Originally Posted by
FUBAR007
IMO, his "Revolution" return in 2000, X-Treme X-Men, the Genoshan Excalibur series, and his 3rd run on Uncanny after Chuck Austen form one, long run. One could even argue it continued into New Excalibur. The plot threads, and several key characters, tended to move from one title into the next. His brief Nightcrawler series around 2014-2015 served as a kind of post-script, too.
Anyway, to answer your question: while it had his moments, Claremont's 2000s return to the franchise wasn't nearly as good as his original run. I think that's largely because, unlike before, Claremont was no longer "plotmaster" of the franchise. He wasn't steering the ship anymore; he was just another work-for-hire writer. Also, I don't get the sense he was able to develop the kind of creative partnership with the editors that he had back in the day with Louise Simonson and Ann Nocenti.
Revolution was a misfire. An ambitious failure. The Neo were an interesting concept, but it was clear he hadn't completely worked out exactly what they were yet. I loved Kubert and Yu's art, but the new costumes were way, way overdesigned. The only one I liked was Jean's. Claremont introduced too many characters too fast--the Neo, the Crimson Pirates, and so on--so the plots felt overstuffed. Once he slowed down after the initial arcs, it got better. I love the back to back issues of Uncanny where the team rescues Lee Forrester and the Maximum Security crossover where the team fights the last surviving D'Bari who's trying to kill Jean.
X-Treme X-Men was all over the place. And, yes, the title was and still is absurd. The Destiny's Diaries plotline had potential, but like with the Neo, it didn't seem as if Claremont had worked it out where it was going. So, it mainly functioned as a "macguffin" to drive the action until the editors had him drop it. The Khan arc was overlong and padded, but pretty to look at. Salvador Larroca's art was gorgeous throughout. The writing got better a couple of years in when Claremont started writing it as a parallel title to Morrison's run.
His 3rd run on Uncanny was...okay. To me, it read less like an X-Men book and more like a solo title alternating between Rachel and Psylocke. On that level, it was fine. End of Greys was shocking, and I'm curious to know if Claremont had follow-on plans or if it was his attempt at a deck-clearing exercise and that was it.
He did X-Men: The End during this period. I liked it, but it was way, way too busy and overstuffed. I did find it a mostly satisfying bookend to the Morrison-Whedon version of the X-Men, though, even if I had to read it three times to follow all the plotlines.
X-Men Forever, which he did a few years later, I found to be much more on-point and enjoyable. It wasn't truly great, but it felt like classic X-Men. Most importantly, he got Cyclops right. Claremont is, IMO, the definitive Cyclops writer, and he's one of the few who can do BoyScott right i.e. not writing him as a caricature or a self-parody. The arc with the Marauders and Claremont's original vision for Sinister was a lot of fun. I especially liked the idea of Corsair retiring to Alaska and parking the Starjammer--which, remember, is literally the size of Manhattan--in the ocean off the Alaskan coast.
All in all, I think Claremont's return to the franchise was mixed in terms of quality. There was good, there was bad, but he didn't have the clarity of vision for the characters and the mythos nor quite the same passion he had the first time around. The X-Men weren't his anymore so he was bouncing off what other writers were doing. Stylistically similar, but lacking the richness and granularity of his classic stuff.
What I wonder is how it would've gone if editorial had given him full creative control or he'd been able to develop a long-running creative partnership with an editor.
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