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The F BombCast: An Uncanny Sense of Deja Vu: The Claremont Years Take 3

Monday, July 28, 2008

An Uncanny Sense of Deja Vu: The Claremont Years Take 3

Continuing our look back at the last 100 issues of Uncanny X-Men today we focus on the return of the man who pretty much defined the X-Men for legions of fans and wrote them longer than anyone else Mr. Chris Claremont. Following the unmitigated disaster that was Chuck Austen, Issue 444 saw Claremont return the book he made famous for the third time.

This was kind of interesting since back in 2000 Claremont had a very brief and poorly received return to both core X titles. However given the (unfairly)lukewarm response to Joe Casey and the aforementioned Chuck Austen debacle bringing back the man who pretty much started it all was not a bad idea. Claremont's third run was pretty much a continuation of what he had already been doing on X-Treme X-Men which aside from the horrfic title was actually quite good.

Issue 444 saw X-Treme X-Men cancelled and that book's core members transplanted over to Uncanny. Your core team was Storm, Psylocke, Sage, Cannonball, Bishop, Nightcrawler and Marvel Girl (Rachel Grey). Also jumping on at various points were Wolverine, Emma Frost and in the best plotline of Claremont's run X-23.

What can you say about Claremont? His bad points are well known (too much exposition, an unhealthy obsession with mind control and his Psylocke obsession is just creepy) but when he's on he's on. There was alot to like about these issues. Like I said bringing in X-23 was a good touch and the way he confronts Wolverine with a female more feral version of himself. The way Wolverine takes X-23 under his wing is even still being explored currently in X-Force. Claremont also addresses the effect of Cyclops new relationship with Emma Frost on his "daughter" Rachel and thats handled rather well when Rachel and Emma have a psychic battle similar to the one Emma and Jean had in Morrison's new X-Men.

This wasn't revolutionary stuff but it was welcome for the most part. The plotline of the X-Men being fully deputized mutant police as the Xtreme Sanctions Executive was carried over from Xtreme X-Men but it basically was ignored after awahile. Alot of it was stuff we'd seen before, the return of the Hellfire Club, an unnecessary visit to the Savage Land, the Sh'iar but it felt good. The best arc in my opinion was a House of M tie in setting up the New Excalibur series that gave us Claremont at his swashbuckling best but it was the best House of M tie in of that entire event. You also had Alan Davis on pencils which is never bad.

Don't get me wrong this wasn't a flawless run Claremont's standard dialogue tics are hard to ignore sometimes and the Sh'iar death commandos was a bubble brained idea. Also the final arc involving Psylocke's nutty brother was just palin stupid. Still all in all it was a welcome return for a time. Unfortunately Claremont became very ill towards the end of his run and Tony Bedard scripts from Claremont's plots for the last issues (471-474) and the Annual. Bottom line if you're a Claremont fan and you are enjoying his current run on New Exiles you should check these out I believe it is about 6 trades under the name Uncanny X-Men the Next Age.

Later
Kevin

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