Record: Chris Claremont

Unlike most others, I don’t participate in the Claremont-bashing that’s cropped up in the past several years. Well, not for the same reasons most others do anyway. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything that I don’t hold against him in complaint; there is sadly some things, and while it may not be that long a list, here’s a few things on his resume which really anger me.

• The Phoenix story, which first appeared in X-Men in 1979. What is it exactly that disgusts me about it? Is it that IMO, it runs the gauntlet of stereotyping a women as a mass-executioner? Well, that could be one of the problems I personally have with it as of today. But I certainly am furious about it because of all the imitations it’s led to! Which will come up next.
• Some time after Jean Grey had been absolved of the Phoenix fiasco, along comes another story in which Claremont recycled the story again, this time involving one Madelyne Pryor, a clone of Jean whom Scott ended up marrying for a time before breaking up.
• In 2003, in the JLA: Scary Monsters miniseries…AUGH! It’s the Phoenix ripoff again! This is when Wonder Woman comes under the influence of a cursed pond, and is subsequently turned into what was described as “Dark Diana”! In other words, Claremont had the chutzpah to actually reference his own past work in a way. But all I can say in response is – enough!
• In 2001, when he wrote X-Treme X-Men, he killed off Psylocke needlessly, when noone was asking for it, for nothing more than shock’s sake. Well at least I can thank him for bringing her back 4 years later, and be thankful that Joe Quesada backed off of his ridiculous barring of resurrections (this certainly held true for writers of Claremont’s standing; some others seemed to be granted special privileges to do it whenever they wanted to).

Well, that’s not a long list, is it? But it does tell in some ways, if not all, why I take issue with Claremont, which is not that he does like strong chicks who can prove themselves in combat and stuff like that, but that he a]writes a story in which a pretty lady is turned into a lethal monster, and b]recycles it ad nauseum to the point of where I really ended up shunning it, and also c]that he led to a lot of writers leading to character assassination upon said pretty lady, by not being able to decide what she is or isn’t!

The Phoenix saga is one that must be brought to an end.