Strip-mining Wolverine

How he got the adamantium bones and the false memory-implants.

In 1988, Wolverine received his own ongoing series while still appearing in Uncanny X-Men. “I’m not surprised (Wolverine) became so popular because he is a really cool guy,” former X-Men artist John Byrne told Back Issue #4. “I wish he hadn’t gotten his own series. I think he’s kind of like a lot of Marvel characters – I always think of the Vision, who’s another really cool character, but who’s mostly cool because he’s in a group of people who aren’t like him. And Wolverine is the same – he’s in a group of people who aren’t like him, and therefore he’s really cool. But if you take him out of that environment, then there’s no checks, no balances, nothing for him to bounce off. Then you just have a homicidal maniac running around killing people.”

“If I’d had my way, there would have been no ongoing series at all, but instead an annual mini-series with a defined beginning, middle and end,” X-Men writer Chris Claremont agreed to Berserkher.com. “The problem with an ongoing title is that you must provide perpetual grist for the mill. With a solo character, it’s only a matter of time before the temptation becomes irresistible to strip-mine those aspects of his history and character which make him so interesting and mysterious in the first place.”

“A retailer recently told me, “If the audience wants 25 Wolverine series, give them 25 Wolverine series. Stuff the product down their throat like a goose, until they pop,”” Claremont recalled in Wizard: X-Men Turn Thirty. “This doesn’t work because to me – I wanted to keep the work vital, I wanted to keep the creators interested and I wanted to keep the audience interested, but also I wanted to keep as much of the structural integrity of the canon as possible. This isn’t possible when you have Wolverine appearing regularly in X-Men, his own series and Marvel Comics Presents, plus guest-starring in Secret Defenders, whatever. I mean, for a guy who is fundamentally a loner, he gets around.”

Landau, Luckman & Lake

Claremont introduced the villains Roughouse and Bloodscream in Wolverine vol.2 #4 in 1989. By their speech patterns, it was obvious that they were from Asgard, yet subsequent writer Archie Goodwin established Roughouse as a human in Wolverine vol.2 #17-23 from 1989-1990, and in Wolverine vol.2 #78 from 1994 Larry Hama established Bloodscream as a vampire from the Medieval Age. In Wolverine vol.2 #123 written by Tom DeFalco in 1998, Wolverine did suspect that Roughouse was Asgardian and Bloodscream part vampire, part elf, though. Finally, years later, in the 2008 Iron Man: Director Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Annual #1 written by Christos N. Gage, they were back to being Asgardians.

Claremont then introduced the company Landau, Luckman & Lake in Wolverine vol.2 #5 in 1989. The local expediter, Chang, had a picture of Wolverine and himself from the 19^th century hanging on the wall in the Madripoor office.

Wolverine and Jubilee visited Landau, Luckman & Lake’s Hong Kong office in Uncanny X-Men #257 in 1990 where the local expediter, Rose Wu, also had a picture of Wolverine and herself on the wall, but this one was apparently taken in the future.

In Wolverine vol.2 #97 in 1996, subsequent writer Larry Hama interpreted the pictures as Landau, Luckman & Lake being an interdimensional company with doorways to other dimensions in each office. In Wolverine vol.2 #97, he also suggested that Rose Wu was a shapeshifer. Writer Howard Mackie filled in the story behind the pictures in the 1996 Logan: Path Of The Warlord one-shot.

In Wolverine vol.2 #5, Wolverine had ordered a costume from Chang for “a colleague,” who turned out to be Psylocke, who started wearing the costume in Uncanny X-Men #232 in 1988. It was revealed that the costume wasn’t of earthly origins when it was used to defeat Bloodscream. The origin of the costume remains unrevealed.

“As it stands now there are plans to bring Jean Grey in for an issue to do a “Casablanca”-type story,” editor Bob Harras revealed in Marvel Age #78. “We also have plans for Archangel to battle Wolverine. It’s, basically, anyone we can get to Madripoor.”

Those stories never appeared, however, as Chris Claremont left the series in 1989 with issue #10.

 

 

Weapon X

When the X-Men met X-Factor during the 1989 Inferno crossover, the former X-Man Angel had been transformed into Archangel by the villain Apocalypse. In Uncanny X-Men #242, Wolverine subconsciously recognized Apocalypse’s scent on Archangel, which brought forth memories of pain in Wolverine.

In 1991 Barry Windsor-Smith wrote and drew a Weapon X serial in Marvel Comics Presents #72-84. “Wolverine’s adamantium heritage had never been explored, so I aimed at that device,” Windsor-Smith told Wizard Tribute To Wolverine. “After I created several Weapon X stories, I had a conversation with Chris Claremont in which he told me that he had always intended for Apocalypse to be the villain behind the adamantium experiment. For no reason other than courtesy to Chris, I devised the situation where the professor in the story was taking his orders from a higher-up. Despite this hindrance to my plot, I felt it best to give Chris the chance to eventually fulfill his wish to have Apocalypse be the real villain behind the adamantium experiment. Chris never got the chance to do his ultimate origin for Wolverine, but know that whenever the professor is being belittled by the guy at the other end of the phone in Weapon X, it’s Apocalypse.”

In the 1990 Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure one-shot written by Walter Simonson, Wolverine found an old adamantium skull in one of Apocalypse’s old lairs, but subsequently other writers have ignored the hints to Apocalypse’s involvement in the Weapon X project.

“To me, Wolverine should have no official origin,” Claremont told Berserkher.com. “Pieces of his life should forever remain a closed book. As for the rest, every writer has their take on the character, and their stories reflect that. What I did with Wolverine was what saw print. What I would have done remains in storage for another day, should I get the chance to write him long-term again.”

 

Wolverine and Shadowcat

Chris Claremont told Back Issue #4 about his thoughts concerning Wolverine’s mentoring role with Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat): “The Kitty role is part of a larger, panoramic tapestry that had X-Men: True Friends #1-3 (1999) come out when it was supposed to, in the late ‘80s or the very early ‘90s. It would have put all this into a lot more of a context. The whole relationship between Kitty and Logan (Wolverine) is more complicated and far-reaching than had been suspected up until that point.”

“Kitty was someone that Logan took under his wing because he knows things about her that she doesn’t know. Even then I was playing with the idea that there is a linkage between them that goes back well before she was born. If you accept as part of the canon the timeline structured out by True Friends, Logan’s thought about Kitty since the 1930s. Then you have to ask yourself, “Is the fact that the X-Men went to Deerfield in X-Men #129 (1980) an accident? Whose idea was it to go seek her out? Was it Charley, using Cerebro, or did Wolverine whisper something in his ear? If she’s part of the team because he set it up, what’s going on? Where is this going to lead?””

“Then if you factor in the whole Days of Future Past myth, all sorts of interesting implications come popping up. Again, that’s me doing my grand design with a specific character.”

When X-Men: True Friends, which is set before Weapon X, finally came out in the late ‘90s, it had Wolverine using his claws, but in 1993 Wolverine writer Larry Hama established in Wolverine vol.2 #75 that Wolverine didn’t know that he had natural claws prior to the Weapon X project.

“The characters moved off in different directions, they got acquired by different writers and different books, and the things that I had intended got shuffled away in the mist,” Claremont told Back Issue #4.

False memories

In Wolverine vol.2 #50 from 1992, written by Larry Hama, Wolverine learned that many of his memories were implants given to him during the Weapon X project. “Well, that’s one of the fortunate things about Wolverine,” Byrne opinionated in Back Issue #4. “It’s like the Doctor Doom robots that I set up so any stupid Doctor Doom story immediately becomes about a robot. Any stupid Wolverine flashback immediately becomes an implanted memory.”

Byrne had not liked Claremont’s handling of Doctor Doom in Uncanny X-Men #145-147 in 1981, so in Fantastic Four #258 in 1983 he invalidated the story by establishing that the X-Men had only dealt with a Doombot, rather than the real Doctor Doom.

“(I like) Larry Hama’s take on Wolverine,” Claremont revealed in Back Issue #4. “It wasn’t what I would have done, but I liked reading it a lot. Larry Hama and Marc Silvestri (in Wolverine vol.2 #31-43, 45, 46, 48-53 and 55-57 from 1990-1992).”

“And, of course, the beauty is what they have done is to basically say everything you know about his past is a lie,” Claremont added in Wizard: X-Men Turn Thirty. “Therefore, most of the stories you have been reading for the past 20 years are a lie. But, of course, the stories we are telling you now could be a lie.”

However, the memory implants were burned out of Wolverine’s brain in Wolverine vol.2 #68 in 1993, so only the flashbacks to his past printed before that issue could be called into question.

“I decided that (Wolverine’s origin) was a story that should never be told,” Claremont continued in Wizard: X-Men Turn Thirty. “I feel that the drive to explain every split second of every character’s existence is absurd. Where’s the mystery? Where’s the fun if you nail it all down?”

“To me, it was like he should be a man of mystery whose past you infer. There will be all sorts of little clues that you could perhaps list in order to build a comprehensive overview of what his past is. If someone wanted to go write a scholarly paper on who is Wolverine and where did he come from, you could take all these benchmarks and deduce from this that he is A, B, C and D.”

Stories yet to be told

In Wolverine vol.2 #62 from 1992, Larry Hama unveiled a list of “the original Weapon X Project team” that included the codename Wildcat. However, that character never appeared anywhere.

Then, in Wolverine #80 from 1994, Larry Hama introduced molecular biologist Dr. Jaime Munoz who believed that it was possible to develop a bonding process for Adamantium based on a tissue sample from Wolverine. He asked for former Weapon X subjects to step forward to facilitate a breakthrough in Osteopedics. He also warned Wolverine that he had identified an unstable chain of Nucleoproteins in the tissue sample. It was a defect in Wolverine’s DNA that might cause him problems in the future. However, Wolverine never approached Dr. Munoz and the subject of the DNA defect was never touched upon again.

“The problem I have with Logan is I don’t see very much that’s new,” Claremont stated in Back Issue #4. “I see a lot of people running over the track over and over again. I don’t see much of an evolution of the character. I don’t see much that tells me something new in terms of insights or perceptions or what have you that we didn’t have years ago. That would be my hope if I ever got to write him on a consistent basis again, to try and play with the shadings and gradations of the character to see if I could come up with some insights, some perceptions, some revelations which are small but integral, which change how you look at him.”

“In terms of the X-Men, nothing in the mix of characters really suggested themselves as being gay,” Claremont told Seriejournalen.dk. “I had a story with Wolverine where that could be explored. I never got around to writing it.”

Asked on his online Cordially Chris forum if he had any story ideas for Logan’s mother, Claremont answered, “As a matter of fact, yes.”

Sources:

Kim A.: Chris Claremont On Wolverine, Berserkher.com, 2001

William Christensen and Mark Seifert: From Gofer To Comic Great, Wizard: X-Men Turn Thirty, July 1993

Cordially Chris, comixfan.com/xfan/, 28 October 2008

Eric Fein: Bob Harras Interview, Marvel Age #78, September 1989

Peter Sanderson: Pro 2 Pro – Claremont And Byrne: Wolverine At 30, Back Issue #4, June 2004

Tue Sørensen and Ulrik Kristiansen: Chris Claremont Interview, seriejournalen.dk, 1995

Wizard Tribute To Wolverine, 1996

Cosmic comedy with Excalibur

But the Phoenix mini-series didn’t make it to print, Colossus didn’t make the team, and Nightcrawler’s Captains Courageous team wasn’t assembled.

On the letters page in Uncanny X-Men #208 in 1986 it was announced: “Rachel (Summers)’ going to need all the friendship and support and affection she can get, not simply in the X-Men but also in the upcoming Phoenix Limited Series we have planned for later this year, which Chris Claremont will be writing and Rick Leonardi pencilling. We think it’ll be something as different and special as the lady herself.”

However, the Phoenix mini-series never appeared, although it remained in the works until Chris Claremont left Marvel in 1991. “In (Uncanny) X-Men #209 (1986), she was spirited away by Spiral to Mojo’s world and something awful happened, which is going to be explained in a Special Format mini-series,” artist Alan Davis told Amazing Heroes #193. “I don’t know if Chris has finished writing it yet.”

“(The Mutant Massacre crossover) was supposed to lead into a mini-series which would tell the story of what happened between Rachel’s disappearance from the X-Men in issue #209 and her reappearance in the Excalibur special edition (in 1988),” Claremont told Comics Focus #1. “This was supposed to tie into Longshot’s presence in the X-Men and his departure from that book to star in his own ongoing series. Except, for various reasons, the mini-series never got finished and the Longshot series never got launched, so suddenly you’re left with dangles that weren’t intentional but are there nonetheless.”

“Plots come and go for all sorts of reasons. Threads dangle for all sorts of reasons. The writer assumes that there will always be time to tie them up in neat little knots – things that are meant to come to fruition fifty issues down the line will happen. I always assumed I’d be around to do it: Unfortunately, I wasn’t.”

In the Excalibur Special Edition, Phoenix returned from Mojo’s world without the capacity to tell her true memories from the false memories she had gotten in his world of entertainment. It wasn’t a big mystery what had happened to her, though, as it was mentioned - and repeated in Excalibur #1 and X-Men Annual #12 in 1988 - that Mojo had made her a star in his world, and that she had escaped from being kept as his slave.

Hello, Excalibur

“It’s no secret that I’ve been wanting to work with Alan Davis for some considerable time,” Claremont told Amazing Heroes #134. “Basically, in the past what I wanted him for is to draw the X-Men.”

“I like working with Chris (Claremont) very much,” Alan Davis stated in Amazing Heroes #193. “But the difficulty is, if you go on to a book like X-Men, you’re just another new artist on the X-Men, and unless you somehow make a tremendous splash you’re selling yourself into a slavery of working on something where you can’t really do too much because the formula is tested and so successful.”

“The first I knew of Excalibur was when Chris phoned and instead of asking, did I want to draw the X-Men, said Marvel is doing another X-book and it’s going to be set in England and Captain Britain is in it,” Davis recalled in Modern Masters Volume One. “Now Chris was one of the creators of Captain Britain so he obviously had an interest in him. So I don’t know whether Captain Britain was included in the group to encourage me.”

“Usually, when you move on to an existing book, you’re following a regime, and by starting on Excalibur with issue #1, I was able to put a lot of myself into it,” Davis explained in Comics Scene #30. “I liked the characters, and it was nice to be in on something since its inception.”

 “I began figuring what could I do with the X-Men who weren’t going to be in the (1988) Fall Of The Mutants (crossover), like Kitty (Pryde) and Nightcrawler,” Claremont told Amazing Heroes #134, “because I knew if I didn’t do anything with them, other people would leap forward like rabid wolves to heist them. Alan (Davis) and I had been talking over the idea of doing something together – a graphic novel, a series, or some such. And then basically the concept of Excalibur evolved, and we decided on a team, which would be Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde), Nightcrawler, Captain Britain, his girlfriend Meggan, Phoenix, and someone new whom we’d invent (Widget).”

”Originally, Colossus was also intended to be a member of Excalibur. However, Colossus ended up rejoining the X-Men for the basic reason that the X-Men didn’t have a big, muscular strongman, and as the Excalibur concept grew along, and Captain Britain came into it, we already had a strongman in Excalibur – we didn’t need two. And the X-Men needed one, so we tossed Colossus back.”

Goodbye, Excalibur

“When we originally started, (editor) Ann Nocenti christened Excalibur “a cosmic comedy,”” Alan Davis told Comics Scene #30. “That was something that really surprised me, because what I had originally agreed to do was basically the X-Men in Europe, and suddenly it was a cosmic comedy. I was told it was because my artwork was so comedic, and while it wasn’t my decision, there was a definite intention to put more humor into Excalibur. There’s always a punchline on the cover, or a humorous incident.”

Alan Davis decided to leave Excalibur with issue #17 in 1989, “Mainly because we were working right up against the deadline all the time and there was no way of getting out of that situation. That was affecting the quality and the look of the book,” Davis explained in Amazing Heroes #193. “I had a great time working with Chris (Claremont) and working on Excalibur was heaven-sent, making it a really difficult decision to give it up. (…) I agreed to do the two fill-ins on Excalibur (#23-24 in 1990).”

Ten issues later, Chris Claremont also gave up Excalibur. “Part of the reason I dropped Excalibur was that X-Men (vol.2) was on the horizon and we wanted to start the new book in somewhat less than the extreme deadline situation we always seemed to find ourselves in on Uncanny X-Men,” Claremont explained in Comics Interview #98. “Also, at the time, I felt Excalibur wasn’t any fun anymore. It had gotten to the point where there was no postive synergistic mix between myself and the people I was working with as pencillers. Rather than perpetuating a book that wasn’t zinging, it was easier to just remove myself from the situation and focus my energies on X-Men.”

With Claremont’s departure, the story announced for 1991 in Marvel Age Preview #1 ended up not happening: “Excalibur goes bi-weekly for the summer, and Nightcrawler forms the Captains Courageous, gathering the Captain Britains from across the multiverse.”

Girls’ School from Hell

Claremont’s final Excalibur story was “Girls’ School from Hell” in Excalibur #32-34 from 1990-1991 – a story that was originally scheduled for Excalibur #7 in 1989 according to Marvel Age #72, and which was to preceed the Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem special edition: “Even in England, Kitty’s education can’t be neglected, so the Excalibur team sends her off to a private girls’ school. But Kitty’s in for a shock when the school turns out not to be what she expected! Written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Alan Davis.”

““The Girls’ School from Hell” would have worked really well with Alan (Davis),” Claremont told Comics Interview #98. “I thought, when we set out to do it, that it would work as well with Ron Wagner, based on the work I saw on Nth Man – it just didn’t work. What I was looking for, what (editor) Terry Kavanagh and I were hoping for, didn’t gel. It’s no fault of Ron’s, it’s no fault of ours; it’s just one of those things.”

The two Excalibur Special Editions promised in Excalibur #22 in 1990 became the 1999 X-Men: True Friends mini-series instead.

Of Claremont’s abandoned Excalibur plots, one remained unresolved. In Excalibur #21 in 1990, Jamie Braddock turned the head of London’s criminal underworld, Vixen, into a fox and she was last seen as such in Excalibur #27 in 1990. Presumably, she is still a fox.

In Excalibur #32 in 1990, Sat-yr-9’s henchman Nigel Frobisher had become the new Vixen, but whatever plans he had remained unfulfilled, because the subsequent writer, Alan Davis, killed him off in Excalibur #56 in 1992.

Shadowcat: The new Saturnyne?

“I phoned Chris Claremont and asked him if he would have any problems with my going back to the book, because almost immediately after he left, they offered it to me,” Alan Davis told Comics Scene #30. “I didn’t want it to look like there was foul play. That’s not what actually happened, and I didn’t want it to appear that way.”

“When I took over on Excalibur, there was a definite brief that there were too many loose ends hanging and (editor) Terry (Kavanagh) wanted them tied up,” Davis admitted in Modern Masters Volume One. “Fortunately I was able to manage to tie the loose ends up so that many people thought that was the way Chris (Claremont) had planned it all along.”

There was one plotline that Davis initially left for Claremont himself to resolve. “From issue #5 (1989) of Excalibur we’d been building up a subplot where we had Sat-yr-9, Doc Croc, the Vixen, and Jamie Braddock coming together for a climactic battle, which still hasn’t happened, although Chris Claremont is planning on doing that in a special series at some point in the future,” Davis revealed in Marvel Age #100. When Claremont left Marvel before doing the series, Davis used Sat-yr-9, Vixen and Jamie Braddock anyway. In Excalibur #55-56 in 1992, the heroes learned that Sat-yr-9 had killed Captain Britain’s old girldfriend, Courtney Ross, and had posed as her since Excalibur #5. However, Davis didn’t reveal why Sat-yr-9 had taken a special interest in Kitty Pryde, whom she had befriended in Excalibur #21 in 1990 and had spoiled with an amazing birthday celebration in Excalibur #24 the same year.

“From what I gather in terms of the current X-Men, it’s not part of the mix,” Claremont told Seriejournalen.dk. “The key to (the X-Men) was always to deal with (the characters) in terms of how they interacted with the real world – that they were a part of the real world, that they lived in the real world, that they had a future in the real world. That at some point Storm might well marry Forge and go on living happily ever after – or not. That Nightcrawler and Amanda (Sefton) had a future. That Kitty would or would not become the new Saturnyne. All these elements were there.”

Sources:

Les Chester: Alan Davis, Amazing Heroes #193, August 1991

Comics Focus #1, June 1996

Tom DeFalco: Comics Creators On X-Men, April 2006

Marvel Age #72, March 1989

Marvel Age Preview #1, 1990

Joe Nazzaro: Punchlines, Comics Scene vol.2 #30, December 1992

Eric Nolen-Weathington: Modern Masters Volume One: Alan Davis, April 2003

Patrick Daniel O’Neill: Chris Claremont, Comics Interview #98, 1991

Peter Sanderson: Alan Davis On Excalibur, Marvel Age #100, May 1991

Peter Sanderson: High Caliber, Amazing Heroes #134, February 1988

Tue Sørensen and Ulrik Kristiansen: Chris Claremont Interview, seriejournalen.dk, 1995

The all-different X-Men went to Australia

And encountered some unresolved mysteries, as well as some unpublished adventures of Longshot.

When asked in Comics Interview #11 in 1984 if there were any new characters coming up in X-Men, artist John Romita, Jr. replied: “There’s a character called Vanity whose powers are connected with a mirror and other dimensions.”

Such a character never appeared in the X-Men, though.

In Uncanny X-Men # 184, the inventor Forge used a scanner that could tell mutants and aliens from humans, but it mysteriously failed to register Mystique as a mutant. An explanation was never given.

“The X-Men show up around page 5 of issue 200 (1985), and Cyclops joins Xavier a few pages later with the line, “Professor, we’ve had an adventure you will not believe, and Paris is not likely to forget anytime soon,”” writer Chris Claremont told Marvel Age #32. “What adventure is that, True Believers? Well, you’ll just have to stay tuned for future announcements from Marvel.”

Claremont was hoping to do a one-shot or a limited series about what happened to the X-Men in Paris in the space of those few pages, but that adventure never appeared either.

Following the 1986-1987 Mutant Massacre story in Uncanny X-Men #210-213, the X-Men’s roster was changed to: Storm (Ororo Munroe), Wolverine (Logan), Rogue (real name unknown), Psylocke (Elisabeth Braddock), Dazzler (Alison Blaire), Havok (Alex Summers) and Longshot.

“When Havok went back into the X-Men, that sort of took care of the Havok And Polaris series we’d planned,” X-Factor artist Walter Simonson told Marvel Age #68. “Some of the ideas for that will in fact be turning up in the Avengers (which I’m writing).”

The Longshot graphic novel

In the 1985-1986 Longshot mini-series written by Ann Nocenti, Longshot was a genetically created human with the specific purpose of being Mojo’s slave-star in the entertaiment business. Before escaping from Mojo’s dimension to Earth, Longshot had supposedly had a relationship with another of Mojo’s slave-stars, Spiral, who now hated him. The mini-series ended with Longshot going back to Mojo’s dimension along with stuntwoman Ricochet Rita and Quark to rebel against Mojo’s slavery.

In Marvel Age Annual #3, 1987, a Longshot graphic novel by Ann Nocenti and Art Adams was announced: “Longshot will return to his home world where he will start a rebellion to free his people. All his nemeses from his Limited Series, including Mojo and Spiral, will counter-attack. Longshot will discover just how brutal a rebellion can be – and how merciless the forces bent on the rebellion’s destruction truly are.”

However, the graphic novel never appeared. “Chris (Claremont) kept running in, saying, “Can Athur do this?” Adams revealed in Back Issue #29. “Chris basically stole him from me and made sure I could never see him again,” Nocenti added.

Claremont stole both Art Adams and Longshot for X-Men Annual #10, 1987, where the rebellion on Mojo World had failed, and Mojo sent Longshot to the X-Men on Earth as part of a plan to enslave them, too. The plan didn’t succeed, but Mojo decided to leave Longshot with the X-Men to annoy Spiral. However, Longshot suffered from amnesia during his entire time with the X-Men and didn’t even recognize Ricochet Rita when he saw one of her movies in Uncanny X-Men #224 in 1987.

In X-Men Annual #12, 1988, it was revealed that Rita had become one of Mojo’s slaves, and she was last seen as guardian for Mojo’s X-Babies in the 1989 Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem special edition.

In X-Factor Annual #7, 1992, writer Fabian Nicieza revealed that Spiral was actually Ricochet Rita who had been transformed and sent back in time by Mojo.

Dead to the world

Following a televised battle against evil forces in Uncanny X-Men #227 from 1988, the world assumed that the X-Men had died – an assumption which the X-Men wanted to use for their own benefit for a while. In Uncanny X-Men #229, also from 1988, the wizard Merlin’s daughter, Roma, ensured that the X-Men would only be visible to the naked eye and to the computer at their new headquarters in the Australian outback to help them keep their being alive a secret from the world.

However, at some point in 1991,between Uncanny X-Men #279, page 12, and X-Men vol.2 #1, the X-Men became visible to all scanners once again. X-Men vol.2 #1 started with the X-Men being scanned by computers at the Xavier Institute. It is possible that if Chris Claremont hadn’t resigned as X-Men writer and had written the stories in between those issues, there would have been an explanation of how the X-Men became visible again, but the subsequent writers either ignored or forgot about the X-Men having been “invisible” at all. In Excalibur #41 from 1991, writer Scott Lobdell referred to television footage of the X-Men from as far back as the 1990-1991 X-Tinction Agenda crossover in Uncanny X-Men #270-272, creating quite the unexplained conundrum.

Apparently, Roma’s spell simply ceased working and none of the characters felt the need to comment on the loss.

The mysterious mutant Gateway, who had the convenient ability to transport people from place to place, came along with the X-Men’s new Australian headquarters. He had served the villainous Reavers under threat of desecration of his people’s holy place, so they’d never know peace, wandering the dreamlands as slaves to outsign spirits forever.

In Uncanny X-Men #269 from 1990, Rogue absorbed Gateway’s ability and memories and learned that he had a debt and a task binding him to both the place and to the Reavers’ service. The nature of Gateway’s debt and the secret of his task remain unrevealed, as does the fate of his people.

 

Dazzler: Death’s handmaiden

In Uncanny X-Men #246 from 1989, Dazzler looked into the Siege Perilous and saw that all her possible life choices led to her death. By denying her fate, Death took her on her word and said, “The life thou hast chosen hath made thee my beloved handmaiden” – a destiny which was sealed in blood. Dazzler was reminded of the “deal” in Uncanny X-Men #247, but Chris Claremont didn’t touch on the subject again before Dazzler made her last X-Men appearance in Uncanny X-Men #260 in 1990, and subsequent writers didn’t touch the subject either.

Then, many years later, in 2006, Chris Claremont returned to the character in the pages of New Excalibur, and in issue #1 Dazzler died, but mysteriously returned to life. The Marvel Previews solicitation for New Excalibur #8 said: “Dazzler died. But for some reason, it didn’t stick? How is this possible? Dazzler and the New Excalibur team attempt to find out what has happened to her. The answer will shock you! “So Why Is It I’m Not Dead?” Part 1 (of 2)!”

The story title was instead used in New Excalibur #6 in 2006, where Dazzler died again. She came back to life in New Excalibur #7, but New Excalibur #8 offered no explanation. Instead it featured a set-up for Psylocke’s appearance in Exiles. Then Chris Claremont took a break from writing the series while recuperating from a stroke. When he returned, Dazzler died and came back to life again in New Excalibur #16 in 2007, but no reason for her inability to die was given before the series got cancelled with issue #24 the same year.

In X-Men: Die By The Sword #2 from 2007, also written by Chris Claremont, Dazzler stated, “Whatever way I manage to get myself killed, I always seem to get better,” and once again she got killed in X-Men: Die By The Sword #4 in 2008, and miraculously returned to life in #5. Since then, Dazzler has rejoined the X-Men, but nothing has developed further on her inability to die. The mystery remains unresolved.

The Longshot series

Longshot left the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #248 in 1989 to go on a search for his identity in an ongoing series of his own written by Ann Nocenti and pencilled by Art Adams. “Originally Ann had written a plot for Longshot Graphic Novel,” Adams explained in Marvel Age #71. “But Ann decided she’d just as soon not do the graphic novel, and just go ahead and do something else. I think, since she had written the graphic novel plot, and she had gotten better as a writer, she looked at it and didn’t feel very good about it.”

“I think all we’ve decided so far is that Longshot’s going to travel around and have adventures,” Adams continued. “We’ve talked a little bit about it, mostly about various characters we’d both like to have something to do with, so we’ll probably be guest-starring lots and lots of Marvel characters. I think we have plans so far for the Hulk and Thor.”

“I think when we get to the series I’m going to have Mojo in some sort of exoskeleton, that we really don’t see but that’ll be under clothes or something, so he can walk around. (…) I’m hoping that in some issue of Longshot I can bring back one of those old Kirby monsters. (…) I expect there’ll be quite a supporting cast. Ann’s already mentioned that in the first issue Longshot’s supposed to meet some kind of zombie guy who’s a humorous zombie. I figure he’s going to stay around for a few issues.”

In Marvel Age #67, it was announced: “We’ve got definite plans for a new series guest-starring Mephisto. It’ll be called Longshot, and if you think that means it’s going to pit the master of evil against everybody’s favorite incredibly lucky X-Man, well, give yourself a gold star! And just for good measure, we’re throwing in lots of other familiar faces from around the Marvel Universe too! Stay tuned to future issues of Marvel Age Magazine for more details.”

However, for reasons unknown the Longshot series never appeared.

The Dane sisters

In Uncanny X-Men #249 from 1989, the villain Zaladane surprised Lorna Dane (Polaris) by calling her sister. It appeared as if their family relation would never be explained following the death of Zaladane in Uncanny X-Men #275 in 1991, but it is possible that Chris Claremont had intended to revive Zaladane and resolve the issue. Certainly, Amazing Heroes #192 featured a design sketch by Jim Lee of Zaladane along with some for Omega Red, who at the time was set to debut in X-Men vol.2 #3 in 1991. With Claremont’s departure, the resurrection of Zaladane just ended up not happening.

Ten years later, in 2001, when Claremont left Uncanny X-Men for the second time to write X-Treme X-Men, Zaladane’s resurrection ended up not happening again: “Also lost in the shuffle: (…) a story in the Savage Land reintroducing Zaladane as a vengeful earth-oriented character, who manipulates tectonic plates the way her sister, Lorna, does magnetism, and her desire to avenge herself against Magneto (who “killed” her in Uncanny X-Men #275) by destroying Genosha (an island nation which Magneto ruled at the time),” Claremont revealed to Cinescape.com.

At the time, Marvel instituted an editorial policy against resurrecting dead characters, which may explain why Zaladane’s resurrection didn’t happen in the 2001-2002 X-Treme X-Men: Savage Land mini-series either, but Genosha did end up getting destroyed, although by Sentinels, in New X-Men #115 in 2001, written by Grant Morrison.

The computer and the sword

Meanwhile, a mystery was building surrounding the computer at the X-Men’s Australian headquarters. In Uncanny X-Men #249 from 1989, it seemed capable of self-repair, and when the Reavers reclaimed the compound, the computer surprised and amazed even them. In Uncanny X-Men #252 from the same year, Bonebreaker noticed that the computer was evolving – almost as if it was growing like a living organism. Neither Claremont, nor any other writer, ever followed up on this development.

In the 1982 Wolverine Limited Series, Wolverine’s girlfriend Mariko had become head of the Yashida clan, and she gave the clan’s honor sword to Wolverine in issue #4. In Uncanny X-Men #252 in 1989, where the Reavers had reclaimed the X-Men’s Australian headquarters, Lady Deathstrike left the sword there to be reclaimed by the winner of the final battle between her and Wolverine. However, that battle didn’t take place before Chris Claremont left the series, and the whereabouts of the sword was forgotten about by Wolverine writer Larry Hama, who showed it back in Mariko’s possession without explanation in Wolverine vol.2 #57, 1992.

Then, following Mariko’s death, the sword was back in Wolverine’s possession without explanation in Wolverine vol.2 #75 in 1993, also written by Larry Hama, and in Wolverine vol.2 #82 from 1994, he passed it on to the Silver Samurai.

Sources:

Amazing Heroes #192, July 1991

Roger Ash: Ann Nocenti And Arthur Adams Bet On A Longshot, Back Issue #29, August 2008

Marvel Age #67, October 1988

Marvel Age Annual #3, 1987

Eric J. Moreels: Claremont Reflects On Core X-Book Return, Cinescape.com, 26 March 2001

Peter Sanderson: 200 Issues Of Mutants!, Marvel Age #32, November 1985

Peter Sanderson: Art Adams Interview, Marvel Age #71, February 1989

Peter Sanderson: Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown 1, Marvel Age #68, November 1988

Brian Talley: John Romita, Jr, Comics Interview #11, 1984

Jean Grey’s return in X-Factor

Resulting in the destruction of Cyclops’ character, the death of Madelyne Pryor and… a premature wedding? 

“Well, X-Factor really came about in a kind of a strange fashion,” artist Jackson Guice recalled in Comics Interview #28. “It was an idea that Bob Layton and I pitched to (Editor-In-Chief) Jim Shooter (in 1985) about putting together a title, but neither one of us was really volunteering to work on it. It was just an idea that sparked in our heads.”

“We were staying at Jim’s place in New York one weekend and we were looking through the make-readies of that month’s issues from Marvel - Jim was away – and we were discussing the various titles and everything. Defenders and X-Men were two of the titles. We looked at them and got to talking about here were these great old X-Men characters, the original X-Men, and – not to belittle the work anyone was doing on Defenders – but we really felt like they should be in a title of their own. We both had an extreme fondness for the original X-Men.”

“And Jim came back and we said, “Jim, THIS is what you ought to do…” Telling the Editor-In-Chief what to do. “You take these original X-Men and you put them together in a new book; and you go back to the original premise of the first run of X-Men – which was when Professor X said that the purpose of the team and the school and everything was to seek out and find mutants and help them cope, to eliminate mutant threats, to basically be the bridge between mutantkind and humanity.” And we said, “These guys are like the oldest mutants walking around, as far as trained mutants, in the Marvel Universe. They’ve got the most experience. They’ve been dealing with this kind of thing for years in comparison to most of the other mutants. Take this experience and have ‘em put it to good use.””

“We weren’t really thinking about the fact that we were pitching this book for ourselves. We were just thinking, “Here’s an idea,” you know? “Do with it as you wish.” And Jim looked at us and said, “Well, when do you want to start?” And we sort of looked at each other and it was the first time it really dawned on us that, you know, we could do this. And the more we talked about it the more excited we got about it, and it went from there.”

“We talked to Mike Carlin (…) and he agreed to be editor for X-Factor. As a matter of fact he came up with the name. He went to lunch and came back and said, “We’ll call it X-Factor.””

The resurrection of Jean Grey

“When X-Factor was created, the original premise was that it would be the four surviving members of the original X-Men: Cyclops, Beast, Angel, and Iceman, plus a fifth female to be named later,” X-Men writer Chris Claremont recalled in Wizard: X-Men Turn Thirty. “It was then proposed to Jim (Shooter) that if you are going to create the original four, bring Jean back from the dead. A way was given to him that plausibly explained her resurrection. Jim thought it would be a spectacular marketing ploy for the book, and decided that the benefit to the new series outweighed any potential damage done to the old series.”

The idea to resurrect Jean came from a disenchanted fan, Kurt Busiek, who had a letter printed in Uncanny X-Men #143 in 1981, which stated that following the Dark Phoenix story, he had decided to quit reading the X-Men.

“It spun off of an idea that Marvel Age Assistant Editor Kurt Busiek mentioned to me about two or three years ago,” Roger Stern told Marvel Age #33. “I later mentioned this to John Byrne and we kicked it around a few times. Then when we heard that Bob Layton was doing X-Factor, John told the idea to Bob and everything started to move.”

“Kurt Busiek suggested that the Phoenix force was a separate entity,” John Byrne revealed in Comics Creators On X-Men. “Kurt had this idea that it had actually duplicated Jean and left her in a pod on the bottom of Jamaica Bay. I loved that, and we ultimately did it in Avengers, which led into the first issue of X-Factor.”

“That was not in the original idea when Bob (Layton) and I presented the series,” Jackson Guice stated in Comics Interview #28. “That was brought to us and it was put in simply because it worked as such a good story.”

“We had had the fist five or six stories worked out already, verbally plotted, when John (Byrne) and Roger Stern approached Jim (Shooter) with this idea and then we were called in because suddenly it was like if there was anyplace they were going to have this event it was gonna be in X-Factor. But other than it was presented to us and worked into the storyline, we really had no part of bringing that character back.”

“Originally Bob and I thought about doing that in the 10^th or 12^th issue,” Guice told Marvel Age #33. “But the decision soon evolved into opening the series with that bombshell.”

According to Back Issue #29, Bob Layton and Jackson Guice had intended for Dazzler to be the fifth X-Factor member. They were going to revamp her powers and call her Strobe, Layton told fans during a lecture in Copenhagen on 29 June 2023.

Chris Claremont’s reaction

“Oh, God! Barry Windsor-Smith and I were coming into the office to plot X-Men #198 (in 1985),” Claremont recalled in Comics Creators On X-Men. “It was a Friday night and (editor) Ann (Nocenti) took us out to dinner and didn’t tell us about X-Factor until it was, like, 6:30-7:00 at night and the office switchboard was already closed. I wanted to call Shooter, but I couldn’t remember his direct line. Ann knew his number, but she wouldn’t tell me. She told me to just sit down, have another drink and relax. I mean, she played me beautifully. Since it was Friday, I had the whole weekend to go berserk.”

“I spent the weekend coming up with a whole new set of characters that they could use for X-Factor. I came in Monday morning and pitched the idea of using Jean’s sister Sara and making her a living Cerebro. She not only senses mutants, but has the power to work out what they’ll become. Shooter sat there and said, “That’s a great concept. I think it’s wonderful. If you want to go with it, go with it, but we’re bringing back Jean Grey.””

“The fact is, Ann did a smart thing. If I had actually gone in to see Shooter on Friday night, I would have quit. I was so pissed off. I couldn’t believe what they did to Cyclops (Scott Summers). He was supposed to be a hero and they had him walking out on his wife and newborn child and not even thinking twice about it.”

According to Back Issue #29, Chris Claremont and Jackson Guice made some uncredited changes to John Byrne’s Fantastic Four #286 in 1986, in which Jean Grey returned in a prelude to X-Factor. In Byrne’s original version, the Phoenix entity was malevolent and it was Jean’s humanity that triumphed. In the reworked story, Phoenix was essentially a benign entity that got tainted by Jean’s human fallibility.

The fate of Cyclops’ wife

“The original Madelyne (Pryor) storyline was that – at its simplest level – she was that one-in-a-million that just happened to look like Jean (Grey),” Claremont told Seriejournalen.dk. “And the relationship (between her and Scott Summers) was summed up by the moment (in Uncanny X-Men #174, 1983) when Scott says, “Are you Jean?” and she punches him! Because her whole desire was to be loved for herself – not to be loved as the evocation of her boyfriend’s dead sweetheart. (…) But it all got invalidated by the resurrection of Jean Grey in X-Factor #1 (1986).”

“The original plotline was that Scott marries Madelyne - they have their child, they go off to Alaska. He goes to work for his grandparents. He retires from the X-Men. He’s a reserve member. He’s available for emergencies. He comes back on special occasions – for special fights, but he has a life. He has grown up. (…) Scott was going to move on. Jean was dead, “Get on with your life.” And it was close to being a happy ending. They lived happily ever after – and it was to create the impression that maybe if you come back in ten years other X-Men would have grown up, too. Would Kitty (Pryde) stay with the team forever? Would Nightcrawler? Would any of them? Because that way we could evolve them into new directions - we could bring in new characters. There would be an ongoing sense of renewal and growth and change – in a positive sense.”

“Then, unfortunately, Jean was resurrected, Scott dumps his wife and kid and goes back to the old girlfriend, so it not only destroys Scott’s character as a hero and as a decent human being – it creates an untenable structural situation: What do we do with Madelyne and the kid?”

“So ultimately the resolution was: Turn her into the Goblin Queen and kill her off.”

This happened in the 1989 Inferno crossover, which was originally titled Hell On Earth, in X-Factor #36-38 and Uncanny X-Men #240-242.

Years later, in 2005, Claremont got the opportunity to redeem Scott’s character a little in X-Men: The End - Book Two: Heroes & Martyrs #4 by having him confess to feeling guilty about how he treated Madelyne Pryor.

Apocalypse for Doppelganger, the Owl and Madrox

In Marvel Age #39, upcoming storylines for X-Factor were announced: ”A coming of age story is in the works for Iceman that will explore his relationship with Darkstar. His Russian teammate from his days with the now defunct Champions will involve him in an adventure that will introduce a villain who just may become X-Factor’s major adversary. His name is Doppelganger and he is incredibly evil!”

“We will also be introduced to the new Owl. This high flying bad guy will be more evil than the original Owl, and will also have a new look.”

The new Owl was supposed to be introduced in X-Factor #6 in 1986, about which Marvel Age #39 said: “Who is the mastermind behind the Evil Mutants? Find out the shocking answer as he tries to x-out X-Factor! “The Magic Machine” is written by Bob Layton, pencilled by Jackson Guice and inked by Joe Rubinstein.”

But when X-Factor #6 appeared, it was written by Louise Simonson and featured the debut of Apocalypse instead of the new Owl. “Layton decided to leave the book and I honestly do not know why,” Louise Simonson told Comics Creators On X-Men. “I don’t know if it was his, Shooter’s, or (new editor Bob) Harras’ choice. Bob (Harras) asked me to take over the book and I think it was partly because (…) Chris (Claremont) was my friend. I think someone finally realised that splitting up the X-Men and fostering a hostile relationship between the creators was a really bad idea. I believe I was brought on, at least in part, because everyone knew that I could and WOULD work with Chris.”

“When (X-Factor) first came out I couldn’t read it, I couldn’t stand it,” Claremont told Comics Interview #56. “It was like, “Ooo, who are these people masquerading as the original X-Men?””

“It wasn’t until Louise and Walter Simonson were on the book that we actually managed to massage the characters back to the way they should have been,” Claremont added in Comics Creators On X-Men.

“My feeling was that the Owl didn’t have the stature to be a major foe for a major team,” Louise Simonson reasoned in Comics Creators On X-Men. “There was a set-up panel at the end of X-Factor #5 (1986) and we needed to show a villain in it. I tried to think really fast – what kind of character would be an appropriate foe? (…) I wanted a character who would try to force mutants and humanity to the next level. I thought Apocalypse was a good name for a character. Jackson Guice designed him and he did a really good job. It was just a throwaway thing for him because I think he had also been planning on getting off the book, if I remember right.”

“The only thing I even vaguely remember,” Guice revealed in Back Issue #29, “are the bare bones of a story Bob (Layton) and I intended to do involving (Jamie) Madrox (the Multiple Man) being hunted by his own multiple clones on some remote island off the coast of Ireland – the gist of the thing being all that splitting had ultimately fractured Jamie’s personality to the point he could no longer exert control over his duplicates and now they were running amok killing each other – each convinced he was the original Madrox.”

The twelve strong mutants

Following his defeat in X-Men #100 in 1976, it was revealed in Hulk Annual #7, 1978, that the mutant-hating Steven Lang had uploaded his consciousness into the mutant-hunting Sentinel robot, Master Mold. Lang’s braindead body ended up in a nursing home, as revealed in Uncanny X-Men #291 in 1992, and was later absorbed by the techno-organic alien race, the Phalanx.

In X-Factor #14 from 1987, written by Louise Simonson, it was revealed that Lang had discovered the twelve mutants who would lead – around whom others would gather. Also referred to as the Strong, the Twelve were shown to include Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Franklin Richards and Apocalypse, and Master Mold intended to destroy them.

Cyclops managed to defeat the Master Mold Sentinel, but it reappeared in Power Pack #36 written by Jon Bogdanove in 1988, where the Twelve were shown to also include Professor X, Psylocke, Cannonball and Danielle Moonstar.

In Uncanny X-Men #246 in 1989, written by Chris Claremont, the Master Mold Sentinel merged with Nimrod, a mutant-killer robot from the future of Rachel Summers. Once again, The Twelve were mentioned before the Nimrod/Master Mold amalgam was defeated. In Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998, written by Mike Higgins and Karl Bollers, it was revealed that it went through the magical Siege Perilous and became the mutant-hating Bastion, who first appeared in X-Men vol.2 #52 in 1996, written by Mark Waid. However, neither Bastion nor the Phalanx-version of Steven Lang ever made any mention of the Twelve.

In X-Factor #68, 1991, written by Chris Claremont, Apocalypse mentioned “the fabled Twelve,” a dozen key mutants, who would prove instrumental to the survival of mutants, and in Uncanny X-Men #-1 in 1997, writer Scott Lobdell revealed how the Master Mold came to know about the Twelve, whom a character from the future was disappointed in after having waited so long for them.

Finally, in 2000, artist Alan Davis plotted a crossover between the X-Men books entitled Apocalypse: The Twelve (Uncanny X-Men #376-377 and X-Men vol.2 #96-97) in which Apocalypse captured twelve powerful alpha-level mutants in order to recreate the world in his image by using their combined power. Although that was supposed to wrap up the Twelve subplot, Apocalypse’s Twelve weren’t all strong leaders others would gather around. Leaving out himself and Franklin Richards, Apocalypse captured Cyclops, Jean Grey and Storm, as well as Professor X, Cable, Magneto, Polaris, Iceman, Sunfire, Bishop, Mikhail Rasputin and the Living Monolith.

The secret of Mr. Sinister

In Classic X-Men #41-42 from 1989, written by Chris Claremont, Scott Summers’ childhood friend, Nathan, seemed to be more than just another boy at the orphanage where Scott grew up. Orphanage-employee Dr. Robyn Hanover suspected that something was wrong with Nathan and her suspicions got her brainwashed by Mr. Sinister.

“Sinister was Scott’s boyhood friend (Nathan) in the orphanage,” Claremont revealed to Seriejournalen.dk. “He’s an eight-year old kid – he’s always been an eight-year old kid. He ages one year for every 10 of everybody else. So, he’s a 50-year old guy in a 10-year old’s body – and boy, is he pissed! That’s why he works with clones. It’s the only way he can deal with the adult world – because he is not gonna be an adult for another 50 years, at the earliest! And that’s why he takes a long view of things because he’s going to be around for a 1000 years – give or take a few – at least!”

Louise Simonson maintained Claremont’s idea in X-Factor #35 from 1988, where Scott Summers visited the orphanage, discovered Mr. Sinister’s laboratory underneath it and recalled his fights with Nathan, as well as in X-Factor #37 in 1989, where poor Madelyne Pryor, who ended up being nothing but a clone of Jean Grey created by Mr. Sinister, insisted on calling her and Scott’s son Nathan. (Scott called the boy Christopher.) In X-Factor #39 from 1989, Scott’s fight with Mr. Sinister subconsciously reminded him about his fights with Nathan.

Subsequent writers either hadn’t picked up on the hints about Mr. Sinister being Nathan, or simply chose to ignore them. In the 1996 Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix mini-series, writer Peter Milligan instead had Mr. Sinister be a mad scientist from the 1800s who had powers bestowed upon him by Apocalypse. When Chris Claremont returned to Marvel, he merged his and Milligan’s ideas in X-Men: The End - Book Two: Heroes & Martyrs #5 in 2005, by establishing that Mr. Sinister wasn’t immortal, but had lived through the centuries by cloning himself and transferring his consciousness from clone to clone. Instead of being a 50-year old in a 10-year old body, Nathan was instead suggested as being a clone of Mr. Sinister in the process of growing up, while Mr. Sinister stayed in the laboratory underneath the orphanage.

The postponed wedding

According to an article in Marvel Vision, Scott Summers and Jean Grey were supposed to get married in X-Factor #66 in 1991, and artist Whilce Portacio drew a cover depicting the event, including Apocalypse crashing the wedding and using X-Factor’s sentient ship against them. However, Marvel’s new Editor-In Chief, Tom DeFalco, felt that a wedding of that magnitude was an event better suited for the pages of Uncanny X-Men.

While the wedding got postponed, the attack by Apocalypse did not. Before Ship got destroyed, it managed to suggest that Archangel’s girlfriend, police detective Charlotte Jones, was actually a mutant by letting her pass through a barrier that kept normal humans from entering the ship. However, this surprising development in X-Factor #66, scripted by Chris Claremont, was never followed up on, although Claremont used Charlotte Jones frequently upon returning to Marvel years later.

The wedding between Scott and Jean ended up taking place in X-Men vol.2 #30 in 1994, and was written by Fabian Nicieza. “Having just gotten married myself,” editor Bob Harras told Marvel Age #133, “I’d been trying to get them married for a couple of years, and after that, Tom (DeFalco) relented.”

“The current issue of the X-Men is where Scott and Jean get married,” Claremont commented in an Internet interview. “I gotta tell you, if I had stayed on the book – not a chance. Because everyone would be sitting around waiting for it. Everyone was waiting around for Wolverine to marry Mariko, but it’s like, “No.” You screw it up, but you screw it up in a way that is consistent to the character and leaves the reader going, “What happens next? Where is this going to go?””

Back to Cyclops being a cad

“Jean is marrying Scott, so what’s Scott’s track record to date?” Claremont asked in the Internet interview. “Well, he had a wife. He got married in the mansion, everybody was there, he said, “Till death do you part,” they had a kid, and he walked out on them without a second thought and went to X-Factor. And then for various stupid – and I confess, I had my part in this as well as anyone else – plot reasons didn’t deal with it for a long time. The reason he didn’t deal with it was because he didn’t have a clue what to do with it. I mean, the guy was a cad and a bounder, no ifs, no ands, no buts.”

“In one fell swoop, he was destroyed as a character, as a heroic. He made a commitment to people and then walked out on them. And for various reasons, not Weezie (Louise Simonson), not me, we never dealt with that. We seem to take what seemed at the time to be the only sensible way out, which was we made Madelyne into the bad – you know, we set up a situation where rather than have Scott face the consequences of his actions, we’d just sort of like kill them all. And everyone forgave Scott, because Madelyne was a bitch anyway. And then they gave the kid away. “Don’t deal with the fact that you have a child, Scott, we’ll just send him away to the future” and - shit happens.”

“All of this should be an element in the mix. Mistakes or otherwise, this is Scott’s character, this is Jean’s character. (…) There must be a moment where the two of them sit down and address this. “Jean, marry me.” “Why?” “I love you.” “You loved Madelyne.” Pause. “Yeah, well…” “You walked out on her, Scott. You going to walk out on me? Suppose we discover in a year that Madelyne isn’t dead? Suppose I’m Madelyne. Suppose I’m Phoenix. How are you going to deal with that? How am I to trust you? You made a commitment. You did not fulfil it. You abandoned a child.””

“The onus is not on Jean to prove herself to Scott. She was dead. She got better. He made a commitment to someone. He had to prove that he could make a commitment to her. You can’t just say, “None of this existed, none of this happened, it all goes away.” You have to think, “How does this character deal with it? How does the story deal with it?” Because, by answering those questions, you might find the story going off in a totally different direction that may bring vitality and richness of concept that you never even dreamed of was coming in the door.”

Sources:

?: Chris Claremont, Internet interview, 1994

Timothy Callahan: The Owl That Could Have Been, Back Issue #29, August 2008

William Christensen and Mark Seifert: From Gofer To Comic Great, Wizard: X-Men Turn Thirty, August 1993

Tom DeFalco: Comics Creators On X-Men, April 2006

Allan Harvey: The Birth Of X-Factor, Back Issue #29, August 2008

Marvel Age #39, June 1986

Patrick Daniel O’Neill: Chris Claremont, Comics Interview #56, 1988

Tom Russo: Dearly Beloved…, Marvel Age #133, February 1994

Peter Sanderson: High Caliber, Amazing Heroes #134, February 1988

Tue Sørensen and Ulrik Kristiansen: Chris Claremont Interview, Seriejournalen.dk, 1995

Dwight Jon Zimmerman: X-Factor, Comics Interview #28, 1985

Dwight Jon Zimmerman: X-Factor, Marvel Age #33, December 1985