I grew up on Chris Claremont’s X-Men. My first post on this site was about ‘my first time’ so to speak. Uncanny X-Men #116 was the finale of the X-Men trying to save the Savage Land from Garokk and I was hooked on comics.
I’ve been there for all the Claremont years, his departure after X-Men #1, his return, and his X-treme X-Men. It’s about following and loving what you grew up with. It’s just staggering to think how he shaped the mutants he inherited and the many he created.
The man who was a defining force in modern super hero comics hasn’t written a comics script in a year.
The writer who talked with Chris Arrant of Comic Book Resources about several topics. I was interested in his take on the current state of the mutants he guided for so many years.
“Over in the X-Men line of titles, I see that there seems to be a structural redefinition of the canon that will substantially change readers’ relationships with the characters, in the sense that some characters who you felt were on one side of the line in behavior now seem to be turning into anti-heroes, as I understand. Wolverine’s become head of the school, and Cyclops has been positioned as a Magneto equivalent, a good soul taking a violently pro-active stance toward mutants’ perceived antagonists in the world. It’ll be interesting to see how that all relates to the readership.”
Claremont has more to say on Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, the state of the super hero movie and his own prose projects at this Robot 6 link.