris Bachalo issues weren’t that bad either.
I came to the X-Men through the animated series. I spent a lot of the 90s hearing about how the X-Men would never be good again until Claremont came back.
Then he came back and it was a mess.
Something Paul said eons ago that’s stuck with me all this time: if Claremont had never come back, he’d rightfully be remembered as the best to ever do it, point blank period. Now when we talk about his Uncanny work, we have to qualify it – not Revolution, not that weird dinosaur people/pale Alan Moore imitation era.