'X-Men' Comics Writer Chris Claremont Blames Hollywood for the Title's Decline

"I guarantee you that if 10 years ago, when Marvel was approached by Disney, if the X-Men film rights were owned by Marvel Studios and not Fox the X-Men would probably still be the paramount book in the canon. The reason for the emphasis on the other titles is because Marvel / Disney control the ancillary film rights whereas all the film rights for the FF- the Fantastic Four – and the X-Men are controlled by Fox who has no interest in the comic books.

So I think the corporate publishing attitude is: “why would we go out of our way to promote a title that will benefit a rival corporation’s films when we could take that same energy and enthusiasm and focus and do it for our own properties?”

Hence the rise of the Inhumans as the new equivalent of the mutants. I could wish for something else but it ain’t my 5 billion dollars."

 

Nothing new

 

Personally I don't think X-Men SHOULD be the centerpiece of the Marvel Universe... but he might have a point.

 

Yeah, didn't he already say this about 4 or 5 years ago? He did. So did Liefeld (of all people) and a few others. I would have sworn this was an old article if it didn't have the date right at the top. This is news to no one.

Also, I agree with DPrime that X-Men shouldn't be the center of the MU. I can see why Claremont might feel a little hurt pride over what's happening to the franchise he personally -- and essentially single-handedly -- built up from nothing into the biggest American comics juggernaut since the early Silver Age (if not earlier). But X-Men worked better (imo) as a fringe, cult book than it does as practically an entire line unto itself.

 

Yeah, that's sort of what I was getting at. I LOVED the X-Men back in the day (still do, really, though I don't read comics regularly), but it never seemed right to me that they became sort of the upper tier characters (along with Spider-Man, who should ALWAYS be considered an top tier Marvel character) in the '90s.

DC has Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman; Marvel has its Captain America, Iron Man and Thor (and Spider-Man). That always seemed "right" to me, long before the glut of Marvel movies came along. Even in the '80s and '90s, when those books seemed boring to me, I still felt like they were the key characters in the Marvel Universe.

 

I agree with you guys. Love the X-Men but the Avengers should be Marvel's number 1 team. It just kind of fits.

 

When I was a kid Wolverine and the X-Men were always my favorite marvel characters. Guess most people think that way. Otherwise the comics and movies would not have been so successful. While I also liked hulk, cap and spidey, X-men were always the best. Especially when Wolverine centered. I think I read my first avengers comic in the early 2000s, while I read days of future past in the early 80s. It also helped shape my interest in dystopian future stories.

 

They were my favorite comics and team as a kid too.

I just see the Avengers being more of a flagship team. I don't know why.

 

Old, old news, but he's right. It's been more or less confirmed several times over.

Hopefully, they are finally getting over it, since we're getting a lot more X-Men merch these days, and the x-comics are apparently getting a mini-rebirth.

 

Tough titty, marvel got greedy and crashed the market. Selling off properties was a major factor in saving them, and they were lucky that no studios wanted the Avengers.

Disney just has to accept Fox will always have the xmen and learn to share. If they can work with Sony surely they can come to a long term agreement with fox.

 

Isn't that what they're doing now with the Fox run television stuff from Marvel? Playing nice.

 

All of this^.

Daddy Disney could have swooped in and saved the day way back when Marvel was initially having problems, but they didn't. Oh well. The Fox and Sony deals saved Marvel's ass.

That what seems to be happening, and hopefully they continue to play nice. Time will tell.

 

Inhumans are pretty much the new mutant breed to replace mutants these days.

 

Inhumans suck.

 

I didn't say they were at all a satisfactory replacement for mutants.

 

X-Men was my favorite as a kid, too. But the difference was that when it was one fringe book (or one fringe book plus New Mutants), there was a feeling that anything could happen and everything mattered, because it was kind of going under the radar of Marvel corporate. But when the X-Men became the lynchpin of Marvel's entire publishing empire, it started feeling like nothing mattered, because anything that happened would eventually be undone and reset to zero. Even moreso after Claremont got kicked off.

As for the Inhumans, the original characters are cool, the concept is cool, the Jenkins/Lee Marvel Knights mini was cool... but yeah, no way in hell can Marvel substitute the Inhumans concept for Mutants. They can't fill that "persecuted minority" role that X-Men has been doing for so long.

 

They aren't as cool as X-Men but I still like them. Black Bolt is pretty BA. And who doesn't love Lockjaw.

Honestly Marvel has very few characters I dislike.

 

Inhumans will never replace the X-Men period.....

Claremont should have been left the hell alone in the X universe in the first place. It's basically been an unmitigated cluster fuck since he left(the first time).

 

Morrison, Whedon, and Ellis have all shown you don't need Claremont around for outstanding X-Men runs to exist. I really loved a lot of what went on in "Ultimate X-Men," too.

Don't get me wrong, Claremont was great. But what you're saying is tantamount to saying only Furman could write a good Transformers comic without acknowledging that "TF: Re-Generation One" was kinda crap and there were PLENTY of great TF comics in Furman's absence.

 

No one is saying no one else can write a good X-Men comic. I'm saying it worked better as a book than as a franchise. Even Morrison treated it as a book rather than a franchise, ignoring anything going on outside of what he himself was writing. And Morrison was the first writer since Claremont to push the characters and concepts forward. He was the first (and so far, only) to frame the issues of race and persecution in modern terms rather than in the 1960s terms everyone before him continued to do.

And Whedon? His entire run was a love letter to Claremont's work. He could not have been more clear about that. He even mirrored some scenes.

Ellis? Eh.

Your Claremont/Furman analogy is pretty spot-on, though. Because every time Claremont came back, it was...not so hot. And there's little doubt in my mind that if Claremont comes back again, it will be a little bit even...less hot. I actually have more faith in Furman turning things back around and doing great work again than Claremont. Claremont is too much of a George Lucas...bought too much into his own hype with waaaaaay too much pride to listen to valid criticism...to the point of being defiant towards it. If someone dares point out something that no longer works in modern comics, instead of considering it, he doubles-down on whatever it is and essentially tells people to lump it.