X-Men 100: The Return of
Chris Claremont
Reviewed: X-Men 100 by Chris Claremont and Leinil Francis Yu
The Plot: The Neo, a mysterious group that seems to have it out for humanity and mutants both, attacks The X-Men.
It's been a long time since I've bought an issue of the X-Men, even longer since I bought one written by Chris Claremont.
I gave up on the title back when there was still only one: I hated John Romita Jr.'s art following the departure of Paul Smith (yup, that long ago), and my occasional purchases of various X-titles have always sent me scurrying in another direction, any other direction, in hopes of finding quality writing and art, unified creative vision, hell, even a goddamned story I could keep straight from page to page.
I loved the X-Men back in high school. Claremont and Byrne were doing something that, at the time, seemed like the most adult treatment of characters ever in mainstream comics. Hell, the characters were having sex!
Obviously, a lot of comics have come and gone since the early 1980s, most of them bad. But I've found some really, really good stuff too, that appeals to my 34-year old stuff. Some of the characters in these books even wear longjohns and beat the snot out of each other. I can't help it. I love Eightball, Black Hole and Whiteout, but the Avengers and (especially) the Authority enthrall me in a visceral way that appeals to my lifelong enjoyment of sooperhero comics.
But the announcement that writer Chris Claremont was coming back to the X-Men after some unpleasantness years ago made me want to check in and see how my former favourite superheroes are doing once again. The last time I was really interested was when Chris Bachalo was pencilling Uncanny X-Men, and someone at Marvel must have heard that I was enjoying the title again because they promptly fired Bachalo and I dropped the title again immediately. In fact, I was so angry I didn't even bother buying Bachalo's last issue. They'd gotten me again, and I wasn't going to reward them for it one second longer.
Every time I commit to a Marvel title, it seems they blow it. Waid and Garney on Captain America (twice!), Ladronn on Cable, David on the Incredible Hulk. It's happened too many times now for me to think it's a coincidence. Someone up there must just hate quality, or at least individual creative vision, the common thread of all these titles that had their creators unceremoniously dumped in the middle of critically acclaimed runs.
I also had read an issue or two of Claremont's DC series Sovereign Seven. Yeesh. Not even worth the quarters I paid for them. I'm always amazed how the once-greats can sink so low; Claremont is hardly alone there. His former partner John Byrne seems to be making a career these of trying to create increasingly unreadable crap. Jack Kirby's Fourth World was a massive bore, but Byrne's ongoing involvement (abetted by "writer" Howard Mackie) in the wretched mockery that has become the Spider-Man stable of titles has been so lousy, so insulting to the readers, that I find myself pretending that the stories are taking place on an alternate Earth. Sorry, on Marvel-Earth, Norman Osborn has been dead for a loooooong time, and always will be.
So in the wake of Claremont's less-than-spectacular post-X-Men career, can he recapture the magic and win me over again? Does he have the right stuff?
The term "right stuff" is apropos as Claremont begins his tale (after a brief assassination attempt on Nightcrawler's life) in outer space. The X-Men have apparently spent the last six months repairing and restoring a space station that was used in an attempt to remove the effect of genetic mutation on the X-Men and other mutants in an attempt to end the strife between Homo Sapiens and Homo Superior. The X-Men are overhauling the station in order to make sure it's never used for that purpose again, and to prepare it for its new mission.
The Neo, though, have other plans.
One of them has ingratiated himself into the crew working on the station, and in fact Kitty Pryde has developed a romantic interest in him. Unfortunately, he tries to blow up the station and kill everyone aboard (except Kitty, who he has chosen to spare), as part of the Neo's campaign against humans and mutants.
The early scenes, of the X-Men working together in space to repair the station's outer structure, reminded me much of Claremont's early X-Men work. It wasn't difficult to imagine it having been drawn by Dave Cockrum in his first run on the title (much better than his second, uninspired pencilling stint).
Claremont takes advantage of the six-month space of time between last month's issue and this to begin some interesting new developments, such as the budding romance between Colossus and Rogue and Kitty's apparently new, defiant attitude.
Yu does a competent job of illustrating the tale, although I preferred his style more on the few issues of Wolverine I picked up when he was drawing that title. He has some nice moments here, such as the many outer-space scenes involving spacesuits and space shuttles. But his storytelling skills don't seem particularly strong to me, or particularly well suited to a team title. His depiction of the first kiss between Rogue and Colossus is fine in the final two panels where their lips meet, but the panels preceding the kiss are extremely awkward. It's an important moment in the history of these two characters, and not terribly well done.
I do like Claremont's plot of creating a common enemy for mutants and humanity. It's a paradigm shift that could actually lift the X-titles out of the rut they've been in since the God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel that really institutionalized the milieu that the characters have operated in ever since. It's nice to see Claremont finally try to alter that status quo, even if it is an "illusion of change" that would make Stan Lee proud.
Frankly, not a lot happens in this issue: Nightcrawler is almost assassinated and seeks out the help of an old friend with medical skills. The station is destroyed, and the X-Men haul ass back to Earth. The Neo loom over all as a threat that does not promise to go away in a few issues.
This issue left me slightly ambivalent. I like the direction Claremont's headed in, I like his characterization of Kitty Pryde, and I like the development between Colossus and Rogue. I don't care at all about the character of Psylocke, and nothing about the new Thunderbird made me ever want to read about him again. I admit it: I want to read about Cyclops, Wolverine, Phoenix, the Angel and the rest. These guys, these X-Men in this issue, are mostly fine as part of the team, but I have no desire to read a book in which this is the lineup.
I also have serious reservations about Yu as a storyteller. He does some nice panels, but too many pages feature large panels at the expense of storytelling, and his depiction of the characters is not terribly consistent (Colossus looks positively deformed in the first panel of the page where he kisses Rogue, and why, why are there no frigging page numbers in some comic books anymore?!). I would strongly advise Yu to try to include more traditional panels and less splashy splash pages (wasn't he a Jack Kirby character?) if he is to depict the stories Claremont wants to tell.
The issue also ends on an extremely awkward note, after pages and pages of destruction and action. The X-Men and Kitty Pryde return separately to Earth, and they are observed from the ground by the Neo and Nightcrawler and Cecilia Reyes. It's subdued, not exciting, despite the obvious fact that the story will be continued. Maybe Claremont needs to reread some of his old comics to see how to end a story on a cliffhanger (I remember going nuts after a Byrne-drawn cliffhanger in which it appeared Cyclops had died--what a ripoff the resolution to that was--but don't get me started), or at least check Joe Quesada's first three issues of Iron Man, each of which has ended with a cliffhanger that has left me on the edge of my seat and craving more.
The end of this issue left me completely indifferent to whether I read the conclusion or not, and that's too bad. Because Claremont doesn't fall on his face here, he has some strong moments, especially in Kitty's inner dialogue with herself. But this issue could have been a lot better, and as an issue that is sure to be a jumping on point for a lot of readers (like me), it would have been nice to see more of an effort to create a compelling issue that made me unable to resist buying future issues.
