Thread by @EveKeneinan

Who else remember when Chris Claremont wrote the X-Men?

One Claremont PAGE is worth about 10 modern X-Men COMICS.

This is what happens when you put Ororo in a dungeon by the way. LOL.

THAT didn’t take long! One page! I love it! And this was the time she had no powers!

Storm and Wolverine, earlier in the same issue, X-Men #215.

So MUCH character interplay done with so LITTLE! This is masterful. And Claremont always made it look EASY!

Wolverine is distancing himself, like the loner he is, because he thinks he can’t trust himself.

Storm (in a nutshell): “I need you. I trust you.”

And this works because Ororo can be, in her way, as HARD as Logan, when it counts.

1987, the days when misogyny ruled superhero comics! Before we had Captain Marvel, the first women superhero!

Because Callisto, Rogue, Storm, and Psylocke are all SOOO weak.

Fuck you, current year! I had plenty of women suprehero role models growing up. I read the X-Men!

I’m calling it.

Some editor told the cover artist “It’s good, but add Wolverine in somewhere. It’ll sell better with him on the cover!”

Bad call.

Pretty sure the cover tells us all we need to know without Logan.

The defeat of the psychic possessor Marauder named Malice.

Tell me again how weak and frail female heroes were before 2017. I dare you!

THIS IS STORM! (Again, no powers, and needing none.)

In X-Men #215-216 we have a “most dangerous game” type scenario with three retired WW2 superheroes hunting down criminals for sport.

What really TELLS here is how Storm MORALLY OWNS THEM right from the start of the “hunt.” She tears right through their rationalizations.

The three “heroes” who hunt criminals for sport were NEVER the real enemy. Storm ends up SPARING all three of their lives — it's a gripping story, but the REAL enemy was Storm’s INNER DOUBT about the future of the X-Men, as their leader (this is right after the Mutant Massacre).

Storm’s REAL battle is INTERNAL. It is MORAL and SPIRITUAL. The EXTERNAL fight is only the OCCASION for the real battle to happen.

THIS is why Chris Claremont was such a good writer.

A lazy writer would have only the outside battle .. and Wolverine save the day. Not Claremont!

Of course, most comics were NOT written by Chris Claremont.

Dazzler #22. Because it has an early Rogue appearance.

Written by .. a Spider-Man editor!
Drawn by … who?
Inked by … Marvel’s fastest, and worst, inker!

Yay!

And yes, Dazzler DOES have mirrorball rollerstakes.

Vince Colletta is just a terrible, terrible inker.

But he was apparently (1) a really friendly guy, and (2) never missed a deadline, because he was Marvel’s FASTEST inker (because he did half-assed work and cut corners at every turn). But he could hit deadlines!

Don’t believe me? Colletta inked Fantastic Four #40-43. Go look at how he managed to SCREW UP even Jack Kirby’s art!

Then read FF #44 on, after Joe Sinnott taken over the inking (THANK GOD!)(and STAN LEE!)

A bad inker can KILL even a GREAT penciler! Even “the King”!

What would the Fantastic Four be without those crazy wild Kirby machines?

Compare Colletta’s inks to Sinnott’s. Look how bland the machines are! Not to mention the faces.

Dazzler’s feud with Rogue was terribly written, but Claremont took it seriously. Look how he handles it — Allison can’t forgiven Rogue, but this is really about her OWN INSECURITY causing her to be UNABLE TO SEE ROGUE AS WHO SHE IS, NOT WHO SHE WAS. WORDS make it WORSE.

Set up:

So Claremont takes away the WORDS, and FORCES Allison to SEE both who Rogue IS and DECIDE who SHE is going to be.

Resolution:

And of course that’s only 8 of the 22 pages we get.

Anyway, it was a video by Ya Boi Zack, that started me on this comic rant, as it often is.

Go enjoy that too:

UNCANNY X-MEN #216 – Claremont Is Such A Great Writer That Even His FORGOTTEN Stories Are Amazing

I’m only 1/2 way through Zack’s video. I had to go re-read the issue he was talking about, and then start commenting myself because Claremont is just so freaking awesome.

And Storm, when written by Claremont.