Chris Claremont
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Chris Claremont (November 30, 1950- ) is a comic book writer, best known for his 16-year (1976-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties. Claremont's soap opera approach to the ensemble cast of X-Men set the standard for team-based comic books for decades. Claremont also promotes strong female characters.
He was born in London, England, United Kingdom.
As an entry into comic writing Claremont was given the fledgling title, Iron Fist in 1974 that also teamed him with John Byrne for the first time. Len Wein then gave him the writing duties for the relaunched X-Men. Claremont also found narrative excuses to sideline Professor X, as one of the problems with the original X-Men series was that the Professor would appear at the end of the story to magically correct the situation no matter how dire.
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During his years as X-Men writer, Claremont wrote or co-wrote many classic X-Men stories such as "the Phoenix Saga", "Dark Phoenix Saga", and "Days of Future Past". He also co-created numerous important X-Men characters, including Rogue, Shadowcat, Phoenix, Sabretooth, Mystique, Emma Frost, Rachel Summers, Dazzler, Mister Sinister and Captain Britain. He also helped launch best-selling spin-offs such as New Mutants, Excalibur, and Wolverine. In 1991, however, he left Marvel over differences with the editorial staff. In 1985 Marvel launched an X-Men spin-off X Factor that confused the Phoenix/Rachel Summers continuity that Claremont had established. Also Claremont was upset when Jim Shooter used Magneto as a conventional villain in the Secret Wars even though Claremont had been slowly rehabilitating the character.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Alien vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
In 2000 he returned to Marvel (as part of the company's "Revolution" event) and wrote Uncanny X-Men and X-Men until he moved to X-Treme X-Men with penciller Salvador Larroca.
As of 2004, he is again writing Uncanny X-Men as well as Excalibur for Marvel Comics.
The most common criticism of his work is his overly descriptive writing style. Claremont's characters tend to speak in long paragraphs that are often called forced or unrealistic. He frequently employs omniscient narration to describe events that can easily be conveyed in the art and uneeded thought bubbles to spell out character motivation and personality, especially during action scenes.
External links
- Bibiliographic Summary (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Chris_Claremont)
- Chris Claremont Checklist-a fan site devoted to Chris Claremont's published works. (http://www.chrisclaremontchecklist.net/)
- Cordially Chris (http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=25)it:Chris Claremont