Chris Claremont's early 2000's Xtreme & Uncanny X-Men...

[Lockheed]

I really enjoyed Destiny's Diaries, Vargas, and how Claremont handled Gambit in the beginning of X-Treme. I also really liked the Fury storyline, Savage Land stuff, and End of Greys. But as all of those runs carried on, he lost me. The Hellfire Club stuff was so convoluted, God Loves, Man Kills 2 was real bad, and the rest was just pretty meh.

Revolution was bad tip to tail imo, and I loved the idea of Gambit and Rogue leading their own teams. The stories just didn't work for me though. I preferred the Scott Lobdell issues between Claremont and Morrison to all of Revolution.

[TheRealWashout]

I love X-Treme and I love End of Grey's. The rest is certainly fine. It was no better or worse than any of the other core X-books at the time.

[shooshoomanjoe]

Considering how great Claremont's first run was, his second run was a huge disappointment and waste of money.

[Drexelhand]

Regardless of how each arc in X-Treme X-Men ended anticlimatically or how odd the Hauk'ka arc is or how Excalibur just didn't even finish, X-Men: The End was a masterclass work by Chris Claremont and a great epilogue to the story. I'd love to see an extended version of that story like how we're getting with God Loves Man Kills that maybe incorporates some stuff from Krakoa into it, you know? Retrofit the story every ten years to keep it as the ending, kind of like how 2099 was recently updated.

[Odd Rödney]

I agree with most of the OP except for Dino Rachel. That was inspired.

X of Reptiles:

Dino Rachel leads the Savage Land in a war against Krakoa.

It read very much like Claremont repackaging some of his previous x-work without really giving anything new, kind of self-indulgent storytelling that ignored a lot of character progress from when he wasn't on the books.

Yeah, this is pretty much the problem, no room for characters to grow.

I'm sure marvel would have no problem with him killing off Ironman, Wolverine, and Black panther and replacing them with three different Storms.

X of Storms:

616 Storm, Bloodstorm and traitorous Storm from Forever. 616 Storm leads the X-Men against Bloodstorm who is somehow now leading the Vampire Nation but, in the end, they realize both parties are being manipulated by traitor Storm. God, that sounds terrible.

It would be interesting if Hickman incorporates Destiny’s diaries to HoX/pox. Imagine if Mystique could use them to be a step ahead xavier and magneto. Destiny being involved long after she is dead.

That could be interesting. I think we’re really in for something crazy when Raven realizes that there is really no chance they’re going to resurrect Irene.

I can definitely see where some of his newer stuff is horrible, but his original run will always make him Lord and Savior of all things X.
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He is the guy we have to thank for the X-Men, no doubt. I've read (and own) all of Claremont's X-Men stuff except Forever. I thought that was a stinker so I don't own that. I just think his original 17 year run was the best he’s done.

And hello to everyone, long-time lurker (since the late 90s!) and first time poster.

Welcome to the X-boards Dazz, hope you survive the experience (from a fellow Aussie).

Hah! I'm Australian too, and I remember chuckling at that name when I first read it...

It's low-key hilarious.

Slipstream, Lifeguard, Sketch etc... What were they thinking?

Clearly they weren’t thinking at all!

I think it's due to constant editor interference and change of editors as hinted in his interviews. If Chris Claremont were left to do his own thing, he would do good stories like in the old days where he had free rein.

That might very well be the case but Marvel pretty much gave him reign to do his own thing with X-Men Forever and, as I've already mentioned, that was a stinker, IMHO.

X-men forever was kind of unbelievable in a hilarious way. Just really bad lol.

Yeah, pretty much.

Considering how great Claremont's first run was, his second run was a huge disappointment and waste of money.

Yeah, that is basically the point I’ve been trying to make.

[Hellion]

If I'm remembering correctly, didn't our beloved CC author a one-off literal fanwank story where all of his iconic female characters dress in skimpy swimwear and cavort with a group of people (I believe they were somewhere in Southeast Asia) who worshiped airplanes?

[Master of Sound]

I loved the 1st half of X-Treme, when they were after the diaries and against Vergas. Then when Lifeguard, Slipstream and T-Bird left (the ones everybody hated) the series actually went south.

I seem to be one of the very few who actually loved (and still love) Heather and Neal.

[yogaflame]

If I'm remembering correctly, didn't our beloved CC author a one-off literal fanwank story where all of his iconic female characters dress in skimpy swimwear and cavort with a group of people (I believe they were somewhere in Southeast Asia) who worshiped airplanes?

X-Women was a one shot collaboration with Milo Manara. It was very cheesecakey, as one would expect from Milo, but I liked the story.

[Havok83]

I loved the 1st half of X-Treme, when they were after the diaries and against Vergas. Then when Lifeguard, Slipstream and T-Bird left (the ones everybody hated) the series actually went south.

I seem to be one of the very few who actually loved (and still love) Heather and Neal.

Basically you loved the Larocca issues

[Hcmarvel]

I think it's hard to defend the Revolution era of Chris Claremont's attempted return to X-Men.

I actually think X-Treme X-Men, despite the terrible name and sometimes off-putting art styles was a fun book and a solid companion book to Morrison's X-Men. It was satisfying as a fan to have Morrison reinventing the book in some ways on New X-Men while Claremont was doing his old fashioned thing on X-Treme, Clarmontisms and all. It's not all good, some arcs are terrible (God Loves Man Kills 2, the Arena) but it reads like Claremont X-Men, Storm is well used throughout, and it has its place in X-Men history.

I also think his second return to the books during the Reload era (when Davis and Bachalo were his artists on Uncanny) is fun. People might forget he followed Chuck Austin so it was a breath of fresh air to have the characters sound like themselves again. And End of Grays is legitimately good stuff, if really grim, and contains maybe the best single issue Claremont wrote in the last 25 years.

Nothing would make me happier than for Claremont to have the opportunity to write one last magnum opus. It's too bad X-Men The End exists as it does because I think the idea of giving him another chance to do a maxi-series with his last statement on the X-Men would be merited. The fact is, a valid argument could be made that Claremont is the most important writer in Marvel history after Stan Lee (well depending on how you define "writer" as Kirby and Ditko's plotting would also rank above Claremont in level of importance). That doesn't mean Marvel owes it to him to let him write X-Men forever, but it'd be awesome to see him really put everything into one last limited series.

[ermac]

I loved X-Treme and liked his Reload. The real stinkers were X-Men Forever/New Excalibur/New Exiles.

this! 10char

[Anchorsify]

You're not. Unfortunately he also has an ENORMOUS cult that worship anything he puts on paper and God protect you if you point it out. TBH, even a lot of the stuff he wrote during his original run has not aged particularly well.

Pretty much this. Not gonna lie I like some of what he did, but some of it was also just odd. But people love to pretend he is X-men gospel.

[Ambaryerno]

Pretty much this. Not gonna lie I like some of what he did, but some of it was also just odd. But people love to pretend he is X-men gospel.

I think a great comparison is Gene Roddenberry.

The original Star Trek was groundbreaking and genre-defining. In the 1960s.

Come his attempts to return to the franchise with TNG it...didn't work out so well.

No one is denying the monumental significance the Great Bird of the Galaxy had on both the franchise specifically and the genre in general, but he was very much a product of his time and much of what he did didn't age particularly well when he tried to bring it back for TNG. And the less he was reigned in by editors and the studio, the worse things got (TMP and the first season of TNG being prime examples). And while he was certainly the Alpha, the FOUNDATION on which all later works were built, he's not the Omega. And it was only once Star Trek grew BEYOND Roddenberry that it truly found its stride.

That's the lesson the X-Books have NOT learned by clinging to Claremont's legacy, rather than growing FROM it.

[Rnap22]

I loved X-treme. The cast was great. I did like the additions of Heather and Neal. I didn’t like the weird conversion of Heather to full on bird. I don’t think I had ever seen a Shiar like this before. Neal’s reaction was weird. That’s still his sister. The art was interesting and it was some of Larocca’s best. I hated the art and stories after he left. They were lackluster to be honest. I loved Claremont on his first run. He was a master of weaving plots and injecting future plots in one off pages that we would see come to fruition later, but some of his latter work was a pass. You can’t say he isn’t the X-men though. He may not have created every character, but he defined those characters for sure. And no one has written a strong woman in comics like Claremont. Except anyone who writes Emma. That bitch is always in charge! lol