Chris Claremont’s vision of the X-Men is the core of Fox’s film franchise. The legendary writer guided the Children of the Atom for nearly two decades in comics. The Dark Phoenix Saga, God Loves Man Kills, Days of Future Past, The Wolverine are iconic stories that inspired the film franchise. Claremont is now working on a treatment for Gambit for Fox.
After X-Men: Apocalypse how does Claremont think the film franchise could evolve?
“With New Mutants, you can appeal to kids and explore the tensions and pressures of young mutants trying to get a handle on their powers and their lives,” Claremont told The Hollywood Report Heat Vision.
“With Excalibur, you have the option of leaping literally out of this world — I mean, they have a pan-dimensional, inter-stellar train, for Heaven’s sake — to other star systems or possibly even other dimensions.”
Who are the New Mutants? When Professor X believed his X-Men were gone he recruited Dani Moonstar (aka Mirage – illusion powers) Sam Guthrie (Cannonball – blasting flight) Roberto DaCosta (Sunspot – solar energy absorbing and transfer to strength) Rhane Sinclair (Wolfsbane – lupine shapeshifter) and Xi’an Coy Mahn (Karma – mind control.)
Claremont and artist Bob McLeod created this next generation of teens continuing the tradition of a racially diverse cast into a Native America, Vietnamese, Brazilian and Scottish mutants.
Sunspot appeared in Days of Future Past so perhaps Bryan Singer and his team will recruit more of these classic icons for Apocalypse.
Excalibur was a more fantastical, whimsical X-Men spinoff co-created by Claremont with Alan Davis.
Marvel UK Captain Britain (granted his super powers my Merlin) and Meggan, his shapeshifting mystical girlfriend teamed up with visiting X-Men Shadowcat (aka Kitty Pryde) Nightcrawler and Phoenix/Rachel Summers (daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey from the Days of Future Past future) to save London and battled extra-dimensional and alien menaces. The team ventured through multiple realities in classic Cross-Time Caper.
Claremont co-created Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Gambit, Psylocke, Emma Frost, Mystique among so many others who have thrilled us in X-Men movies.
Uncanny X-Men #116 by Claremont and John Byrne was my first comic book and I lived the classic Claremont era. I once told Claremont is comics were songs he wrote the soundtrack of my youth!
By Editor