Marvel says X-Men legend Chris Claremont is not working on a main X-Men book again because he is X-Men legend Chris Claremont

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Although Chris Claremont didn’t create the X-Men, his work on the core comic book series (and its spinoffs) from 1975 to the present has shaped them for many fans – he created (or co-created) characters like Rogue, Psylocke, Kitty Pryde, Phoenix, Mystique, Emma Frost, and Jubilee, and wrote storylines like “Days of Future Past,” “Inferno,” “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” and more. Now, in 2024, Claremont has an exclusive contract with Marvel Comics and continues to write for the publisher’s X-Men line – but it’s been nearly 20 years since he wrote a series at the forefront of the franchise. Fans have wondered why, and for the first time, Marvel has explained it.

“Chris works in the X-Office, Dylan, and I expect he’ll write another X-Men story set in the present day at some point,” Marvel’s senior editor Tom Brevoort wrote on his Substack in response to a fan question. Brevoort said Claremont’s recent story in X-Men #35 (also known as Uncanny X-Men #700) was “pretty nice,” but says he doesn’t think it’s possible Claremont will take over one of the X-Men’s flagship titles. Since Brevoort is Marvel’s newly established senior X-Men editor, it probably won’t happen unless he sees it.

“…I don’t think I can ever imagine a world where he’s the focus of a show again,” Brevoort wrote. “And that’s really a reflection of how long Chris has been writing the show and how much time has passed.”

While that might disappoint some fans (and possibly Claremont), Brevoort is open about the friction point in this scenario – basically, Brevoort believes Claremont is too entrenched in the X-Men story because he created so much of the X-Men story. be intended direction of the characters and not what Marvel and other creators hired by Marvel considered in directing the characters.

“You see, Chris has lived with these characters in his head for 16 years, and so he has very strong ideas about who they are, what they would and wouldn’t do, and backstories that never made it to print,” says the editor. “But over the last 30 years, a lot of additional stories have been printed featuring them – most of which deviate more or less from Chris’ ‘head canon.'”

Brevoort uses Mr. Sinister as an example—a character Claremont originally conceived as the psychic projection of an 11-year-old child in a misguided power fantasy. Claremont’s version of Sinister’s backstory never made it to print, and Mr. Sinster has since been established in Marvel Comics continuity as an early 19th-century biologist who found a way to extend his life.

“So his version of Sinister is not that guy,” says Brevoort. “There’s a dissonance – it’s not anyone’s fault per se, but it exists and makes it difficult for Chris at times to work in fields that have now been tilled by others for just as long as he has.”

Perhaps the irony of the whole thing is that Claremont has publicly stated that the opposite is true. During his Spotlight Panel at C2E2 2022, he explained, “In my view, there’s so much that could be done (with the current Marvel comic universe) that would be interesting.” At the same convention, he told Popverse that while he’s happy to write miniseries set during his first X-Men series, “on one level, I look at it and think, hurray, I’m kind of back in the game. On the other level, I think, I’m not really, because I’m still trapped in my era.”

Join Popverse in our own little X-Mansion, where we discuss pretty much everything you need to know about the X-Men. Learn how Marvel’s powerful mutants are classified by power or why the Krakoan Age of comics is coming to an end. And when you’re done with that, keep up with the characters’ big screen appearances by checking out Popverse’s X-Men movie order.