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

Marvel Reveals Details on Chris Claremont's X-Men Legends Story

Published Tue, 12 Oct 2021 15:57:10 -0500

Last week, we told you about Chris Claremont's long-awaited debut in X-Men Legends, set for February's X-Men Legends #12 and mentioned in passing at the end of a press release about January's X-Men Legends #11, which will feature a New Mutants story by Louise and Walt Simonson. This week, Marvel revealed the details of Claremont's story, which will be drawn by Scot Eaton and feature a cover by Alan Davis.

The story will be a prequel of sorts to the formation of Excalibur, taking place right after Fall of the Mutants. It was during that event that the X-Men appeared to the world to have died in Dallas, though the team was actually immediately brought back by Roma and sent to Australia, where they remained hidden from the world for a while. Unfortunately, that left Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler, who were still recovering on Muir Isle from injuries sustained during the previous crossover, Mutant Massacre, believing their friends were dead, which led to the formation of Excalibur.

From Marvel's press release:

Launched earlier this year, X-MEN LEGENDS has given some of the greatest X-Men creators in history the chance to revisit their classic runs with revelatory new tales that have astounded and delighted X-Men fans. And this February, Chris Claremont, the writer behind the franchise's most influential works, will make his mark on the series in X-MEN LEGENDS #12.

His long-awaited debut on the title will see the writer step back into his unparalleled run on UNCANNY X-MEN in a story set before the start of another one of his iconic works, EXCALIBUR. Teaming up with popular X-Men artist Scot Eaton, the groundbreaking writer will pen an all-new tale centered around the legendary characters he created and defined including Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Mystique, and Destiny!

In the aftermath of "Fall of the Mutants," the X-Men are dead. Or so the world believes. And Mystique seeks revenge on Forge for his role in the loss of Rogue. In order to stop her partner from making a grave mistake, Destiny will have to recruit Nightcrawler and Shadowcat who, injured as they are, must dig deep to find new strength and do what is right as the last X-Men standing!

In the press release, Claremont said:

It's always fun wandering back along existing pathways and especially having the opportunity to fill in a couple of nifty gaps that were initially skipped over along the way—closing off one significant story-arc and lighting the fire that ignites the series that follows. Talk about a treat!

It's always a treat to have Claremont writing new X-Men stories in any form, especially since Marvel prevents him from writing other comics by paying him a retainer to remain Marvel exclusive even though they seem to hardly use him except or one-off stories like this. Claremont is rumored to be writing a Gambit ongoing, though it hasn't been officially announced yet. This will have to do for now.