That's because X-Men #1 was treated as a relaunch because CC was leaving by then. His vision was tainted by UXM 279. Only the first half of that issue is really his and the second half, when Colossus comes back, is when it goes off the rails and isn't based on CC's plan anymore.
CC has always been able to keep the franchise fresh and let it grow. He didn't want a back to basics. He was forced to do that by Bob Harras and Jim Lee. Like Loki was supposed to be the one who confronted Rogue at the end of UXM 269 but Jim Lee felt he wasn't an X-Villain and he wanted to do a classic X-Men villain, hence Magneto. The Muir Island Saga we got was only a test run for the real Muir Island Saga which was set for UXM 300. That was the finale where all the factions would come together against Shadow King who had control of Muir Island, the Hellfire Club, the Reavers, the Morlocks, etc. Xavier would die and Magneto would remain fully reformed and the team's new leader. Gateway would become the X-Men's spiritual leader.
And before the events of that, we would have The Dark Wolverine Saga. Wolverine would die at Lady Deathstrike's hands and be resurrected by the Hand and serve as their assassin for about a year or two in real-time. Then Colossus would rip out his adamantium claws and we'd discover that he had real claws underneath, in his nails (talons like Sabretooth's natural claws or what Kitty develops in X-Men Forever). His healing factor would never be as strong as it used to be and all the adamantium in his skeleton would be rejected and ooze out of him, temporarily turning his hair silver. Then he and Jean would learn they had a psychic rapport from when she tried to save him from The Hand (The Hand's real target was Jean. They used Psylocke as a test run and then Wolverine to get to Jean through their psychic rapport. They wanted the power of the Phoenix) and would end up together. So all of this would lead to issue #300 where the real Muir Island Saga would exist. Val Cooper would be exposed as Mystique here and Tessa would reveal herself to be Xavier's double agent and thus not under Shadow King's control like the rest of the Hellfire Club.
I agree 100%. There was still an attempt to hew to characterization and continuity back then, unlike the 21st century when anything goes. These characters, even without Claremont, still felt fully realized and like themselves for the most part. Editors stopped doing their jobs in the new millennium which you can see by the lack of footnotes to prior issues. That's why many gave up after the 90s and particularly after Eve of Destruction when the X-Men stopped being the X-Men but became something else entirely. I've seen many X-Fans who either only stick to Claremont's canon or end the X-Men at Eve of Destruction as the finale.
Claremont trying his best to cuck Scott lol
The 90s were better than more recent eras, but I see the X-Men books as being in a general state of decline going back to at least the time Bob Harris took over from Jim Shooter, if not from Shooter's decision to greenlight Jean's return and regress the entire 05 so X-Factor could exist. The 2010s were worse than the 2000s, which were worse than the 90s, which were worse than the 80s.
https://secretsbehindthexmen.blogspo...or-united.html
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/marv...0s-t29949.html
It's been out there since the 90s. You can easily find about a dozen or so other links with the same info since Claremont's always talked about his plans especially back when he posted on his old forum, Cordially Chris.