Wolverine and Kitty Pryde (2025)

Claremont returns to a mini-series from 40 years ago. I hope he's still got it, because the collector in me really wants to get this (but probably won't). It isn't even a Marvel hate or whatever, Wolverine and Kitty Pryde - as cool as it is - is not enough to bring me back to comics. How messed-up is that? I'd love to have these, but already know I'm unlikely to spend the effort and money to get them.

Comics are just too expensive and, no matter how you look at things, show little to no ROI. That's not just from a collector's standpoint; I mean that from a reader's viewpoint, as well.

© The Weirding, 2025

New Mutants Forever #1 - Bill Sienkiewicz 50/50 Variant

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Claremont Returns to the X-Men

Okay, this is a little... difficult to wrap one's head around. Chris Claremont is returning to the X-Men in a new title called X-Men Forever. It picks up where X-Men #3, Claremont's "official last" issue left off. That is, the X-Men unlimited series #3 issue from, like, 1991 or so. In this world, or universe, or whatever, the X-Men are as Claremont and Lee left them nearly 20 years ago. So whatever is happening in the other X-titles currently - and that's a lot, judging from all the Magik stuff that's been going down lately, etc. - has never happened in this incarnation of the team... I don't think. Or it will happen later. Or it is happening in another universe or multiverse. Or they are Skrulls.

Prior to the new "landmark, collector's item" X-Men Forever #1 comes X-Men Forever Alpha #1, collecting the first three issues by Claremont and Lee from back when even I was a kid (more or less), just so anyone under 30 still reading X-Men can "catch-up."

You know, they really are just funnybooks, but if nothing that happens in them actually matters, then why bother? Back in The Day, Storm once lost her powers. That was a really big thing and led to some truly classic comic books - I still re-read some of those issues now, when I want to experience comic books the way I remember them. These days, it really wouldn't be such a big deal, because Storm would have her powers in the other titles in which she appears, and/or we already know it doesn't matter because the Storm without her powers is a Skrull...

There's a better analogy for younger readers: I didn't keep up with who was a Skrull and who wasn't, but just think of whomever the "biggest reveal" was. It was pretty shocking, right? You probably really enjoyed finding that out and it explained all sorts of things and so on, and the ramifications of that reveal are still sweeping through several other titles you're reading, right?

Okay, that never happened. Well, it did, but in another multi-uni-verse, and to another incarnation of that character who was actually from the future.

Of course, comic books are soap operas, but at some point, it just loses all meaning.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

Big Hero 6 Sketchbook Free Online!

Now this is more along the lines of what I have been saying about digital comics (webcomics) and the approach the companies should take. I applaud Marvel Digital Comics on their continuing improvements and additions.

This is from Marvel Comics:

The Big Hero 6 are back! They're Japan’s toughest heroes defending the honor of the Land of the Rising Sun against some of the worst villains the Marvel Universe has ever seen. Get ready as Hiro, Baymax, Honey Lemon, and Gogo Tomago defend their country and embark on a new adventure as this brand new exciting series unfolds.

In celebration of the team's return, Marvel is pleased to announce the Big Hero 6 Digital Sketchbook, which can be read for free right now on Marvel.com!

The Big Hero Six digital sketchbook is giving Marvel’s digital comics subscribers a chance to get a first look at some of the cool new covers and character artwork that will be coming your way when this new series kicks off. Be sure to check it out right now on Marvel.com courtesy of Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited.

Read the Digital Comic Sketchbook for free now!

And be sure to check out the first exciting issue of Big Hero 6 as it hits stores this September.

BIG HERO 6 #1 (of 6) (JUL082271)
BIG HERO 6 #1 (of 6) VARIANT COVER (JUL082272)
Written by CHRIS CLAREMONT
Pencils, Cover & Variant Cover by DAVID NAKAYAMA
Rated A …$3.99
FOC - 8/21/08, On-Sale - 9/10/08

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

GeNext

I'm going to try something new with this sneak preview of GeNext from Marvel. Since Blogger always has such a problem adding more than 1-2 pictures, I can rarely bring you all the previews I get. What I do get out there is usually pretty ugly because it is all squished together and out-of-sorts. I'm going to put the PR in this one and the art in the next and see if that helps any. If it doesn't, I apologize for the inconvenience.

This is an official Marvel Comics press release:

You asked for it X-Fans and now the series voted for on Marvel.Com is here! Enter the extra-sized GeNext #1 (of 5), from legendary X-Men scribe Chris Claremont and artist Patrick Scherberger, introducing you to the children of the X-Men—but who are they? And what's happened to the original X-Men? Packed full of extras including character design sketches with commentary from Claremont and more, this issue is a can't-miss for X-Fans!

"I think people are going to get a kick out of this new generation of X-Men that Chris and Patrick Scherberger have created," said Senior Editor Mark Paniccia. "They're students expected to carry on the legacy of their forefathers and foremothers, but they're also kids with aspirations of their own. What's life like for a mutant in a world where most of the original X-Men are long gone? The story plays to Chris's strengths in character development and Patrick's art has an energy that makes this series really pop. It's fun and tugs at your heart as the drama of these five very special young people unfolds and surprises."

After 30 years of conflict and chaos, it's time for an all-new, all-different X-Men—but can the X-Men's children live up to their parents' legacy? Find out in GeNext #1!

GENEXT #1 (of 5) (MAR082234)
Written by CHRIS CLAREMONT
Penciled by PATRICK SCHERBERGER
Cover by DOUG GREGORY ALEXANDER
Rated T+ …$3.99
FOC—4/24/08, On-Sale—5/14/08

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

New Exiles #1 - A Review

I was an X-kid. Overall, I was a Marvel Zombie - and I still am to an extent, but now it's more just because I know the characters and histories, where I don't know those from other companies (something I keep relearning isn't true and doesn't matter - everything and everyone has changed since last I knew them) - but I was definitely an X-kid!

Uncanny X-Men was, of course, my favored title, but X-Factor, New Mutants, and a slew of others came along with it. Not to mention the umpteen-thousand mini-series, maxi-series, crossovers, special appearances, and whatever else the X-Men appeared in - I had to have it all, or at least all I could afford. And to my credit, I managed to acquire quite a bit of it.

A few years back, after a lifetime away, I decided to pull out my old X-Men comics and give them a go. Foremost in my mind was whether or not they were really as good as I remembered them, or if I had simply outgrown them. I had reread Dark Knight Returns, Elektra: Assassin, certain runs of Daredevil (yes, Miller's), select Epic Magazine issues, and more over the years, and they all withstood the test of time, but for whatever reason, once I hit about 20-21, I lost a taste for Uncanny X-Men and never looked back and that suddenly intrigued me a few years ago.

It was Christmas, and I pulled about 30 Uncanny X-Men, starting from slightly before the run which made me a collector (The Mutant Massacre) to just after. I started reading them in order from around issue #199 and an interesting thing happened: I was midway into the third or fourth before I realized how bad they were!

That is to say that the first issue I read had been so good, I read 3-4 more (of pure suck) without even thinking, "Man, this blows woodhchuck!"

Therein lies the power of Chris Claremont.

Now, wait a second - that is not meant as an insult! It is not exactly meant as high praise, but I'm saying that he is so good, you hardly recognize when he is bad. And as I read more old X-Men comics on that Christmas trip, I kept reminding myself of that very fact, as I read one great issue which gave-way to 4-5 shitty ones, leading up to one really great one, followed by 2-3 pretty good issues, and so on. I don't know if it is because that one great issue makes you more forgiving of the others, or if you just get so caught-up in the overarching storylines that you kind of gloss-over, turning pages to find the pay-off you're really waiting on, or what, but Claremont is one of those writers who can coast on sheer mundanity because when he's good, he's great!

But I noticed other things too: such as how unnecessarily wordy Claremont is, and how very often that is. I mean, I never considered him a genius, even in my childhood (in fact, we often joked about his hack abilities, as in, "He's the best at what he does - and what he does isn't very good"), but as an adult, I was stricken by just how many - very obvious - faults I could find with the writer who had, for all practical purposes, raised me! Chris Claremont and Stephen King were my adopted parents throughout [a misspent?] adolescence, which goes to explain way too much, doesn't it?

So when I sat down to read New Exiles #1 tonight, I was excited - I had forgotten that Christmas when I'd pulled the 2-3 year run of Uncanny X-Men and molested my inner-child, forever tarnishing my youth.

I was maybe five pages in when memories of that Christmas thrust their way into my frontal lobe. I screamed, then my eyes glazed-over - not because I had suffered personality-altering brain damage, but because I was sitting here, reading lines such as: "Is that any reason to give up? Or the incentive perhaps to try harder?"

Ah yes, Chris Claremont: where all the characters talk the same and they all sound like Frasier Crane's most contemplative diary entries.

But I don't want to trash the guy - he is a legend, after all, and he probably did write the bulk of everything I read in my adolescence (and I read approximately a novel a day back then - I had the time) so I looked a bit deeper, and I actually came up with a few things:

One of my frustrations with Claremont is how every character thinks - far too much, far too clearly, and far too verbosely - and they speak much the same way. Here's a gem from New Exiles #1 - (Sabretooth, internal [thought bubble]): "There's a new scent in the room. I'm not alone."

Ye-ah. Because a blurb would have been so much more impersonal. But Claremont's style is decidedly blurb-less; he eschews the narrative for thought balloons 99% of the time. The problem, of course, is that that doesn't always work out well and he should know better by now! What blurbs Claremont does use are invariably chockful of the purplest prose this side of a television soap opera novel adaptation (Days of Our Lives - The Novel!), but the rest of the field is rife with that pleasant medium Claremont has been unable to achieve, literally since I was born!

And the fun don't stop there - oh no! Sabretooth's far too obvious observation leads to Rogue's monologue: "The room's a total paradox. Everything here exists, it all functions, but it isn't altogether real. All this equipment is some kind of phantom reproduction. So many systems, how does she keep track of them all? These images - - they're of the team. What's Cat's game, has the girl been spying on us? Baka - - don't assume, think! Cat's off playing with Morph and Sage, that's why I thought the way was clear to go exploring."

Because the opening 10+ pages of embarrassing (and embarrassingly similar) internal dialogue from Cat, Morph, and Sage as they played football weren't enough for us to know that they are, indeed, playing football, thus giving a decidedly un-Southern and dramatically more intelligent Rogue this chance to meander about, wondering aloud. That's right: this is all an actual monologue; she's not thinking all of this, she's literally narrating it to herself as she "explores."

Also true to Claremont form, right before the close of the book, one of the members (Sabretooth) attacks another (Psylocke) for no apparent reason. They then collectively shrug-off the encounter, only for him to verbally threaten her out of the blue a moment later. This wildly out-of-character behavior is soooo Chris Claremont - it's what passes for "tension" amongst the group.

Welcome to the New Exiles, readers - hope you survive it!

I'm sorry, I said I wasn't going to trash the guy, but sitting here, writing this, I'm just so terribly disappointed that I can't help but be a little snide. Contrived, predictable - just utter shit for an opening issue; this is Claremont at his hackiest, and the only hopeful thing I can say is that maybe he did this on purpose so things can only get better.

If I'm being insider-snipey, he rehashed the Fantastic Four's origin toward the start for some unknown reason and he was writing that title a few years back (I don't know if he still is, but this was one of the better artistic sequences in the entire book), so maybe he is upset because he got pulled from Fantastic Four to write this? I don't know, but this is plain awful.

Speaking of art, Grummet and company's work is nice, but not exceptional. As I mentioned, the FF sequence stands-out as the most even and confident of sequences in the entire book, and it comes early-on. Actually, most of the better work is at the front, and Grummet is not a newbie, which does not bode well in my mind. No other frame or sequence is particularly memorable.

Sum: total hack. Very disappointing. Seen it all before - from the same creators - a few times over, actually, and that's depressing. Everyone who worked on this book could do better - in fact, I have a feeling that every, last one of them did do better work... on the backs of their paychecks.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

Claremont on New Exiles

I am about to review New Exiles #1 (was setting about to read it when I realized this PR was in, actually), which works well for this official Marvel press release:

Anything's possible in the world of New Exiles and now series writer — and legendary X-Men scribe — Chris Claremont talks about his new hit series in the latest Mighty Marvel Podcast! Hosted by fan-favorite Marvel personality (and Senior Art Director) Jeff Suter, this is your chance to go behind the scenes of this bold new X-series! Just why did Claremont choose this team of characters for the New Exiles? Who are his favorite characters? What's it like to write the book? And just where is he taking the team next?

Don't miss this special look inside the mind of one of the X-Men's most influential writers as Chris Claremont goes in depth about one of Marvel's hottest new titles — New Exiles!

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

A New Dawn for Marvel's Exiles

Let me tell you a few things about this cat, Chris Claremont: first of all, I grew up on him. Not literally; that would have been very uncomfortable for us both. Claremont wrote this title a small comics company by the name of Marvel sold - you may have heard of it - Uncanny... something or other - I was a kid.

Anyway, while he had his share of misses, most of his stories were pretty close to hits if not downright homeruns. And I do not know of another writer to this day - in any medium - who can script such a large cast as well as he does.

I haven't read Exiles, but once you read this official Marvel press release, you may decide to leap on-board, as I think I will. Read on to see what I mean.

The Exiles say goodbye in an extra-sized 100th issue! Series writer Chris Claremont and artist Tom Grummett present Exiles #100 in what could be the last adventure of Marvel’s merry mutant multiverse heroes. That’s right, the Exiles are packing it in...calling it quits. But after years of spanning the multiverse together, the biggest question on all their minds is: what will I do next? The team as a whole decides to return to the Crystal Palace to ponder what the future holds. But one of the members has a lot more on her mind as Sage struggles to come to terms with the events of X-Men: Die by the Sword.

So prepare yourselves for a landmark issue that looks back on 99 issues of triumph and tragedy in Exiles #100. Also in this amazing issue: see how it all started in the classic Exiles #1 by Judd Winnick and Mike McKone!

But fear not. Every end of an era also marks the start of a new one. The dawn of a new year in January 2008 will mark the coming of…New Exiles #1!

EXILES #100 (OCT072146)
Written by CHRIS CLAREMONT
Pencils & Cover by TOM GRUMMETT
Rated A …$3.99
FOC —11/22, On Sale—12/12/2007

NEW EXILES #1 (NOV072193)
Written by CHRIS CLAREMONT
Pencils by TOM GRUMMETT
Cover by MICHAEL GOLDEN
Rated A …$2.99
FOC —12/27, On-Sale —1/16/2008

Tonight's Heroes (10-22-07)

Once again, Heroes is off to a bumpy start - and succession. Tonight's episode was significantly better than last week's, but that isn't saying much because last week's was utter shit; I don't even remember what happened last week other than Molly getting looped.

But if we're being honest (and why not?), tonight's episode was actually pretty decent. It's a step in the right direction, at least. They seem to finally be getting a hang on how to handle such a large cast and keep the audience from getting completely lost - or the writers, as the case may be.

I am almost afraid to mention it, but it seems to me that someone invested in a long run of Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men. JUST SAYING. It wasn't quite that well-handled, but it definitely reminded me of his deftness at swapping characters and storylines without losing the reader.

You know I'm not one for synopses - never have been, really - I opine, and thus, my opinion. But I will say that all of the main characters' stories were forwarded this week (unless I'm forgetting someone - oh yeah, Claire!), even if each and every one wasn't exactly centerstage (or even on stage, now that I remember Claire), and that's more than just a step in the right direction; that's the way it should have been all along!

Of course, by this point in the game, everyone's general story is out there and developed enough so that we have some idea what's going on and what to expect. That makes it easier to both swap around and keep up and I'll freely grant that.

A Truly Sappy X-Men Story

No, not one that's held between the covers of any book, but one that is playing out before my very eyes as it has so many times over the years.

My folks brought up another bookshelf and books - yes, a year into my move and I'm still moving books and bookcases - and one of the ones on top of one of these boxes was my The Best of Marvel Comics Vol. 1. If you don't know these books, they are beautiful, hardcover volumes reprinting some of the classic stories of many of the major Marvel characters, along with a few original ones as a bonus. This one had an X-Men classic and then a Wolverine solo short (like 5-6 pages) and, as I'm reading it, I remember - as I always do - why Chris Claremont is a great comics writer.

Yes, he relies far too heavily on catch-phrases and cliches and has a tendency to slip into some truly purple prose, but when he's at the top of his game, he weaves a team story like absolutely no one else. Even the vaunted Frank Miller can't handle team stories like Claremont; Claremont knows exactly when and how to segue from one character and story arc to another without missing a beat. He always manages to focus on each one - each character, their story, their relation to the other characters and the overall story - while still keeping everything in focus and moving the story forward. It's really good.

Plus, he uses solid dialogue - not just writing in balloons. There's a huge difference. Remember how Rogue, the Southern belle, always said "Ah," instead of "I" and used "y'all"; and how Wolvie always talked with dropped "g"s - like "Watchoo talkin' 'bout, bub?" It gets really old really quickly in the wrong hands, but Claremont's literally a pro at it - so much so that long before it gets old, you know who's talking before you even look at the picture. If all the dialogue on a Claremont page were set to the margin in quotes, you'd know who was talking without a single dialogue tag!

So, I read this classic X-Men story - one I have, by the way - and by the time I got to the end of it, I was... I guess in the throes of a slight middle-aged crisis, maybe? So I went into the bedroom closet and dug out the old X-Men and am about to start somewhere. I don't know where or which issue; I'm just going to go to the high 100s - early 200s and go from there. I do this about once every year or two, so there's a good chance one or more of the future posts will be about the runs I've "lost," and how I'm tearing up the house to find them, but I hope not. I find them laying around and file them sometimes, but since pulling them out of the closet is a major undertaking, I don't always stick to that and so I end up with whole runs lost in my books (most of which I find here and there around the house). I'm just nervous because I just moved and I wouldn't know where to begin looking for orphaned comics!

Anyway, call it what you will: a desperate cry for help; a mid-life crisis at least 10 years too early; a pathetic manboy's need to avoid adulthood... but there's nothing to do here and I absolutely loved the X-Men growing up! They really were a part of my extended family when I was a kid, however dorky that sounds, and every so often I miss them. I don't tend to really relive or remember the parts of my life that were happening at the time I first read the books or anything like that; it's far more about the characters themselves. It's silly and maybe a bit weird, but what I tend to think about are things like what else was going on in the Marvel universe at that time, what titles were in print, what was going on in our real world - things like that - not what I was doing or going through at the time because, let's face it, I was a kid! What was going on then was comics.