Chris returned and could not top himself the synergy was faded...but to be fair theyres stuff from Chris run that is considered classic now but wasnt in it day...
@@coreyshelp9517 Yes, the energy was fine a bit when he returned. I still think most of his run was great, and the X-Men comics were at their very best at this time.
I've been reading Claremont's run on X-Men for the first time. I just got to issue 200, I'm also reading New Mutants simultaneously. His run is some of the best comics I have ever read!
Scott Lobdell was approached by Bob Harris at a Christmas Party and asked if he could script an issue of X-Men that was almost already completely drawn. When asked, he was told they needed it in 24 hours. He took on the task thinking that if it turned out great, everyone would love him, and if it turned out bad, everyone would cut him slack as he only had 24 hours to do it. It turned out well enough that he was offered the title and then later signed a long-term contract just before the bottom almost fell out and Marvel nearly killed the comic industry in the mid-90s. Also... selling the rights to X-Men was not foolish. It is what saved Marvel and helped them get on solid footing following their bankruptcy proceedings. After so many comic film bombs in the late 90s, no one wanted to touch anything to do with them. Avi Arad pushed the company to get into films, but no one cared to listen to him. He persuaded Fox, the only studio willing to make any film at that point, into taking a chance on X-Men, which basically set the standard for every other comic film that has been released since. The film came out and was a surprise hit and when the Spider-Man rights got sorted out and that film was released, suddenly, everyone wanted to make comic movies again and everyone bought out Marvel's rights. Suddenly, Marvel was making money and reaching a whole new audience. And all the banks that got together to produce Marvel's own films for Paramount never would have existed without it.
Blue Spaceman he started really catching some lightning on his 2nd return when it got to the End of Greys arc... but by then, they’d already planned on Brubaker replacing him on UXM & he wasn’t really able to run with the stuff he was doing.
@@ScienceJesus Yeah, I remember that Claremont issue when the Shi'ar black ops team slaughtered the Grey family drawn by Bachalo. Brutal. I'd say most fans don't realize that team is who showed up in that recent New Mutants issue.
I think both John Byrne and Chris Claremont basically quit because of Jim Lee. They resented how much creative control he had and apparently he would try to take to much on himself without using the team he had around him.
From what I vaguely remember, Byrne's second departure had to do with JIM LEE's leaving to start Image with McFarlane and Liefeld! Byrne was supposed to be the scripter for Jim Lee's plots and artwork! He wrote a letter to the Comic Buyer's Guide newspaper asking where Jim Lee was 'cause he sure wasn't doing any X-Men comics! He ended his letter with something like: "Hello, is anybody out there?" Not too long after this, he left the book!
That's the way I heard it too. I know Byrne can be difficult sometimes, but I don't blame him for bailing. Honestly at the time, I think those soon-to-be Image guys were really full of themselves. Also, nice name. One of the Legion's coolest villains.
@SamGuthrie 1977\ As for the "real" Stargrave, I saw him on the cover of the original Legion issue #224 and thought he was the COOLEST villain ever! As far as Lee wanting to take The X Men backwards goes, just because he wanted to draw Imperial Guard, essentially pushing out Claremont--I support Claremont 100%--if Lee wanted to have even more control than the main writer, Lee was right to leave, join Image and create his own characters! It's the choice everyone makes: when you work for someone else, your options are limited, so you can either accept it or work for yourself, but if a person takes the second path, the risks are much greater but so are the benefits! Eventually, Lee ended up selling his studio to DC and became their Co Publisher! Take from this story what you may, it's still a key moment in the history of Mainstream comics!
Byrne was only writing the dialogue for Lee and Portacio's issues of X-Men and Uncanny respectively. The problem was that the art often didn't match the plots. Also, he would only get a couple pages of art to script at a time and have to make sense of what he was seeing. I think the most egregious example of this is in Uncanny #286. He finally quit in frustration.
Byrne was brought in just to do dialogue. The plotting and stories were by Lee and Portacio, Byrne was to script dialogue balloons, etc. But, of course, Lee and Portacio kept getting pages to him later and later, not giving him enough time to do the job he wanted to do professionally. So he jumped.
I can't agree that marvel selling film rights to the X-Men was a bad or "foolish" decision it literally kept they're company from going fully bankrupt. Without the X-Men and Spiderman movie rights being sold it would be very unlikely wed still have comics at all
Doc does not mention the real battle was between Chris Claremont and his editor Bob Harras. Claremont has said as soon as Bob Harras came onboard the X-books, he wanted to stop everything CC had planned for the book. Probably the reason why the Outback X-Men era came to an abrupt end around UNCANNY X-MEN #250. Claremont and Harras were at loggerheads and could not agree on anything. Claremont wanted to do the Dark Wolverine Saga and Harras resisted. Claremont wanted to keep Xavier in space and keep the mansion destroyed. Harras disagreed. Claremont wanted to bring the world to the brink of war between humans and mutants with the Shadow King at the heart of it. Harras ultimately vetoed the story (even though the seeds had already been planted for the tale). Finally Harras called Claremont during the production of issue 279 and told Chris he was no longer plotting the book. Jim Lee was. He wasn't actually FIRING Chris though. Claremont could continue to script the title. Claremont tried to do it but quickly quit in protest.
Yes, this is a very good point. There was a lot more to it than what we covered in this video. We were trying to keep it to about 20 minutes & that 1 topic could have been a 2 hour video all by itself. I kept it pretty simple that Editorial chose Jim over Chris & Chris finally just sorta gave up & left. They didn't directly FIRE him, but they did force him & force him & force him until he left. Like an employer that doesn't want to pay you severance or unemployment by firing you, so they make your job miserable until you quit.
The first 10 pages of #279 were his last, and a metaphorical jab at Harras. History would eventually settle this wrong as Claremont's former bosses legacy is in tatters right now....
I wouldn't say "they foolishly sold away the rights". Marvel was in deep financial doodoo in the 90s and the comics probably wouldnt be around today if they get the cash from Xmen, spiderman, and fantastic four rights
Matthew Schneider I think the foolishness was selling the rights in a way that didn’t have reasonable sunsets or expiration dates so that they never really had a chance of getting them back. But that’s hindsight
The Morrison thing happened because Marvel was difficult to work with and failed to keep their promises to him during the entire run behind the scenes. And he already knew Marvel had plans to crap on his work, he didn't agree with the editorial mandates so he ragequit. EVS talked about this in one of his early videos.
Especially considering Marvel has an exclusive "pay or play" contract with him. He gets paid a retainer regardless of whether he writes anything for them, simply to prevent him for writing for a competitor.
One would think, with all the crap books they tried sliding past us as Dawn of X progressed, that they would at LEAST give him a true "Uncanny X-Men" title with assorted characters. Even though I don't necessarily want him commandeering the entire X-Men line, I refuse to believe he can't "play well with others" let alone Hickman. End Excalibur in it's current iteration..& Fallen Angels. New Mutants I'm trying to stick with but the 2 story narrative along with the art is losing me. X-Factor... idk. DEFINITELY a hard pass on Children of the Atom. To my knowledge there's still an "X-Corp" book & a Moira book along with other stuff.. it's just too much man. But out of sheer respect I don't get why they wouldn't give Claremont the TRUE "Uncanny X-Men". Just saying.
Hmmm I never thought about that before, but it would explain why DC and Marvel at their worst have different artists between every issue and now often in the same issue: they want to keep everybody subservient so that nobody can ever rise up again (just how working class people are often kept with insufficient contracts, hours and little to no benefits in other fields of work these days).
When the Image 7 left, that was during the speculator's market phase of the '90's. Marvel shouldn't worry about that happening again since that bubble burst a long time ago. These days, the concern should be losing talent to crowdfunding and/or comicsgate. Why service the IP's of Marvel/DC when you can possibly have more success with your own content (assuming it's good and you market it). Also, Marvel making business decisions due to spite is insane. They also ended Fantastic Four at that time as well. Plus, they had replacement characters in the comics while the movies were out. Their cross marketing was horrendous. It's almost as bad as Kathleen Kennedy saying there's no other material for Star Wars instead of (at the very least) mentioning the current Star Wars comics and novels. If the supplemental material is viewed as non-existent then why even buy it?
I remembered being super hyped for X-men...after reading issue 4 and finding out Claremont had left I was more than a little disappointed. I thought it was super weird for him to retire after the first story arch of a brand new book! I honestly thought he wanted to retire, lol. Now I know why. I would have put the Image guys #1 and #2 Claremont "retiring"
ICT VINNY it was hard for me to decide which one was bigger but I felt Claremont being ousted was a bigger deal because of how essential he was to the X-Men’s success. And while Jim & Marc & Whilce & Rob we’re important, they’re also 4 legends in a SEA of legends that worked on the X-books with Chris. Sienkewicz, JR jr, Smith, Byrne, Corkrum, and a half dozen other legends are equally important to the success of the X-men on the art side. But Chris is 98% responsible on the writing side.
So I really enjoyed the beginning of Morrison’s X-books, E is for Extinction, the first annual introducing Xorn, and a handful of books between that and Here Comes Tomorrow. That said, to this day I despise Morrison’s handling of Pseudo-Magneto. And it hasn’t aged well. Magneto as a mass-murderous, drug-addicted psycho who gets his head lopped off unceremoniously doesn’t sit well with me, especially after years of Claremont redeeming his character into a more introspective villain. So I’m glad that was retconned, and I’m speaking as a Morrison fan. Such drama. It’s a dog eat dog world, in my experience, so no surprises.
@@ScienceJesus I would agree with that. After re-reading a lot of 90's X-Men lately (I went through Age of Apocalypse again this past weekend), I firmly believe that Lobdell is the second best X-Men writer after Claremont.
Chris Claremont is a legend. He is a professional. I think he can do anything he wants to do. I believe he could kill one shots if that is what he wanted to do. I dont think he needs to find a groove at all. For him its like riding a bike or having sex....if you dont do either for a while and you see a bike or an ass in the air....you know exactly what to do and ride both of them.
I agree. The thing is, I always knew Chris was a great superhero comic writer. But once I read his Black Dragon and Marada, and saw all his novels, I realized he is pretty much just a gifted writer all the way around.
Patelephone it was a love letter to Claremont X-Men done with “modern sensibilities” & there are a lot of flaws in it but a lot of good stuff too. It’s a very mixed bag for me. I love it & hate it simultaneously. For a multitude of reasons. Maybe I can talk Wes into doing a conversation about Morrison X-Men some day.
@@ScienceJesus I haven't read any of Claremont's xmen, but I was planning on buying the new printing of the omnibuses coming out this year. Would you still recommend his run for me even though I really disliked morrisons run?
@@ScienceJesus I feel the same about Morrison's X-Men. I am of two minds about it. As it came out in the early 2000's, it was very exciting. I was posting a lot on the CBR forums at the time, and every issue was eagerly dissected and talked about by the fans. The art was great (Quietly and Van Sciver) and Morrison brought in a lot of new cool ideas to the property. I remember thinking it genuinely seemed cutting edge and avant garde at the time. In hindsight, don't get me wrong -- I still like the run. But I don't like the net impact it had on the X-Men going forward -- especially from an aesthetic and visual standpoint. I feel like many subsequent creators post-Morrison now think that the X-Men is a sillybilly franchise and you can make up absolutely ridiculous looking and godawfully ugly characters, and that's okay. (Shark Girl? Eye Boy? Seriously, Jason Aaron?) But they're missing the point of the X-Men. I think the X-Men should be visually compelling characters -- but not necessarily grotesque or laughably outlandish. And also, I'm not convinced the X-Men has ever regained that cool Claremont "outcast" vibe after the Morrison run. Morrison made mutant culture into its own more-or-less autonomous subculture, which many humans saw as cool, and wanted to emulate. (This is where the U-Men came in.) I get why he did it, but I'm not sure you can ever go back to that initial conceit of "Claremont's outcasts" after what Morrison did.
Patelephone I still HIGHLY recommend it. 94-143 might be the best long-form story in comics history. And 143-~280 is just perfect soap opera superhero stories.
@@ScienceJesus Totally agree. It's my favorite superhero comic run of all time. You've got good taste in comics, Dok. Don't forget to add Chris' run on New Mutants to go with that. The OGN, issues 1 - 54, and annuals 1 - 3. It goes hand-in-hand with his UXM run.
Bloodsport. I am done with the xbooks man. I dont have expendable income just to waste on crap issues. Xforce, Xmen and wolverine, and that Chip Xbook will be only 4 im getting. Xmen is on a short short short leash. Benjamin percy is my 3rd fav writer at Marvel behind Cates and Zdarsky...so Xforce is healthy to me. Xcalibur, fallen angels, Duggan's Marauders and new mutants are lying on the platform after being stomped out by Chun Li
Love the channel. Love the content. To piggyback somewhat off of Doc's comments...I think there were several positives coming off the departures of Claremont & the Image Seven. I happen to think the scripting & storytelling of Lobdell & Nicieza was very good! We got the emergence of Joe Madureira on Uncanny & a nice lengthy Andy Kubert run on X-Men. We got Lobdell and Bachalo on Generation X. We got a fleshed out tragic backstory on Cable being revealed as Nathan Summers. We got further character work on Cable & a nice run by Jeph Loeb and Ian Churchill. We got Fatal Attractions. X-cutioner's Song. Age of Apocalypse. But most of all... (and I love Claremont but it needs to be said) we got more realistic scripting. Characters didn't DESCRIBE THEIR POWER SET EVERYTIME THEY USED THEIR POWERS OR EVERYTHING THEY WERE DOING AS THEY WERE DOING IT... OUT LOUD. There was a point where the X-Office gave Claremont both X-Men books back & even gave him his own..X-Treme X-Men. They all SUCKED. The man is a legend, but a lot of his latter X-Men stuff outside the "greatest hits" DID NOT AGE WELL. Also, Steve Seagle/Chris Bachalo & Joe Kelly/Carlos Pacheco had decent runs on the titles. My #1 controversy was the "spiteconning" of Morrison's run. Anyways, keep up the good work guys!💯❤👏🏾👍🏾
Steven Mckanney Chris did that thing with describing powers & stuff because he took Stan’s rule to heart that EVERY comic is somebody’s first. So describing their powers & who they are is essential to new/non-readers just picking up their first X-Men comic. After a few issues & you knowing them well enough, you knew which narration or word bubbles you could skip. I would argue that NOT doing that now is what leads to new readers feeling lost & unable to jump into a comic without it being a new #1 issue.
@@ScienceJesus Fair enough. From that standpoint, I get THAT. However, I'm fresh off of re-reading the latter stuff ("Revolution" era) & X-Treme X-Men as well as the Australian Outback Era up to the X-Men #1 relaunch.. & it just.. didn't age well in my opinion. Again, the man is a legend & he created the bulk of the friendships & tapestry within the X-Men mythology. That cannot be disputed. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it read better in my teens & 20s than it does to me in my early 40s. If I can name my 3 favorite Claremont moments, they would be 1) the mutant massacre. 2)The trial & eventual handing of Headmaster to Xavier's to Magneto. 3) my favorite Claremont issue of all time.. the Barry Windsor-Smith pencilled issue of Uncanny that was a Wolverine solo story of him wounded & on the run from the Reavers in New York City in a BLIZZARD with Katie Power in tow. THAT WAS OUTSTANDING. (sorry 4 rambling dude. I get your point though) 👍🏾
@@ScienceJesus Wasn't that Jim Shooter too? I thought it was his editorial mandate that every issue be presented as someone's first. Granted, Chris was wordy and liked in-depth explanation with lots of copy, so he probably did it more verbose than most writers would. But I think Shooter as EiC encouraged that.
As much as I love Claemont, I think there's merit to this argument. 90's X-Men is my second favorite era of X-Men, and by Chris leaving we did get to read some great comics by Lobdell and Nicieza. Loeb's X-Force was good too. John Francis Moore and Larry Hama were doing solid work on X-Factor and Wolverine at the time too. Claremont's my favorite, but admittedly I like most of that 90's era a lot. To be fair though, I didn't think Steve Seagle or Joe Kelly runs in the late 90's were anything memorable though. All of that felt phoned-in to me.
@@SamGuthrie1977 I'll concede somewhat that Seagle & Kelly wasn't good as the Lobdell/Nicieza period yet it wasn't necessarily terrible to me neither. Heck I liked that better than that weird Alan Davis period... that was the epitome of "meh" to me. I agree about X-Factor by John Francis Moore. I may be in the minority but I liked the Morrison run as much as I do the classic Claremont stuff. The common ground is we all love X-Men & they're finally starting to recover from the Inhuman Agenda even though marvel is already ruining it by cash grabbing us to death lol.
@@SamGuthrie1977 Well Byrn is an awesome artist and writer...but id rather see him on drawing duty...X-Men was huge in those days it must have been extremely frustrating to helm marvels biggest book...but it was so good though...
I remember watching an interview with him where he said he was basically a victim of own success. Publishers would dangle their most popular books in front of talent as a carrot, and everyone wanted to work on Xmen. Marvel lost a lot of big talent to the competition because Claremont had them on lock down for 17 years
@@SamGuthrie1977 TH-cam channel ScyFy Wire has a show called Beyond the Panel where they interview various creators in the industry. Thats where i saw it. Check it out. Some good stuff. And the interviewer is a true fan who knows his stuff and idolizing the people he interviews. Charming show
Great discussion guys . If Marvel would cared more about Claremont , the franchise would not died like in the 90s . Even after Lee’s departure the book would have continued with good writing and good character development and not the sh**** that it turned
John Byrne had left the title long before 91 to do Fantastic Four then Siperman. Claremont was writing both titles and quit when Jim Lee basically became the plotter. WTF are you talking about?
John Byrne was brought back in at UXM 281 as the scripter. He took over XM at X-Men 4 after Chris quit & he wrote both books for about 2-3 months before he rage-quit. I'm absolutely correct about this.
What a great look in X-Men history. A lot of this I can't believe. Chris Claremont was forced off of Marvel??? OMG!!! This man defined the X-Men. The X-Men are my favorite super team and it's because of Claremont. It's sad how shady Marvel is. DC is no better in my opinion.
Wonder how many of the views are due to clickbait redirection to this xmen PUBLISHING controversies. listen to the animated theme song once and this is what the algorithm gave me fml
Yep, Lobdel got the writing gig 3 days before print. Don't worry about the art. Check your sources. Comic creators being spiteful and holding a grudge? Come on, aren't you the guys that said Van Sciver could just go back to DC? He wasn't blackballed out of political spite? No, that would never happen. Chris Claremont is as of Jan 2020 still under exclusive contract with Marvel. They are paying him to write nothing. Not X-Men, Not Spider-man, not Avengers. You guys missed that, but that might require research.
Lobdell was there to script. Period. He wasn't involved in the plotting. He had to fill in word bubbles of already drawn art because the artists & editors were the plotters. He was brought in 3 days before the script was due in order to go to print. There's deadlines for every step of the process. The script had 3 days before it was due or else it would miss print Because it takes the letterer X number of days to do it. You're being pedantic as fuck about this. As for Ethan? I don't care what he does or doesn't do. None of these people are blacklisted. Being spiteful & being blacklisted aren't the same. Ethan isn't blacklisted from anywhere. And regarding Chris not working but being under contract... you're talking about contracts NOW. We were talking about what happened in 1992 or whatever. What in the world is your point? It didn't make my list because there were at least 5 controversies bigger than that one. That MIGHT get into a Top 10 controversies. But it's definitely not in the top 5.
Marvel ousting Chris Claremont from the X-Men was a disgraceful move. His run on X-men was magnificent and has never really been surpassed since.
Tom The Fish - so does Whedon.
Tom The Fish - ooooookay.
Chris returned and could not top himself the synergy was faded...but to be fair theyres stuff from Chris run that is considered classic now but wasnt in it day...
@Tom The Fish
Well i think XMen in the 80s is up there with the best of the best. 70s is classic but with bad dialoge. 80s was epic and almost poetic.
@@coreyshelp9517 Yes, the energy was fine a bit when he returned. I still think most of his run was great, and the X-Men comics were at their very best at this time.
I've been reading Claremont's run on X-Men for the first time. I just got to issue 200, I'm also reading New Mutants simultaneously. His run is some of the best comics I have ever read!
Scott Lobdell was approached by Bob Harris at a Christmas Party and asked if he could script an issue of X-Men that was almost already completely drawn. When asked, he was told they needed it in 24 hours. He took on the task thinking that if it turned out great, everyone would love him, and if it turned out bad, everyone would cut him slack as he only had 24 hours to do it. It turned out well enough that he was offered the title and then later signed a long-term contract just before the bottom almost fell out and Marvel nearly killed the comic industry in the mid-90s.
Also... selling the rights to X-Men was not foolish. It is what saved Marvel and helped them get on solid footing following their bankruptcy proceedings. After so many comic film bombs in the late 90s, no one wanted to touch anything to do with them. Avi Arad pushed the company to get into films, but no one cared to listen to him. He persuaded Fox, the only studio willing to make any film at that point, into taking a chance on X-Men, which basically set the standard for every other comic film that has been released since. The film came out and was a surprise hit and when the Spider-Man rights got sorted out and that film was released, suddenly, everyone wanted to make comic movies again and everyone bought out Marvel's rights. Suddenly, Marvel was making money and reaching a whole new audience. And all the banks that got together to produce Marvel's own films for Paramount never would have existed without it.
Claremont's various returns haven't really recaptured the same magic. It's a shame he was originally forced out for...nothing, really.
Blue Spaceman he started really catching some lightning on his 2nd return when it got to the End of Greys arc... but by then, they’d already planned on Brubaker replacing him on UXM & he wasn’t really able to run with the stuff he was doing.
@@ScienceJesus Yeah, I remember that Claremont issue when the Shi'ar black ops team slaughtered the Grey family drawn by Bachalo. Brutal.
I'd say most fans don't realize that team is who showed up in that recent New Mutants issue.
Its weird, right? Marvel did so much to accommodate the Image artists, and they're all gone within a year
@@bigvis497 this is WHAT I tell people every time I talk about Chris getting booted!!!
Another great chat, TC. Love to have Dok do a full video on his thoughts on Morrison's X-Men run.
I think both John Byrne and Chris Claremont basically quit because of Jim Lee. They resented how much creative control he had and apparently he would try to take to much on himself without using the team he had around him.
Didn't know about the morrison one but it does explain a lot of things
Just give that man Claremont the book, the office, the entire damn franchise back and watch it shine again.
From what I vaguely remember, Byrne's second departure had to do with JIM LEE's leaving to start Image with McFarlane and Liefeld! Byrne was supposed to be the scripter for Jim Lee's plots and artwork! He wrote a letter to the Comic Buyer's Guide newspaper asking where Jim Lee was 'cause he sure wasn't doing any X-Men comics! He ended his letter with something like: "Hello, is anybody out there?" Not too long after this, he left the book!
That's the way I heard it too. I know Byrne can be difficult sometimes, but I don't blame him for bailing. Honestly at the time, I think those soon-to-be Image guys were really full of themselves.
Also, nice name. One of the Legion's coolest villains.
@SamGuthrie 1977\ As for the "real" Stargrave, I saw him on the cover of the original Legion issue #224 and thought he was the COOLEST villain ever!
As far as Lee wanting to take The X Men backwards goes, just because he wanted to draw Imperial Guard, essentially pushing out Claremont--I support Claremont 100%--if Lee wanted to have even more control than the main writer, Lee was right to leave, join Image and create his own characters! It's the choice everyone makes: when you work for someone else, your options are limited, so you can either accept it or work for yourself, but if a person takes the second path, the risks are much greater but so are the benefits!
Eventually, Lee ended up selling his studio to DC and became their Co Publisher! Take from this story what you may, it's still a key moment in the history of Mainstream comics!
Byrne was only writing the dialogue for Lee and Portacio's issues of X-Men and Uncanny respectively. The problem was that the art often didn't match the plots. Also, he would only get a couple pages of art to script at a time and have to make sense of what he was seeing. I think the most egregious example of this is in Uncanny #286. He finally quit in frustration.
@@drewtheunspoken3988 Maybe, but Portacio left with Jim Lee and the other future Image creators however, Byrne only mentioned Lee in his letter
@@drewtheunspoken3988 Also too Lee took a swipe at Byrne's designed brown and orange outfit for Logan, not realizing he created it.
Byrne was brought in just to do dialogue. The plotting and stories were by Lee and Portacio, Byrne was to script dialogue balloons, etc. But, of course, Lee and Portacio kept getting pages to him later and later, not giving him enough time to do the job he wanted to do professionally. So he jumped.
Mad appreciation for the additional info in the description
I can't help but think that Jim Lee betrayed the Image 7 when he joined DC.
Μανος Κομπανης well, he did get bought out. I don’t see it any more of a betrayal than Rob resigning his partnership & becoming a mercenary
he sure betrayed Alan Moore.
Great list. Awesome 1 and 2!!
I can't agree that marvel selling film rights to the X-Men was a bad or "foolish" decision it literally kept they're company from going fully bankrupt. Without the X-Men and Spiderman movie rights being sold it would be very unlikely wed still have comics at all
From marvel to clarify
Doc does not mention the real battle was between Chris Claremont and his editor Bob Harras. Claremont has said as soon as Bob Harras came onboard the X-books, he wanted to stop everything CC had planned for the book. Probably the reason why the Outback X-Men era came to an abrupt end around UNCANNY X-MEN #250. Claremont and Harras were at loggerheads and could not agree on anything.
Claremont wanted to do the Dark Wolverine Saga and Harras resisted. Claremont wanted to keep Xavier in space and keep the mansion destroyed. Harras disagreed. Claremont wanted to bring the world to the brink of war between humans and mutants with the Shadow King at the heart of it. Harras ultimately vetoed the story (even though the seeds had already been planted for the tale). Finally Harras called Claremont during the production of issue 279 and told Chris he was no longer plotting the book. Jim Lee was. He wasn't actually FIRING Chris though. Claremont could continue to script the title. Claremont tried to do it but quickly quit in protest.
Yes, this is a very good point. There was a lot more to it than what we covered in this video. We were trying to keep it to about 20 minutes & that 1 topic could have been a 2 hour video all by itself. I kept it pretty simple that Editorial chose Jim over Chris & Chris finally just sorta gave up & left. They didn't directly FIRE him, but they did force him & force him & force him until he left. Like an employer that doesn't want to pay you severance or unemployment by firing you, so they make your job miserable until you quit.
The first 10 pages of #279 were his last, and a metaphorical jab at Harras. History would eventually settle this wrong as Claremont's former bosses legacy is in tatters right now....
I wouldn't say "they foolishly sold away the rights". Marvel was in deep financial doodoo in the 90s and the comics probably wouldnt be around today if they get the cash from Xmen, spiderman, and fantastic four rights
Matthew Schneider I think the foolishness was selling the rights in a way that didn’t have reasonable sunsets or expiration dates so that they never really had a chance of getting them back. But that’s hindsight
@@ScienceJesus that's reasonable, but like you said... hindsight. I honestly don't know enough about film rights to know if thats a doable thing.
Great video guys . This Dok fella knows a little about the X-Men 😁
The Morrison thing happened because Marvel was difficult to work with and failed to keep their promises to him during the entire run behind the scenes. And he already knew Marvel had plans to crap on his work, he didn't agree with the editorial mandates so he ragequit. EVS talked about this in one of his early videos.
I find it ridiculous that there are currently a slew of X-Titles and Claremont isn't writing ANY of them.
Especially considering Marvel has an exclusive "pay or play" contract with him. He gets paid a retainer regardless of whether he writes anything for them, simply to prevent him for writing for a competitor.
One would think, with all the crap books they tried sliding past us as Dawn of X progressed, that they would at LEAST give him a true "Uncanny X-Men" title with assorted characters. Even though I don't necessarily want him commandeering the entire X-Men line, I refuse to believe he can't "play well with others" let alone Hickman. End Excalibur in it's current iteration..& Fallen Angels. New Mutants I'm trying to stick with but the 2 story narrative along with the art is losing me. X-Factor... idk. DEFINITELY a hard pass on Children of the Atom. To my knowledge there's still an "X-Corp" book & a Moira book along with other stuff.. it's just too much man. But out of sheer respect I don't get why they wouldn't give Claremont the TRUE "Uncanny X-Men". Just saying.
Stuff like this is the reason I went from being a comic book collector to being a comic book reader. 😉
Hmmm I never thought about that before, but it would explain why DC and Marvel at their worst have different artists between every issue and now often in the same issue: they want to keep everybody subservient so that nobody can ever rise up again (just how working class people are often kept with insufficient contracts, hours and little to no benefits in other fields of work these days).
When the Image 7 left, that was during the speculator's market phase of the '90's. Marvel shouldn't worry about that happening again since that bubble burst a long time ago. These days, the concern should be losing talent to crowdfunding and/or comicsgate. Why service the IP's of Marvel/DC when you can possibly have more success with your own content (assuming it's good and you market it).
Also, Marvel making business decisions due to spite is insane. They also ended Fantastic Four at that time as well. Plus, they had replacement characters in the comics while the movies were out. Their cross marketing was horrendous. It's almost as bad as Kathleen Kennedy saying there's no other material for Star Wars instead of (at the very least) mentioning the current Star Wars comics and novels. If the supplemental material is viewed as non-existent then why even buy it?
All good points
ASM sales actually increased after Mcfarlane left for the adjectiveless title then later Image, and reached a peak in the year 1993....
The peak was 1992 I believe at an average of 592,000 per issue. But yeah, the Image Exit destroyed ASM less so than the Collector Boom and Clone Saga.
I remembered being super hyped for X-men...after reading issue 4 and finding out Claremont had left I was more than a little disappointed. I thought it was super weird for him to retire after the first story arch of a brand new book! I honestly thought he wanted to retire, lol. Now I know why. I would have put the Image guys #1 and #2 Claremont "retiring"
ICT VINNY it was hard for me to decide which one was bigger but I felt Claremont being ousted was a bigger deal because of how essential he was to the X-Men’s success. And while Jim & Marc & Whilce & Rob we’re important, they’re also 4 legends in a SEA of legends that worked on the X-books with Chris. Sienkewicz, JR jr, Smith, Byrne, Corkrum, and a half dozen other legends are equally important to the success of the X-men on the art side. But Chris is 98% responsible on the writing side.
So I really enjoyed the beginning of Morrison’s X-books, E is for Extinction, the first annual introducing Xorn, and a handful of books between that and Here Comes Tomorrow.
That said, to this day I despise Morrison’s handling of Pseudo-Magneto. And it hasn’t aged well. Magneto as a mass-murderous, drug-addicted psycho who gets his head lopped off unceremoniously doesn’t sit well with me, especially after years of Claremont redeeming his character into a more introspective villain. So I’m glad that was retconned, and I’m speaking as a Morrison fan.
Such drama. It’s a dog eat dog world, in my experience, so no surprises.
You should talk about lodbell run and claremont's 2nd run
Dante Crottogini I would absolutely LOVE to! I LOVE Lobdell’s X-Men. He’s my 2nd favorite X-writer.
@@ScienceJesus I would agree with that. After re-reading a lot of 90's X-Men lately (I went through Age of Apocalypse again this past weekend), I firmly believe that Lobdell is the second best X-Men writer after Claremont.
Chris Claremont is a legend. He is a professional. I think he can do anything he wants to do. I believe he could kill one shots if that is what he wanted to do. I dont think he needs to find a groove at all. For him its like riding a bike or having sex....if you dont do either for a while and you see a bike or an ass in the air....you know exactly what to do and ride both of them.
I agree. The thing is, I always knew Chris was a great superhero comic writer. But once I read his Black Dragon and Marada, and saw all his novels, I realized he is pretty much just a gifted writer all the way around.
What are your thoughts on Morrison's new X-men run? I read through the omnibus and I thought it was really bad and such a slog to read through.
Patelephone it was a love letter to Claremont X-Men done with “modern sensibilities” & there are a lot of flaws in it but a lot of good stuff too. It’s a very mixed bag for me. I love it & hate it simultaneously. For a multitude of reasons. Maybe I can talk Wes into doing a conversation about Morrison X-Men some day.
@@ScienceJesus I haven't read any of Claremont's xmen, but I was planning on buying the new printing of the omnibuses coming out this year. Would you still recommend his run for me even though I really disliked morrisons run?
@@ScienceJesus I feel the same about Morrison's X-Men. I am of two minds about it. As it came out in the early 2000's, it was very exciting. I was posting a lot on the CBR forums at the time, and every issue was eagerly dissected and talked about by the fans. The art was great (Quietly and Van Sciver) and Morrison brought in a lot of new cool ideas to the property. I remember thinking it genuinely seemed cutting edge and avant garde at the time.
In hindsight, don't get me wrong -- I still like the run. But I don't like the net impact it had on the X-Men going forward -- especially from an aesthetic and visual standpoint. I feel like many subsequent creators post-Morrison now think that the X-Men is a sillybilly franchise and you can make up absolutely ridiculous looking and godawfully ugly characters, and that's okay. (Shark Girl? Eye Boy? Seriously, Jason Aaron?) But they're missing the point of the X-Men. I think the X-Men should be visually compelling characters -- but not necessarily grotesque or laughably outlandish.
And also, I'm not convinced the X-Men has ever regained that cool Claremont "outcast" vibe after the Morrison run. Morrison made mutant culture into its own more-or-less autonomous subculture, which many humans saw as cool, and wanted to emulate. (This is where the U-Men came in.) I get why he did it, but I'm not sure you can ever go back to that initial conceit of "Claremont's outcasts" after what Morrison did.
Patelephone I still HIGHLY recommend it. 94-143 might be the best long-form story in comics history. And 143-~280 is just perfect soap opera superhero stories.
@@ScienceJesus Totally agree. It's my favorite superhero comic run of all time. You've got good taste in comics, Dok.
Don't forget to add Chris' run on New Mutants to go with that. The OGN, issues 1 - 54, and annuals 1 - 3. It goes hand-in-hand with his UXM run.
Bloodsport.
I am done with the xbooks man. I dont have expendable income just to waste on crap issues. Xforce, Xmen and wolverine, and that Chip Xbook will be only 4 im getting. Xmen is on a short short short leash. Benjamin percy is my 3rd fav writer at Marvel behind Cates and Zdarsky...so Xforce is healthy to me. Xcalibur, fallen angels, Duggan's Marauders and new mutants are lying on the platform after being stomped out by Chun Li
Love the channel. Love the content. To piggyback somewhat off of Doc's comments...I think there were several positives coming off the departures of Claremont & the Image Seven. I happen to think the scripting & storytelling of Lobdell & Nicieza was very good! We got the emergence of Joe Madureira on Uncanny & a nice lengthy Andy Kubert run on X-Men. We got Lobdell and Bachalo on Generation X. We got a fleshed out tragic backstory on Cable being revealed as Nathan Summers. We got further character work on Cable & a nice run by Jeph Loeb and Ian Churchill. We got Fatal Attractions. X-cutioner's Song. Age of Apocalypse. But most of all... (and I love Claremont but it needs to be said) we got more realistic scripting. Characters didn't DESCRIBE THEIR POWER SET EVERYTIME THEY USED THEIR POWERS OR EVERYTHING THEY WERE DOING AS THEY WERE DOING IT... OUT LOUD. There was a point where the X-Office gave Claremont both X-Men books back & even gave him his own..X-Treme X-Men. They all SUCKED. The man is a legend, but a lot of his latter X-Men stuff outside the "greatest hits" DID NOT AGE WELL. Also, Steve Seagle/Chris Bachalo & Joe Kelly/Carlos Pacheco had decent runs on the titles. My #1 controversy was the "spiteconning" of Morrison's run. Anyways, keep up the good work guys!💯❤👏🏾👍🏾
Steven Mckanney Chris did that thing with describing powers & stuff because he took Stan’s rule to heart that EVERY comic is somebody’s first. So describing their powers & who they are is essential to new/non-readers just picking up their first X-Men comic. After a few issues & you knowing them well enough, you knew which narration or word bubbles you could skip. I would argue that NOT doing that now is what leads to new readers feeling lost & unable to jump into a comic without it being a new #1 issue.
@@ScienceJesus Fair enough. From that standpoint, I get THAT. However, I'm fresh off of re-reading the latter stuff ("Revolution" era) & X-Treme X-Men as well as the Australian Outback Era up to the X-Men #1 relaunch.. & it just.. didn't age well in my opinion. Again, the man is a legend & he created the bulk of the friendships & tapestry within the X-Men mythology. That cannot be disputed. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it read better in my teens & 20s than it does to me in my early 40s. If I can name my 3 favorite Claremont moments, they would be 1) the mutant massacre. 2)The trial & eventual handing of Headmaster to Xavier's to Magneto. 3) my favorite Claremont issue of all time.. the Barry Windsor-Smith pencilled issue of Uncanny that was a Wolverine solo story of him wounded & on the run from the Reavers in New York City in a BLIZZARD with Katie Power in tow. THAT WAS OUTSTANDING. (sorry 4 rambling dude. I get your point though) 👍🏾
@@ScienceJesus Wasn't that Jim Shooter too? I thought it was his editorial mandate that every issue be presented as someone's first. Granted, Chris was wordy and liked in-depth explanation with lots of copy, so he probably did it more verbose than most writers would. But I think Shooter as EiC encouraged that.
As much as I love Claemont, I think there's merit to this argument. 90's X-Men is my second favorite era of X-Men, and by Chris leaving we did get to read some great comics by Lobdell and Nicieza. Loeb's X-Force was good too. John Francis Moore and Larry Hama were doing solid work on X-Factor and Wolverine at the time too. Claremont's my favorite, but admittedly I like most of that 90's era a lot.
To be fair though, I didn't think Steve Seagle or Joe Kelly runs in the late 90's were anything memorable though. All of that felt phoned-in to me.
@@SamGuthrie1977 I'll concede somewhat that Seagle & Kelly wasn't good as the Lobdell/Nicieza period yet it wasn't necessarily terrible to me neither. Heck I liked that better than that weird Alan Davis period... that was the epitome of "meh" to me. I agree about X-Factor by John Francis Moore. I may be in the minority but I liked the Morrison run as much as I do the classic Claremont stuff. The common ground is we all love X-Men & they're finally starting to recover from the Inhuman Agenda even though marvel is already ruining it by cash grabbing us to death lol.
That killed the X-Men? That franchise is unkillable.
The image 7 walked out to make clones of their most popular works.
John Byrn quit in 1991?..
They're talking about Byrne's second short stint on the X-Men, when he had returned as writer.
SamGuthrie1977 yeah. He came back to UXM as the scripter at 281 & then took over XM at issue 4. But within a few months, he rage quit both books.
@@SamGuthrie1977
Well Byrn is an awesome artist and writer...but id rather see him on drawing duty...X-Men was huge in those days it must have been extremely frustrating to helm marvels biggest book...but it was so good though...
You should deal with Steve Seagle and Joe Kelly quitting the two main X-books.
Was brandon choi a real person?
WOW i didn't know that claremont was ousted and currently those X Books are trash SMDH!!!
I remember watching an interview with him where he said he was basically a victim of own success. Publishers would dangle their most popular books in front of talent as a carrot, and everyone wanted to work on Xmen. Marvel lost a lot of big talent to the competition because Claremont had them on lock down for 17 years
@@matthewschneider3391 I think I saw that same interview. Wasn't that in the documentary Claremont's X-Men ?
@@SamGuthrie1977 TH-cam channel ScyFy Wire has a show called Beyond the Panel where they interview various creators in the industry. Thats where i saw it. Check it out. Some good stuff. And the interviewer is a true fan who knows his stuff and idolizing the people he interviews. Charming show
@@matthewschneider3391 I'll look it up. Thanks!
Joe mad was as cool as jim lee...
I loved scott lobdell xmen!...
Chris came back from time to time and it never was as good as his classic Xmen...
Corey Shelp I LOVE JoeMad. I always get torn on who to take off my top5 X-artists list to put him on tho. There’s just so many greats
@@ScienceJesus
I honestly think Eric Larsen could get XMen back on track in the 2020s...
Hey, Doc! Mute your mic when you clear your throat. PUHLEEZE!!!!!
I edit all that stuff out now. But this is an older video.
Great discussion guys . If Marvel would cared more about Claremont , the franchise would not died like in the 90s . Even after Lee’s departure the book would have continued with good writing and good character development and not the sh**** that it turned
The inhumans dont have a cool cast of villains. The heroes are only as good as their villains.
two words:Chuck Astin. Lol
he goes on the list of Top5 Worst X-creators.
Bloodsport!
The only interesting idea jim lee had for xmen was that potential affair between cyclops and betsy. Also mebe that jobber omega red.
John Byrne had left the title long before 91 to do Fantastic Four then Siperman. Claremont was writing both titles and quit when Jim Lee basically became the plotter. WTF are you talking about?
John Byrne was brought back in at UXM 281 as the scripter. He took over XM at X-Men 4 after Chris quit & he wrote both books for about 2-3 months before he rage-quit. I'm absolutely correct about this.
Forcing Claremont out for Lee was definitely one of the worst things Marvel has ever done , hands down.
The inhumans had slaves.
Man... Those long "eeeeaaaaaaand"s are killing my ears...
Ateş Can Yeşilleten sorry dude. It’s my way of avoiding excessive “um” & “uh”‘s when figuring out what I need to say next.
What a great look in X-Men history. A lot of this I can't believe. Chris Claremont was forced off of Marvel??? OMG!!! This man defined the X-Men. The X-Men are my favorite super team and it's because of Claremont. It's sad how shady Marvel is. DC is no better in my opinion.
Wonder how many of the views are due to clickbait redirection to this xmen PUBLISHING controversies.
listen to the animated theme song once and this is what the algorithm gave me fml
Yep, Lobdel got the writing gig 3 days before print. Don't worry about the art. Check your sources.
Comic creators being spiteful and holding a grudge? Come on, aren't you the guys that said Van Sciver could just go back to DC? He wasn't blackballed out of political spite? No, that would never happen.
Chris Claremont is as of Jan 2020 still under exclusive contract with Marvel. They are paying him to write nothing. Not X-Men, Not Spider-man, not Avengers. You guys missed that, but that might require research.
Lobdell was there to script. Period. He wasn't involved in the plotting. He had to fill in word bubbles of already drawn art because the artists & editors were the plotters. He was brought in 3 days before the script was due in order to go to print. There's deadlines for every step of the process. The script had 3 days before it was due or else it would miss print Because it takes the letterer X number of days to do it. You're being pedantic as fuck about this.
As for Ethan? I don't care what he does or doesn't do. None of these people are blacklisted. Being spiteful & being blacklisted aren't the same. Ethan isn't blacklisted from anywhere.
And regarding Chris not working but being under contract... you're talking about contracts NOW. We were talking about what happened in 1992 or whatever. What in the world is your point? It didn't make my list because there were at least 5 controversies bigger than that one. That MIGHT get into a Top 10 controversies. But it's definitely not in the top 5.
What about marv wolfman? Not x-realated but still.....
These "comic historians", especially "Doc" know fuck all.