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By Jason Bourgeois
In a time long forgotten, shrouded in the distant past, a far away time known as 1992 came to pass, and an end of an era came with it. Chris Claremont, who had been on the Uncanny X-Men since the late 70s, was moving on. No more would Marvel's merry mutants be helmed by one man's singular vision. Now they would be run by committee, editors, and every writer working on the books. Some could say the X-Men have never quite been the same without Chris, and they would probably have a point.
There are many reasons why Claremont left, and why the X-Men became less about ideas and change, and more about keeping the status quo, but things like that aren't up for discussion this time out. Instead, we fast forward another 17 years, almost the same amount of time as Chris had spent on the original title, and he returns to the X-Men he left behind, sort of.
Aside from a brief blip in the early 2000s when Chris returned to Uncanny X-Men for a short lived period, and then went on to X-Treme X-Men, and then back to Uncanny, and yet again off to other titles of lesser and lesser importance, minimising his contributions as time went on and on, until he was really only doing titles that a small handful of hard core fans would even care about.
But then he once again was put back on the X-Men, but not the X-men we all know and love. No, Chris was still kept to his own little backwater of the Marvel universe, and put on the X-Men HE knew and loved. What do I mean by that? Well, Chris started off the second volume of X-Men comics, but he left after a mere three issues. His newest title was a revisit to that, in a very literal sense, as the book called X-Men Forever was all set to pick up from the end of X-Men volume 2 issue #3, 17 years after the fact.
The press said that this would basically be an elaborate What If/alternative world type series , where we would finally get to see how the X-Men universe would have gone if X-Men #4 had come out in 1992, with Chris Claremont still writing. For art, they tapped the modern classic penciller Tom Grummet for alternating stories, and various fill ins as needed, most notably reuniting Claremont with his one-time collaborator on the X-Men, Paul Smith.
While we were told that the book was supposed to pick up with the end of X-Men #3, that is increasingly proving to not be the case. There are characters around who simply were not in these situations, even before X-Men volume 2 even launched, situations and backstory ignored, some of which Chris even started himself, and other situations. The most notable exception that throws their statements off is Scott Summers' son, Nathan. He was sent off to the far future, infected with an incurable technovirus, destined to one day return as Cable. This occurred many months before Chris left, and was written by Claremont, but in recent issues, we see a young Nathan Summers, alive and well, whole and hearty.
Now, there's two possibilities here; one is that Claremont is ignoring everything editorially forced upon him or doesn't care, and is just writing HIS X-Men as he always wanted them to be, no matter what may have happened and that's just fine. It's just not what we were told was the case from the selling of these stories.
Alternatively, it could be a story point, and Something Bigger is Going On that will eventually be explained. Personally, I lean more towards the first option, and like I said, that's fine. These are Chris's characters, after a fashion, and it's fun to see them back to what he wants to do with them.
The claims that this is what Claremont would have done with the X-Men had he never left is also a little dubious, since there's a number of plot points that are direct plays, or even build off of, more recent history, and would not have been likely to have been in the cards 17 years ago. Which again is just fine. It's all internally consistent, for the most part And there's been a long time between then and now New ideas come to people, better ideas, refined ideas, and why hamstring himself with what he wrote down in the 90s, when he can tweak and adjust to be more from the Claremont of today?
The best part of the book is that since this is an all new, all different universe, branching off from the mainstream around the early 90s, Chris can ignore what he wants, and since there is no requirement to meet the status quo, he can do whatever he wants. The first issue ends with the death of Wolverine. That's an event that would never be done in the main universe's books, at least not be done and taken seriously. My favourite example of wild, random changes that I think is actually pretty cool, is the very recent change to Nightcrawler and Rogue, where he tries to revive an unconcious Rogue, and for some reason suddenly finds his body reverted to a normal human form, and apparently powerless. Also, he's not knocked unconscious. When Rogue wakes up however, she finds her body has been transformed into a female version of Nightcrawler's, and she has his teleporting ability.
In the mainstream Marvel Universe, this change would go away after a little while, like all her absorptions, and all would be well. But this time out, there is a very real possibility that this could be a permanent change for both versions of these iterations of the characters, and that possibility absolutely thrills me, and the other potential ideas that could alter things forever in this brave, new world. I could go on and on about everything that's different, but that gets the point across. When not even Wolverine is safe, anything can happen.
All that being said, this is a Chris Claremont comic, with all the ups and downs that entails. He is just as wordy, the prose is just as purple and flowery, and every complaint you've come to expect from a Claremont book is in here somewhere. Yet they feel somehow restrained and under control, for the most part. The other great thing is that while there have been a few clunker issues so far, that with the book coming out bi-weekly, those bad ideas are moved past so fast, and something new and different is in my lap almost immediately, and the bad can be forgotten.
If you're a hardcore Claremont fan, this is most recommended. X-Men Forever is easily some of his best work in the past few years. Grummet's art is rock solid, and while he's no Jim Lee, he's very good at what he does, and what he does is very pretty. If you're a little iffy on Claremont, or been burned by him recently, then this might be more of a pass, since it is very Claremont indeed. Still, it might be worth a quick look, since it's better Claremont than normal. Opinions on Claremont will definitely influence the enjoyment of this title, but it's worth a look either way, to decide for yourselves.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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