Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic con, Comics, entertainment, marvel, Marvel Comics, modesty blaise, new york, new york comic con, NYCC, storm

The Circumstances In Which Len Wein Would Have Punched Chris Claremont Out

At the Marvel 75th Anniversary X-Men panel with Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson, Fabian Nicieza, they talked about their past histories on the X-Men characters. No one was mentioning "No More Mutants". Lots of fun banter, the desire to kill Morlocks, the creators of Apocalypse not being sure who created Apocalypse and how Wolverine was originally meant to be nineteen years old.

But talking about creative changes from creator to creator,  that gave the chance for Len Wein to say,

Len: "You gave Storm, Modesty Blaise's origin."

Chris: "Not… really."

Len: "If I was Peter O'Donnelly (Modesty's creator and writer) I'd have punched you out."

From Wikipedia, Modesty Blaise:

In 1945, a nameless girl escaped from a displaced person (DP) camp in Kalyros, Greece. She remembered nothing from her short past and wandered through post-World War II Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and North Africanregions, where she learned to survive the hard way. She befriended another wandering refugee, a Jewish Hungarianscholar from Budapest named Lob who gave her an education and a name: Modesty (Blaise she added herself later, after Merlin's tutor from the Arthurian legends). Lob died when Modesty was 12 years old. Eventually, in 1953, she took control of a criminal gang in Tangier from Henri Louche and expanded it to international status as "The Network".

And for Storm…

In Uncanny X-Men #102 (December 1976), Claremont established Storm's backstory. Ororo's mother, N'Dare, was the princess of a tribe in Kenya and descended from a long line of African witch-priestesses with white hair, blue eyes, and a natural gift for sorcery. N'Dare falls in love with and marries Americanphotojournalist David Munroe. They move to Harlem in uptown New York City, where Ororo is born. They later moved to Egypt and lived there until they die during the Suez Crisisin a botched aircraft attack, leaving six-year-old Ororo as an orphan. Her violent claustrophobia is established as a result of being buried under tons of rubble after that attack. She becomes a skilled thief in Cairo under the benign Achmed el-Gibar and wanders into the Serengeti as a young woman. She is worshipped as a goddess when her powers appear before being recruited by Professor X for the X-Men.

Claremont further fleshed out Storm's backstory in Uncanny X-Men #117 (January 1979). He retroactively added that Professor X, who recruits her in Giant Size X-Men #1 of 1975, had already met her as a child in Cairo. As Ororo grows up on the streets and becomes a proficient thief under the tutelage of master thief Achmed el-Gibar, one of her most notable victims was Charles Francis Xavier, later Professor X. He is able to use his mental powers to temporarily prevent her escape and recognizes the potential in her. However, when Xavier is attacked mentally by Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King, the two men are preoccupied enough with their battle to allow the girl to escape. Both Xavier and the Shadow King recognize Storm as the young girl later.

I think there may be an influence there. But don't worry folks, Len Wein would only have punched Chris Claremont out… if he were a different person.

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