Trivia / X-Men (Chris Claremont)

• Creator's Favorite: Due to the Marvel house style of writing in the Silver Age (writer creates an overall plot that is then handed to the artist in order to shape the events of the story, with the writer coming back in to match dialog to action) different artists’ favorite characters would get a spotlight in the art, and subsequently the story.
  • Dave Cockrum (the artist of Giant-Size X-Men #1 and several key early issues) had created Nightcrawler for a Legion of Super-Heroes pitch and recycled him for X-Men. Any time Cockrum served as artist it’s more likely than not that Nightcrawler takes center stage, especially in stories like the X-Men’s fight with Juggernaut and Black Tom Cassidy in Ireland and the later issues where they fight Dr. Doom.
  • John Byrne the artist on The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past) had a definite affinity for Wolverine leading to Logan getting a great deal of attention during his run. It could be argued that this was one of the primary reasons for Wolverine exploding in popularity and becoming the poster boy for Wolverine Publicity, as Byrne’s highlighting of him during some of the most iconic X-Men runs placed him at the forefront of readers’ minds.
  • This isn’t to say that writers didn’t have their favorites either. Claremont clearly favored Storm, making her the object of affection for iconic villains like Doctor Doom and Dracula, elevating her to team leader status — defeating Cyclops in a one-on-one fight after she had been stripped of her powers — and ensuring her place as the heart-and-soul of the X-Men for decades to come.
• Stock Shout-Out:
  • Giant-Size X-Men #1 featuring the new team bursting through the cover is practically a lock to be referenced by any "new team" in X-Men or any other superhero comic.
  • X-Men #137 (the finale of The Dark Phoenix Saga) featuring Scott and Jean desperately battling on the Moon is also quite popular.
  • X-Men #138 (the aftermath of The Dark Phoenix Saga) featuring Scott leaving the X-Men with a bag over his shoulder is used — much like The Amazing Spider-Man #50 — whenever a writer needs to show a member leaving the team.
  • Uncanny X-Men #141 (part one of Days of Future Past) featuring Logan and Kate Pryde standing in front of a wall of mutant mugshots featuring the words "slain" or "captured" has been referenced so many times it's practically its own genre of comic book covers.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Banshee was created by Roy Thomas and first appeared in issue #28 (January, 1967). But Thomas had a few different ideas for the character, that Stan Lee rejected. One of them was for him to serve as a new member to the team. "For some reason, I kept having these ideas for mutants from other countries but Stan (Lee) wouldn't let me add a sixth X-Man at that time". The character was conceived as a woman, "but Stan felt it wouldn't look good for five X-Men to be fighting a supervillainess." Thomas considered making him a Leprechaun. "I think I must have wanted to create an adult, leprechaunish character". In the end the character ended up not being supernatural, but still got some Leprechaun features. Specifically leprechaun-looking Pointy Ears and pug nose.
  • Roy Thomas was one of the creators that came up with the idea of the X-Men as a team of international heroes. But he did not picture them as being still based in Xavier's Westchester mansion. "I had the idea that Cyclops and one or two others- I'd probably have gone for Marvel Girl, myself - would have a ship that would float around from one country to another, hidden by clouds. It could cross borders without having to go through customs." ... "Sort of a Noah's Ark thing, that would fly around with a portable cloud around it. It would hover over various countries in search of different X-Men and that would get them into adventures. However, I obviously expected to get up to about four, five, or six characters that would be pretty regular and then, of course, you bring others in, you take them out." "I was thinking of the international flavour of a team like the Blackhawks, who came from six or seven different countries. I think I mentioned that to Dave Cockrum and Mike Friedrich, who were supposed to be the original artist-writer team."
  • Dave Cockrum had a different idea for the base of the international team. "I think they would be based on the island that Magneto used to have that was invisible to tracking devices and radar and which you couldn't see. Magneto had it in a Sub-Mariner crossover (in X-Men #6) and we had talked about the possibility of the X-Men appropriating that island and operating out of there."
  • The countries of origin for the new international X-Men were supposed to be determined based on where Marvel Comics reprints sold well. Something to attract international readership, as envisioned by Al Landau, Marvel Entertainment Group's president. According to Roy Thomas: "Al suggested Marvel do a group of foreign superheroes... characters from countries in which Marvel sold a lot of comics. Stan [Lee] and I liked the idea. Al Landau had his own company called Transworld, which at that time was reselling Marvel's work overseas by the page. He knew that if we, for example, had big markets in three or four countries and we had a team that had three or four characters in it, one from each country, we'd have a terrific hit on our hands overseas." The idea never materialized. According to Thomas, "They completely lost sight of the idea of selling the book in a lot of different countries. I don't know why Al Landau let that whole part of the idea be ignored, but at least it was there long enough to have been an impetus to get the new concept going, and then somehow everybody lost the road map. I'm sure I mentioned that to Mike [Friedrich] or Dave [Cockrum] originally, but somehow or other, by the time Len [Wein] was writing the book, the whole idea of having the new heroes be from countries where Marvel sold a lot of comics got lost." According to Dave Cockrum: "The principal idea was that if we had all of these foreign characters, we could export the books to their respective countries. Then we went and picked a bunch of nationalities whose countries weren't likely to take the books to market, places like Russia and Africa."
  • Dave Cockrum conceived Nightcrawler before being employed by Marvel, during his service in the United States Navy. The character concept came to him while he was stationed in Guam. And Nightcrawler was supposed to be an actual Demon from Hell. "There was a terrible storm going on overhead, we had no lights, it was noisy and loud and raining like hell with thunder and lightning. To keep ourselves occupied and keeping ourselves from being scared to death, we sat around making up characters. We made up this duo, a guy I called the Intruder (a cross between the Punisher and Batman, with a chrome skull and black jumpsuit) and his demon sidekick, Nightcrawler. The original concept was a lot different in that Nightcrawler would howl at the moon, run up the sides of buildings and do all kinds of weird shit. He really was a demon who had screwed up on a mission from hell and, rather than go back and face punishment, he hung around up here with this do-gooder.“
  • Nightcrawler almost became a DC Comics Character. Dave Cockrum tried to sell him as a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. When that did not work out, Cockrum worked on the idea of a spin-off of the Legion that would be called "The Outsiders" and would include Nightcrawler. The editor considered the character too funny looking and rejected him.
  • Plans for Colossus by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum were for him to serve as The Leader of the international X-Men. He seems to be in charge of the team on the cover of Giant Size X-Men #1. These plans never materialized and Chris Claremont took the character to a different direction.
  • Dave Cockrum's original costume idea for Thunderbird was entirely different. The costume included a helmet with a Domino Mask to cover the eyes, a blue shirt with yellow lines and a bird-shaped mark at the upper chest area, red gloves with yellow trimmings, red pants, and blue shoes. It was rejected because it made the character look more like a United States Air Force pilot than a Native American.
  • One of Dave Cockrum's character concepts for the international team of X-Men was never used. The character would be bat-winged and codenamed Vampyre. "It would be interesting to include a bat-winged character. I never addressed the question of whether he was actually a vampire or not, but I'd imagine that either he wasn't or that Prof. X had come up with some sort of serum which allowed him to control blood-urges. But the others involved in restarting the new X-Men - Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Chris Claremont and a couple of others of editorial staff who were kibitzing - felt that Vampyre and Nightcrawler were visually similar types and if it came to a crunch, personally I preferred Nightcrawler. Thus are characters left 'on the cutting room floor'.“
  • Len Wein figured that Banshee was a bit too old and had to be de-aged. Specifically to make him younger than Professor X. "I acknowledged that he was probably in his late 30s or so, but I had Dave Cockrum draw him so he looked younger - tried to fudge it as best I could to make him seem about 29. He was the old one of the group. I only put him in there because I happen to love writing an Irish accent, so it was as simple as that." ... "I thought that to make Professor X an effective mentor, you wanted that mentor to be older than everybody else. I wanted a guy who was a father figure. When you have other characters who are as old as that character, you undercut that aspect of the mentor. So there had to be a considerable age difference between Professor X and the rest of the X-Men."
  • Len Wein did not like the original looks of Banshee and instructed Dave Cockrum to change them. In his words, they "changed him from a caricature Irishman into a nice-looking man." If not for that, Banshee would come off as an offensive stereotype.
  • The series had spent the years from 1970 to 1975 only featuring reprints. Then, it started featuring new material again, but the original plan was for it to keep being a mere reprint series. According to Dave Cockrum, all new adventures of the X-Men were intended for the Giant Size X-Men series. Which, had this idea worked out, would continue indefinitely.
  • The line up in issue #94 (August, 1975) changed from including 14 X-Men (Angel, Banshee, Colossus, Cyclops, Havok, Iceman, Lorna Dane, Marvel Girl, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Storm, Sunfire, Thunderbird, and Wolverine) to only 8 (Banshee, Colossus, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Storm, Thunderbird, and Wolverine). The original plan was for only 6 X-Men to remain. Len Wein and Dave Cockrum (who contributed to the plot) had intended that among the new recruits Banshee, Sunfire, and Thunderbird would leave. Then the various people involved in the plotting reconsidered. They all found Thunderbird too interesting to lose, and Dave Cockrum liked Banshee. So these two were kept. Nobody liked Sunfire, so he left.
  • Thunderbird was killed in issue #95 (October, 1975), only his third appearance. This was not originally the plan, the creators simply had no idea what else to do with the character. According to Dave Cockrum: "We kept Thunderbird. But then we didn't know what to do with Thunderbird because we never thought him out. It was easier to kill him off than to think him out."
  • The story in issues #94-95 (August-October, 1975) has the X-Men face Count Nefaria. It was not originally intended for these issues. Instead both parts would appear in Giant Size X-Men #2. When that issue was eventually published in December, 1975, it only included reprints.
  • Len Wein was intended to be the main writer of the book in the 1975, but chose to focus on writing for The Incredible Hulk. He had his own plans for the X-Men. "I was going to bring characters in and out of the book, to keep you on your toes. Professor X was going to erase knowledge of the X-Men from the rest of the world, any record of Colossus and Nightcrawler. The people in charge of those records would wander into the room one day and put them in the paper shredder and burn away the files and never notice they weren't there anymore. I was going to have Professor X solve the problems of this international group by eliminating evidence. And then eventually someone was going to stumble over something and go. There was going to be a big conflict. He'd erased the evidence of their existence from the rest of the world, and other people would discover that these characters had been elsewhere first."
  • Issue #101 (October, 1976) introduced Cassidy Keep, Banshee's ancestral castle. Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum briefly considered making it another headquarters for the X-Men. According to Cockrum: "We talked about having his castle be kind of X-Men East".
  • Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum considered having Banshee depart the team around issue #104 (April, 1977). But Cockrum found himself too fond of the character to go ahead with the plan. "I suddenly realized I was doing a panel here and the only normal face in the whole group was Banshee, and it was such a relief to have a normal face to draw that, on the basis of that, I suggested we keep him and not get rid of him after all".
  • Banshee was Put on a Bus in issue #129 (January, 1980), having lost his powers and deciding to stay in Scotland. According to John Byrne there were reasons for this decision. But it was not the original plan to make his absence lengthy — Byrne said he and Chris Claremont kind of forgot about him. "Banshee, I always thought, didn't really belong which is why I did what I could to get rid of him and finally succeeded in getting rid of him. He was the older, wiser head who was unnecessary because there was Xavier. His power was a long-distance zap, which is unnecessary because of Cyclops. His costume lost any outstanding points it had as soon as we had Phoenix, because he was the redhead with the green-and-yellow costume. So I liked Banshee a lot in terms of his personality but I could never really think of him as belonging in the group and I remember after we wrote him out with X-Men #129 (1980) - the issue that introduced Kitty Pryde - some five or six issues later, I realized he hadn't been in the book for five or six issues and that I hadn't missed him."
  • A storyline in Spider-Woman #37-38 (April-June, 1981) introduced Siryn, Banshee's daughter. The new character was introduced to her father in issue #148 (August, 1981). Chris Claremont intended for her to move to Ireland, but he never got around to mention it in a story. "Siryn will stay in Ireland. What I plan to do is have a core group of X-Men and then have a number of characters on the periphery - Polaris, Banshee, Beast, etcetera - who can come in. It will be a Mission: Impossible format: As the story requires, we will use what members we need, and run it like that."
    • His idea about a team of reserve X-Men materialized in issues #145 (May-June, 1981). Reservists Banshee, Havok, Iceman, and Polaris were called in for a rescue mission, while the main team was otherwise preoccupied. However this idea was only used once.
  • Chris Claremont had ideas about Banshee's powers that were never used. "(A) thing that always bothered me about Banshee was that I was never able to exploit his powers to the fullest extent, in the same way I did with Siryn. All he could do was scream, and the scream would burn through things, or cut through things, and he could stun people, and he could fly and that was it. I was thinking, first of all, you could use the sound as a hypnotic agent, you could use the sound to affect the chemical balance of the brain, you could use ultra-low frequency sound for disintegration or stunning. You could create sonic holograms, or use ultra-high frequency to transmit messages. The potential is limitless, but because Banshee is an established character with established powers, to change any of that would have given him "new powers", and that was considered verboten."
  • Chris Claremont intended for Siryn to restore the lost powers of Banshee and somehow upgrade them. That never happened. "So my way around it [Banshee's limitations] is to take them [his powers] all away (in X-Men #119, 1979), and my plan is then, through Siryn we give him back his powers. The rough idea I have now is that she uses her own abilities to knit his vocal chords back together by sonic surgery - he will then have these enhanced abilities that his daughter has."
  • During this tenure writing the series, Chris Claremont took the "School for the Gifted" motto for Xavier's mansion literally, and wanted to have an evolving cast where eventually, members would "retire" from the team permanently. The first character he would attempt this with was Cyclops, where his defeat by Storm for leadership of the team and marriage to Madelyne Pryor was meant to be the "organic" way of removing Cyclops from the team. Marvel editorial did not care for that idea.