Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: chris claremont, marvel, x-men

Chris Claremont Doesn't Think He's Written a Lot of X-Men Stories Lately

Published Sun, 11 Aug 2019 13:30:19 -0500

Chris Claremont is the greatest comic book writer in history, and he's still writing stories today, which is why we find it so utterly baffling that Marvel Comics would pay him a retainer to be a Marvel-exclusive writer but only rarely actually use him to write a story. In fact, the House of Ideas hasn't even used Claremont to write anything other than a short story in an anthology or a one-shot since 2014's Nightcrawler series. And that doesn't look to be changing in the near future, with Hickman's X-Men creative teams announced for October and nary a Claremont in sight.

Over at Adventures in Poor Taste, intrepid X-reporter Chris Hassan runs a weekly Q&A with Marvel X-Editor Jordan White about the X-Men, and for the past 22 weeks, we've tried to convince him to ask White when Marvel will let Claremont write an ongoing series. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened yet. But maybe next week? However, Hassan did meet with Claremont at Terrificon this weekend, and he published an interview with the legendary creator. And while the interview as a whole is worth a read, one exchange in particular caught our eye, when Hassan implied that Claremont has been pretty busy writing so many X-Men comics lately.

AiPT!: Chris, you've had a chance to revisit various X-Men characters in a lot of recent short stories…

Chris Claremont: I wouldn't say a lot. I've done about a half dozen.

AiPT!: It seems like a lot. You did the Kitty Pryde story in The Wedding Special, the Cyclops story in The Exterminated…

Claremont: Yeah.

Oof! It sounds like Claremont has some bandwidth to write more than just a half dozen short stories… if only Marvel would give him a book.

At least there is a New Mutants one-shot with Bill Sienkiewicz coming out soon. On that, Claremont says:

It's Bill Sienkiewicz and me doing it. Basically, I like to think of it as our next issue–it only took us 32 years to get around to it and i think it'll be a kickass story. But that's up to Bill.

Maybe that long-awaited ongoing… or even a freaking mini-series… will come after that? Hassan promises to have more from Claremont in Monday's column, so we'll be paying close attention in case we get any kind of announcement… but sadly, we won't be holding our breath.

NEW MUTANTS WAR CHILDREN #1
JUL191054
(W) Chris Claremont (A/CA) Bill Sienkiewicz
STRONG AND FREE!
Don't miss this momentous event as legendary creators CHRIS CLAREMONT and BILL SIENKIEWICZ reunite with Magik, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Cypher, Mirage, Karma, and Sunspot to share this never before told story of the New Mutants' past! When Warlock experiences a nightmare, he begins going haywire, and it's up to his friends to save him! But as Warlock grows more frenzied, they should be worrying about being able to save themselves…and doubly so when Magik's inner demon, Darkchylde, threatens to break free! Also, a special guest appearance by none other than Kitty Pryde!
Rated T+
In Shops: Sep 18, 2019
Final Orders Due: Aug 26, 2019
SRP: $4.99