In short, he played a key role in getting 20th Century Fox to make the original X-Men film when the studio's interest was lagging. Not only did he provide the wellspring for many an X-Men movie, according to Claremont, he might be responsible for the entire comic book/superhero film trend of the last decade and a half. Besides, it may have been completely nullified by Days of Future Past.)
(We're pretending X-Men: The Last Stand doesn't exist for the sake of argument. "God Loves, Man Kills" became the basis X2: X-Men United, his 1982 collaboration with Frank Miller on the Wolverine spinoff became, um, The Wolverine, and various and sundry other plot and character tidbits hewn from his stories grafted into X-Men: First Class. It's not the only Claremont creation to be translated into an X-Men film. He not only changed the face of the X-Men, but also Marvel Comics itself, fueling the rabid popularity of Wolverine, creating and expanding characters' backstories, and adding a certain emotional weight to the dealings of mutant-kind.Īnd a slew of some of X-Men's more kick-ass mutants were the brain-children of the British-born writer, some male (Gambit, Sabretooth) but mostly female (Rogue, Mystique, Rachel Summers, Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost).Īlong with Marvel artist John Byrne, Claremont conjured such famous and popular arcs as "The Dark Phoenix Saga" (where Jean Grey attains the absolute zenith of her mutant powers and puts the entire galaxy on blast) and "Days of Future Past," the latter of which you may have seen in cinematic form at your neighborhood multiplex. And the tales he imparts in interviews and at conventions, like the recent Phoenix Comicon, are larger than life, dynamic, and filled with action, drama, and humor.Ĭlaremont may not have invented the X-Men (that was Stan Lee's doing) or its most iconic character Wolverine (credit: Len Wein and Roy Thomas), but he did help give Marvel's fabled mutants more depth, grandeur, gravitas, and - most importantly - a second lease on life after re-igniting interest in anything X-related after a rather fallow period in the early '70s when cancellation loomed.
His contributions as a writer for Marvel Comics are the stuff of legend, specifically to the X-Men canon.
Chris Claremont has a yen for spinning epic yarns, either in comic book form or when talking with fans.
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