This was one of Marvel’s best and most famous writers, but he worked in a well-defined niche.
This is exactly why I found Claremont’s FF so fascinating when it came out. Just as importantly, he pioneered the multi-titled crossover that has become synonymous with superhero comics. He didn’t create Wolverine, but he gave us Wolverine as we know him now – tough as nails, old as dirt, constantly holding himself in check. Over that time, he introduced Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, Rogue, the Phoenix Force, Sabretooth, the New Mutants, and Rachel Summers and the dystopian future of Days of Future Past. He wrote the Uncanny X-Men for a whopping 17 years (starting in 1975), building off the “new X-Men” introduced by Len Wein in Giant-Size X-Men #1. Then and now, Claremont was most associated with the X-Men and its many spinoff titles. I say less celebrated – no one is mentioning it in the same breath as Lee and Kirby, despite Claremont’s pedigree – but it’s fascinating nevertheless, especially in its second half, when Valeria von Doom is introduced. One of the less celebrated runs is Chris Claremont’s, which ran from Fantastic Four (1998 series) #4-32 (including Annuals 19). Over sixty years, the Fantastic Four have been written by a wide assortment from Marvel’s bullpen, some becoming legend, others forgotten or standing as odd footnotes.
At the end of this essay, I’m going to have to spoil that movie for you. When I put the Glen Hansard/Marketa Iglova movie Once on to watch with my wife, I was convinced it had a happy ending. I’m going to start by telling you something about myself that has nothing to do with comics, and I promise it will be relevant later. Find out more and read other posts in this series. This post is part of Fantastic Adventure, How to Love Comics’ celebration of the Fantastic Four’s 60th anniversary.
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