Quote Originally Posted by whitecrown View Post
Hmmm, I'm not sure Claremont believed the X-Men only needed one token woman on the team. For starters, Jean was always supposed to be on the team from the beginning but because she was written off and drawn to leave by the time Claremont got on the book, he had no choice but to continue with that. However, he brought her back as quickly as possible in UXM 97 (the same issue he uses Lorna). And she was written out of the book because of Byrne and the second she was killed off, he brought in Kitty. And while Kitty may not count as a woman because of her age, he had no issues adding Rogue, Rachel, Psylocke, and even Dazzler later on even if Dazzler was also editorially mandated. I think it was more that he felt Lorna didn't add anything he felt that Storm or Jean didn't already add to the team, nor did Marvel ever push him to use her like some other characters (Dazzler, Longshot, etc.) so he never had a reason to develop an interest in her either.
I'm not sure if it was Claremont or someone above him like an editor behind why the team had just Storm at first. My larger point was the impression I got regardless of how it came about. I do recall someone else saying Claremont didn't want to use Jean at all and wrote her cause editorial forced him to, but it's been a while since I saw that.

I don't think adding female characters in and of itself is necessarily proof of anything because I've seen video game franchises like Soul Calibur and Resident Evil this past decade that added new women but had a clear bias toward men, often trying to purge or demote long-standing female characters like Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, Taki, etc.

I'm not saying "Claremont hates women." I'm saying deeper criteria is needed beyond adding a body count of women. Perhaps Claremont satisfied that deeper criteria for most female characters over the course of his run. But I felt it was important to remark on this because I've often encountered fans for various franchises who see a lot of female characters exist in something and think that's enough without considering how they're used. Often times, fans will insist having 10 female characters that only get used once or twice as supporting characters for a couple male characters is better than or equivalent to having a couple female characters with an equal amount of representation as the couple male characters.

I think it's possible Claremont thought Lorna didn't add anything new past Storm or Jean, but if true, I think it reflects a bit of ignorance and self-imposed limits on his part. Two characters with similar traits can work toward different ends or have different views.