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Has Chris Claremont Set Kitty Pryde Up for a Massive X-Men Retcon? (X-Men Wedding Special Spoilers)

Published Wed, 16 May 2018 09:30:29 -0500

This is the opening page of X-Men: Wedding Special #1, published today by Marvel Comics and including Chris Claremont's return to Marvel comics and the X-Men – albeit a short one. Marvel continues to pay Claremont an exclusive creators salary, but requiring him to do no more work – this is his first published new work for Marvel since the Nightcrawler series ended. That series gets referenced here, as do a number of other Chris Claremont stories as it looks back in time at the character's growth from a child entering the X-Mansion in Chris's early X-Men storeies to becoming leader of the team.

But it begins with a reference to a story that Chris Claremont didn't write, from Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday. Where Kitty Pryde saves the Earth by bonding with a bullet heading for the planet – and phasing it through. And she remained in that phased state with the bullet for years.

Joss Whedon came to X-Men via Buffy The Vampire Slayer and he was a big X-Men fan, especially of Chris' run – you can see a lot of that team dynamic in Buffy – and the surname Summers and Dark Willow and etc etc.

But right from that opening page, Chris introduces the idea that Kitty is still stuck in the bullet. And everything else since has been a dream. Which is rather reminiscent of the Buffy story Normal Again, in which Buffy wakes up as an inmate in a mental asylum to discover her life has been a dream.

"Back when I saw my first vampires… I got so scared. I told my parents… and they completely freaked out. They thought there was something seriously wrong with me. So they sent me to a clinic… What if I'm still there? What if I never left that clinic?"

And while everything goes back to normal, the final scene was in the asylum world, with the doctors saying 'she's gone' – a little like the ending of Brazil. Um, spoilers.

Chris Claremont has talked about the difficulty if he were to return to the X-Men , he would want to write his X-Men not the current crowd with all the history that has built up.

Could this be one way to achieve that?

X-MEN WEDDING SPECIAL #1

(W) Marc Guggenheim, Kelly Thompson, Chris Claremont (A) Greg Land, Cresta, Marika, Todd Nauck (CA) J. Scott Campbell

CHRIS CLAREMONT RETURNS TO THE X-MEN!
One of the biggest milestone events in X-Men history is almost here! Kitty Pryde and Colossus are finally about the tie the knot…but what's a wedding without the respective bachelor and bachelorette parties? Join Marc Guggenheim and Kelly Thompson for two parties that can only be celebrated Marvel style! All this, plus, a Kitty and Colossus story by legendary X-Men scribe, Chris Claremont!!!
Rated T+
In Shops: May 16, 2018

SRP: $4.99

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