Creator whose departure hurt you the most
Jun 18, 2022 18:17:47 GMT -5
shaxper, spoon, and 3 more like this
Post by commond on Jun 18, 2022 18:17:47 GMT -5
For me, it was Chris Claremont quitting the X-Men.
Now I realize a lot of regular posters had abandoned the X-Men long before Claremont left, but I began reading comics in 1988 and was fully committed to the X-books through to 1991. In retrospect, it was a messy period for Claremont's X-Men, but I'm not here to debate the merits of that part of his run. For whatever reason, Uncanny X-Men was the book that captivated me the most out of all the books on the market, and continued to do so throughout the final part of Claremont's run.
I can't actually remember how I found out about Claremont leaving the X-Men. I didn't have access to the trade magazines at the time, and I only visited my local comic book shops during the school holidays. I had this weird system for buying comics where I would visit the comic book shops in the holidays, or on the off chance that we were in the city, and buy the latest direct market issues of my favorite books. Then I'd fill in the gaps in my collection by buying the older issues as they appeared on the newsstands. It was a surreal way to read comics as every time you'd hit the comic book store, it was like stepping into the future. I'll never forget the first time I discovered a comic book store, and my jaw dropping because they already had issues of Uncanny X-Men that were months ahead of the issues I was buying off the stands. That blew my mind into a billion pieces. Fortunately, I was able to pull enough of the pieces back together to buy those comics from the future. You have to remember, that New Zealand was at the butthole of the world in those days. My mother used to watch daytime soap operas that were five to six years behind the US, and she'd buy these soap opera magazines from the stationary stores that spoiled all the future storylines. It was the same with the shows I watched as a kid. Wrestling pay-per-views were shown on free-to-air television but they were at least three to six months behind the States. Every night on television, I watched Dr. Who episodes that were at least five years old. So, I think what must have happened is that I bought X-men #4 or 5 from the comic book shop and discovered that Claremont wasn't in the credits. Then I must have pieced together the information somehow. I actually remember X-Men #1-3 being difficult to acquire from the newsstands, which happened occasionally with New Zealand's crappy "fell off the back of a truck" distribution system.
It was unfathomable to me at the time that anyone other than Claremont could write the X-Men. If I had been older, and wiser, I would have stopped reading X-Men as soon as it happened, but I was such a dyed-in-the-wool X-Men fan that I kept reading through to the start of the Age of Apocalypse, and that was when I gave up the ghost. When I finally got access to the internet, I stumbled upon a Chris Claremont interview where he talked about the plot ideas he had for the X-Men at the time he was fired. If you're not aware of these, they're basically a rehash of typical Claremont X-Men storylines, but, being incredibly pro-Claremont at the time, of course I thought they were better than the stories we ended up getting, which fueled my anger even more. Looking back on it now, I'm not sure how things would've turned out if Claremont stayed on the X-Men. I imagine it would have depended on his relationship with the editor. I doubt he would have been given total control like he had under Louise Simonson and Ann Nocenti, and I imagine he would have been forced out in the end by some big name artist. Perhaps the would have continued to have given him one of the X-books to write, but it's hard to envision Claremont not having total control over the X-books line. I suppose a large part of his success would have depended on the artist he got. I can imagine him trying to get one of the Kubert boys, but I'm not sure.
One thing me as strange about Claremont's departure is that he didn't immediately walk into the offices of DC comics and land one of their biggest titles. DC was invariably where most of Marvel's writers wound up. Certainly, where most of Claremont's contemporaries found work. I know that he eventually worked for them, but aside from not really knowing what he wanted to do post X-Men, he seemed caught up in the creator ownership hoopla. IIRC, he was listed as one of the founding members of Image Comics despite not writing anything for them, and his first big project post X-Men was his creator-owned series, Sovereign Seven. I never read the book, and I was out of comics by the time Claremont returned to the Marvel, but I was surprised that he didn't have a run on a flagship DC book.
I kind of mindlessly, half-heartedly, read X-Men for good four years after Claremont left, more out of habit than anything. I wonder if anyone has similar experiences with a different creator, even on a book you didn't read in real-time, so to speak. Or perhaps you have some opinions on what the X-Men would have looked like if Claremont had stuck around for a few more years. How long do you think he could have survived? Would the X-Men have been better, or would he have been relegated to a single book with little control over the big picture? Could Claremont have produced the Image-esque comics that were selling at the time, or was he too old-school and too esoteric? All things come to an end, but this one still bugs me a bit kind of like Buck Shelford being dropped from the All Blacks in 1990. A popular catch-cry at the time was "Bring Back Buck." For me, it could have been "Bring Back Chris," but I was one of the suckers who kept buying the books. Even if Marvel may or may not ever have received a dime from tiny, backward, six months behind New Zealand.
Now I realize a lot of regular posters had abandoned the X-Men long before Claremont left, but I began reading comics in 1988 and was fully committed to the X-books through to 1991. In retrospect, it was a messy period for Claremont's X-Men, but I'm not here to debate the merits of that part of his run. For whatever reason, Uncanny X-Men was the book that captivated me the most out of all the books on the market, and continued to do so throughout the final part of Claremont's run.
I can't actually remember how I found out about Claremont leaving the X-Men. I didn't have access to the trade magazines at the time, and I only visited my local comic book shops during the school holidays. I had this weird system for buying comics where I would visit the comic book shops in the holidays, or on the off chance that we were in the city, and buy the latest direct market issues of my favorite books. Then I'd fill in the gaps in my collection by buying the older issues as they appeared on the newsstands. It was a surreal way to read comics as every time you'd hit the comic book store, it was like stepping into the future. I'll never forget the first time I discovered a comic book store, and my jaw dropping because they already had issues of Uncanny X-Men that were months ahead of the issues I was buying off the stands. That blew my mind into a billion pieces. Fortunately, I was able to pull enough of the pieces back together to buy those comics from the future. You have to remember, that New Zealand was at the butthole of the world in those days. My mother used to watch daytime soap operas that were five to six years behind the US, and she'd buy these soap opera magazines from the stationary stores that spoiled all the future storylines. It was the same with the shows I watched as a kid. Wrestling pay-per-views were shown on free-to-air television but they were at least three to six months behind the States. Every night on television, I watched Dr. Who episodes that were at least five years old. So, I think what must have happened is that I bought X-men #4 or 5 from the comic book shop and discovered that Claremont wasn't in the credits. Then I must have pieced together the information somehow. I actually remember X-Men #1-3 being difficult to acquire from the newsstands, which happened occasionally with New Zealand's crappy "fell off the back of a truck" distribution system.
It was unfathomable to me at the time that anyone other than Claremont could write the X-Men. If I had been older, and wiser, I would have stopped reading X-Men as soon as it happened, but I was such a dyed-in-the-wool X-Men fan that I kept reading through to the start of the Age of Apocalypse, and that was when I gave up the ghost. When I finally got access to the internet, I stumbled upon a Chris Claremont interview where he talked about the plot ideas he had for the X-Men at the time he was fired. If you're not aware of these, they're basically a rehash of typical Claremont X-Men storylines, but, being incredibly pro-Claremont at the time, of course I thought they were better than the stories we ended up getting, which fueled my anger even more. Looking back on it now, I'm not sure how things would've turned out if Claremont stayed on the X-Men. I imagine it would have depended on his relationship with the editor. I doubt he would have been given total control like he had under Louise Simonson and Ann Nocenti, and I imagine he would have been forced out in the end by some big name artist. Perhaps the would have continued to have given him one of the X-books to write, but it's hard to envision Claremont not having total control over the X-books line. I suppose a large part of his success would have depended on the artist he got. I can imagine him trying to get one of the Kubert boys, but I'm not sure.
One thing me as strange about Claremont's departure is that he didn't immediately walk into the offices of DC comics and land one of their biggest titles. DC was invariably where most of Marvel's writers wound up. Certainly, where most of Claremont's contemporaries found work. I know that he eventually worked for them, but aside from not really knowing what he wanted to do post X-Men, he seemed caught up in the creator ownership hoopla. IIRC, he was listed as one of the founding members of Image Comics despite not writing anything for them, and his first big project post X-Men was his creator-owned series, Sovereign Seven. I never read the book, and I was out of comics by the time Claremont returned to the Marvel, but I was surprised that he didn't have a run on a flagship DC book.
I kind of mindlessly, half-heartedly, read X-Men for good four years after Claremont left, more out of habit than anything. I wonder if anyone has similar experiences with a different creator, even on a book you didn't read in real-time, so to speak. Or perhaps you have some opinions on what the X-Men would have looked like if Claremont had stuck around for a few more years. How long do you think he could have survived? Would the X-Men have been better, or would he have been relegated to a single book with little control over the big picture? Could Claremont have produced the Image-esque comics that were selling at the time, or was he too old-school and too esoteric? All things come to an end, but this one still bugs me a bit kind of like Buck Shelford being dropped from the All Blacks in 1990. A popular catch-cry at the time was "Bring Back Buck." For me, it could have been "Bring Back Chris," but I was one of the suckers who kept buying the books. Even if Marvel may or may not ever have received a dime from tiny, backward, six months behind New Zealand.