Chris Claremont's X-Men is about Chris Claremont's run on one of Marvel's greatest franchises, and how it wasn't one of Marvel's greatest franchises until he was given the book, and did amazing things with it. The documentary looks at his rise at a young age in Marvel, how he was kind of given X-Men because it wasn't doing well, his work with John Byrne, Louise Simonson, and Ann Nocenti that gave us so many classic X-Men storylines, and then Marvel's push to make more money, saturation in the market, and the rise of youngsters like Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld that led to Claremont's exit. Overall, the legacy he left is massive, and comics wouldn't be the same without him.
This was a fantastic documentary, but my biggest complaint--and one that Freddie Young at Full Moon Reviews shared when he was on podcast episode 189 with me--is that it could've been longer! You can probably count on one hand how many times I've wanted a movie to be longer, but at 71 minutes this film could've used another 20 minutes of background. What it gives you though is the genesis of how the modern X-Men came to be, and how it cemented itself with Spider-Man as the number one properties Marvel had in the 80s going into the 90s. One area that they didn't get into was the post Claremont period, especially in the 2010s when Disney bought Marvel, but Fox still had the rights to the X-Men, so Disney had Marvel diminish the X-Men in the comics in favor of the Avengers so younger audiences would be less inclined to see the X-Men movies. Because this came out in 2018, it couldn't have foreseen the Disney purchase of Fox and how that dynamic may be changing now, but I think Disney trying to diminish his legacy was an important element they left out. They also left out, as far as I remember, that Claremont came back to Marvel to work on new X books. Beyond that though, this is what you want from a movie like this, especially if you grew up reading the X-Men comics like I did.
I started collecting comics in earnest around the time Claremont was being forced out by Marvel's heads, which is something I had no idea about, but I knew the name Chris Claremont. All the back issues, all the great storylines he conceived, like Dark Phoenix and Days of Future Past, and all the great characters he had a part in creating, or like Wolverine, developed after they were created by someone else. X-Men as a property wouldn't have been worth Fox buying the rights to in the first place if it wasn't for Claremont's work, and even with Disney trying to diminish it, after a lackluster 2023, it's now those same X-Men characters that they're hoping will help right the ship. Another way to think of it though, the fact that the MCU was able to be as successful as it had been without the X-Men, and without Spider-Man to start, is a testament to their ingenuity, but also testament to the legacy and shadow cast by Claremont; but also I think too, the fact that the Fox adaptations of his stories and characters wasn't as successful shows that you can't just recreate someone else's work. I saw he did get a thank you credit for 2019's Dark Phoenix, but I wonder if he couldn't help the other Fox productions because he was under contract with Marvel? Another area this film missed.
What they didn't miss was Claremont's focus on female characters. He said in the film that when he created a character, he asked himself "could this character be a woman?" The volume of female characters he created was immense, and really filled a gap in Marvel's universe, one that was really apparent when the MCU started and we didn't get a female-helmed film until Captain Marvel. The thing is though, with Fox having the rights to Storm, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, etc., it wasn't like they were jumping to make any female-helmed films either. It was a massive missed opportunity I think, but now that Disney and Marvel Studios no longer have the excuse that a lot of their best female characters are with Fox, let's see what they put together in the coming years. The other legacy of Claremont's work, is the large amount of young women who grew up comic book fans. Hopefully Marvel Studios will lean into that legacy more.
In my review on the Image Revolution documentary, I talked about how much I loved Jim Lee and Rob Liefield in the early 90s, but this film paints a different picture of their role. A big part of it was the higher-ups were more interested in making the X-Men property bigger than just The Uncanny X-Men, but with each new book, Claremont was spread that much thinner, until it was all taken away from him and split up. Would the bubble have burst if the Marvel execs hadn't been so keen on maximizing dollars? Sure, I wouldn't have had that iconic X-Men #1 five cover set, and maybe we don't get Deadpool or Cable from Liefeld, but the two of them left to form Image anyway, which hastened the bursting of the bubble that we eventually got. If instead of four Spider-Man books, and five or six X books, we had one of each that we as fans could focus on--and only one cover of each issue, and not an overly expensive milestone issue--maybe us kids would've stuck with it. We have this idea that businessmen, especially billionaires, are really good at business, but more often than not, they're just really rich from generational wealth, and just want to make as much money as possible on one thing, then move onto the next, not worrying about who might be left in the wake. Someone running Marvel properly in the early 90s might've handled that all differently, and maybe we don't get the bubble burst.
Finally, mixed in with the images of comic book panels and people giving interviews, the movie had cosplayers dressed as some of the most well-known X-Men. Cosplaying is an art I've always appreciated, to just take characters and make them your own like that is great. It's like visual fan fic, or like me in my novels, where I create my own ideas inspired by other things I've seen and heard. In Philly it's particularly interesting, because the convention center is located across the street from the Trader Joe's where I often go on Saturdays to get some groceries. It's common when we have cosplay conventions for people to pop in to get stuff while in their full outfit. And it makes sense too, because I know for me, wherever I travel, if there's a Trader Joe's, I can get stuff cheap--for example, if you're ever in San Francisco, that Trader Joe's and Target are both Godsends compared to how expensive the rest of the city is. And Philly's no different. If you're here for a cosplay convention, and you need a cheap snack and a drink, you're much better off hitting the Trader Joe's, than overspending at Reading Terminal Market. As an aside, if you're in Philly and want to get a cheesesteak, don't get it from the Market, they're all mediocre at best. Let me know if you're in town, and I'll point you to the best spots.
And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can get this on Tubi, Prime, and other major streamers. If you're a comic book fan, this is a must, but I also think for non-comic fans, to see the origin of some of these stories and to get a better sense of how the business worked in the 70s and 80s, it is really interesting.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7929156
And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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