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

[Captain Nash]

I like his first very short lived return in the early 00's as well as the first half of X-Treme (through God Loves Man Kills II), but there were some noticeable dips in quality afterwards.

[yogaflame]

Claremont's X-treme in tandem with Morrison's New was the last creative flourish in the franchise until Hickman. It brought me back to comics after the late 90's lost me. I thought his XSE was great conceptually, it was an amazing feat of political maneuvering on Ororo's part(true human-mutant diplomacy without resorting to base mind control) and it sucked that didn't get explored longer. Post-Morrison, when he returned to Uncanny wasn't quite as good, but still decent. When Hudlin stole Storm from him, that was a wrap.

I didn't read his Excalibur run with Magneto and Xavier, or his Exiles. I basically enjoyed The End series. MechaniX was lowkey fantastic. Forever was very trashy, but I loved the passive aggressiveness of having Storm take over Wakanda and take out T'Challa and Killmonger in the process.

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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[From The Shadows]

I didn't care for X-Treme (thought a big chunk was pretty bad actually), but I quite liked Revolutions and Reload (XSE days) despite their quirks.

[From The Shadows]

Yeah, CC has been pretty uneven in his later years.

That said, I am really partial to X-Treme and the Destiny's Diaries plot. It was a cast that played right into my short list of favorite characters and had some really good character moments despite some fairly wonky subplots and details.

I wish they actually stuck to that plot because that was what interested me. But it seemed to focus on too many other things to the point the Diaries thing faded into the background. I thought a lot was quite terrible but Larocca's art was gorgeous of course.

One of the quriks of Reload would have been the dino stuff as mentioned above by another poster. Revolutions would be Sketch and Twisted Sisters.

[AusDazz]

I enjoyed X-Treme X-Men for what it was but his return to Uncanny and Adjectiveless around the time the first FOX X-Men movie came out was, IMHO, terrible, confusing and strange. I didn't mind some of his stuff when he returned in 2005/06.

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

Best regards
Dazz

[From The Shadows]

I like his first very short lived return in the early 00's as well as the first half of X-Treme (through God Loves Man Kills II), but there were some noticeable dips in quality afterwards.

I thought that was quite a disappointment at the time.

[MechaJeanix]

Revolution was a mess but it was over quick. X-treme I collected as it came out but didn't enjoy it at the time because I compared it to New X-men which I absolutely loved. I did enjoy the cast of Xtreme X-men and I did like it when New X-men characters such as Jean or Emma guest starred.

Reload was better in some ways but like some of you pointed out there was some bad stories. I did enjoy the stuff with the Fury. Claremont can be uneven and if we are honest his original run was like that too. There were some great stories but there were also some not so great ones. Claremont's style just went out of style. He does a lot of exposition and tells us what we are seeing instead of allowing the artist to convey the information. He can be wordy.

But at the same time sometimes the wordiness works. I enjoy reading a lot of his older X-men stuff. I have to admit some of the inner monologues he gives characters can be repetitive and sometimes it makes the characters all sound the same. Claremont does great with some characters like Storm. For me the best part of Xtreme X-men was Storm (though I have to mentally block out Storm: The Arena).

I agree that his X-men Forever was particularly bad and so was his X-men the End (though there were parts of it that I liked).

[From The Shadows]

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

[loke13]

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.

Destiny's Dairies would be just the literary plot device Hickman would use. He loves prophecies and prophetic characters and I imagine the diary entries would fit in nicely in his data pages. It's a good thing he's already set up a rivalry between Moira and Destiny...

[Drexelhand]

Reloaded is mostly good, with the exception of the Hauk'ka arc, but X-Treme is just a bunch of great arcs with bad endings. Take the giant arc against the alien Khan, it ends out of nowhere with a huge anticlimax. Same with God Loves Man Kills II. Same with that Masque bondage issue. Same with the entire Elias Bogan plot. Same with the annual against Amahl Farouk.

[butterflykyss]

I loved claremonts uncanny xmen the original stuff but his later uncanny and x-treme were kinda meh to me if I'm being honest here. x-treme being the worse of his later uncanny run. nothing can measure up to his original run imho.

[Sparta]

...is kinda bad.

As an Aussie I liked that one of the villains was named "Bogan", that was hilarious for me personally

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

[ericng]

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.

He first left Marvel because Jim Lee interfered with his story telling and editor supported the few artists.

Then the mediocre stories started and the we have a whole mess until Krakoa came along.

The concept of Krakoa is good except that I feel that they are trying to push out too many titles and profiting at the maximum.

Marvel should actually focus on quality rather than quantity like in Chris's time where there were only a one or two core titles. The number of X-titles now is too much.

[xhx23x]

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.

He first left Marvel because Jim Lee interfered with his story telling and editor supported the few artists.

Then the mediocre stories started and the we have a whole mess until Krakoa came along.

The concept of Krakoa is good except that I feel that they are trying to push out too many titles and profiting at the maximum.

Marvel should actually focus on quality rather than quantity like in Chris's time where there were only a one or two core titles. The number of X-titles now is too much.

X-Men Forever begs to differ.

I think at the end of the day Claramont did such a good job at shaping the X-Men into a group that has to grow and evolve with the time that when future writers (including himself) just re-do past stories or beats it feels completely flat. I never like when the X-Men attempt to return to a status quo cause that doesn't work for them. It just doesn't. They need to keep constantly changing.

[Muffinman]

X-treme was pretty great in my opinion. The art was fantastic as was the cast. Reloaded was decent. X-men forever was kind of unbelievable in a hilarious way. Just really bad lol.

I will say if I'm on a long trip I will usually bring with me an issue of essential x-men and while there are lots of thought bubbles of characters explaining judt how their powers work for the thousandth time, it still is a very fun read.