Post by rberman on Sept 12, 2018 9:18:34 GMT -5
Lennon and McCartney. Gilbert and Sullivan. Simon and Garfunkel. The world of pop music gives us many examples of creative partnerships which produced strong work but were ultimately driven apart by competing creative visions and career goals. This general dynamic describes the partnership of Chris Claremont and John Byrne as well. They respectively scripted and penciled the definitive X-Men issues #108-143, with Byrne credited as co-plotter for most of that run.
“We were constantly trying to outdo each other,” Byrne would tell Entertainment Weekly in 2003. Each man had a reputation not just as a workhorse capable of turning out multiple books her month, but also as a lifelong comics nerd, well versed in the minutia of the Marvel Universe’s backstory and fanatical about preserving as much of a sense of continuity as possible.
Just to give one example: in Fantastic Four #278 (May 1985), John Byrne wrote a story in which Doctor Doom’s adopted son Kristoff blew up the iconic Baxter Building. Why did Byrne write this story? Not just to establish Kristoff as a serious threat. The height of the Baxter building had long been established as “thirty five stories tall.” This seemed impressive in the early 1960s, but by the mid-1980s, such a building would be lost amidst the new skyscrapers of Manhattan. This bugged Byrne, who felt that Baxter Building should be easily visible in skyline shots of all Marvel comics. Another writer would simply have ignored the “thirty five” and started saying at the Baxter Building was sixty or seventy stories tall. But Byrne wrote a story in which the building was destroyed and then rebuilt twice as tall. (He was also forced by Jim Shooter to rechristen the new building “Four Freedoms Plaza” after the Normal Rockwell paintings, but that’s another story.)
Their working relationship would not survive their mutual dedication to craft. When Byrne departed X-Men, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the question of whether Colossus would pull up tree stumps with a flippant air or as the result of great effort. As the scripter, Claremont got the literal last word on such matters. Byrne looked for an opportunity to be his own scripter, eventually landing on Fantastic Four. But in a universe of shared characters, this could not be the end of their creative interactions, so further friction still ensued. A few examples:
• In X-Men #146, Claremont and Cockrum depicted Arcade striking a match on Dr. Dooms’ armor. Doom ignores this bit of rudeness. Byrne felt Doom would have reacted violently, so in Fantastic Four #258, Byrne wrote that this minor indignity was actually suffered by a Doombot whom the real Dr. Doom destroyed for being a bad simulacrum. This established a “doombot did it” defense that could be used anytime in the future that Dr. Doom’s actions needed retconning.
• In X-Men #167, Lilandra learns that (in Fantastic Four #243-4) Reed Richards has helped Galactus to survive, despite his habit of eating inhabited planets. I suspect that Lilandra was speaking Claremont’s mind when she appeared holographically to Reed Richards, telling him that she would hold him responsible for the next genocide committed by Galactus. Byrne was irate that FF-associated characters had been used in this way by Claremont without clearing it with him and his editor. Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter told him to see it as a story opportunity. Byrne took Shooter up on the challenge in two ways. First, he wrote a story (FF #261-2) in which Lilandra puts Reed on trial after Galactus eats the Skrull homeworld. A galactic tribunal declines to punish him. Reed’s defense was, “Galactus does such terrible things that some greater order of the universe must surely have a higher plan to use him for an even greater good somehow.” OK, but what greater good would that be? Byrne concocted “The Last Galactus Story,” which was published serially beginning in Epic Illustrated #26, but Epic Illustrated was cancelled before the finale of the story could be told, and it’s never been told since. The upshot was that Galactus outlasts the lives of all the stars in the entire universe and then explodes, beginning a new universe, with his herald becoming that universe’s Galactus to keep the cycle going.
• Bob Layton and Jackson Guice were orchestrating the launch of X-Factor (finally published in Feb 1986) with Alison Blaire as the “babe” on the team since Jean Grey was dead. But Kurt Busiek had been talking about his idea for the Phoenix Force to hide Jean Grey’s real body at the bottom of Jamaica Bay and then assume Jean’s identity. Byrne wrote this into Fantastic Four #286, depicting the Phoenix as a hostile force given compassion by an act of Jean’s will. (See black and white pages below.) Claremont was allowed to re-write these pages with the Phoenix depicted as a friendly force coming to Jean’s aid instead. Jackson Guice drew the new pages (see color below) in imitation of Byrne’s style, and Byrne asked that his name be taken off the masthead for this issue since it did not represent his vision any more.
• In the “Acts of Vengeance” crossover event which originated in Byrne’s Avengers run in 1989, Marvel heroes faced villains usually associated with different heroes. Claremont caused his team Excalibur to travel to a silly dimension where mashups of various heroes fought each other, with Byrne (wearing an Avengers “A” on his chest) and Claremont (wearing an X-Men “X”) presiding over the madness and trying to outdo each other like a couple of kindergarteners.
All of this sets the stage for the Fantastic Four versus X-Men miniseries that I talk about in this thread here.
“We were constantly trying to outdo each other,” Byrne would tell Entertainment Weekly in 2003. Each man had a reputation not just as a workhorse capable of turning out multiple books her month, but also as a lifelong comics nerd, well versed in the minutia of the Marvel Universe’s backstory and fanatical about preserving as much of a sense of continuity as possible.
Just to give one example: in Fantastic Four #278 (May 1985), John Byrne wrote a story in which Doctor Doom’s adopted son Kristoff blew up the iconic Baxter Building. Why did Byrne write this story? Not just to establish Kristoff as a serious threat. The height of the Baxter building had long been established as “thirty five stories tall.” This seemed impressive in the early 1960s, but by the mid-1980s, such a building would be lost amidst the new skyscrapers of Manhattan. This bugged Byrne, who felt that Baxter Building should be easily visible in skyline shots of all Marvel comics. Another writer would simply have ignored the “thirty five” and started saying at the Baxter Building was sixty or seventy stories tall. But Byrne wrote a story in which the building was destroyed and then rebuilt twice as tall. (He was also forced by Jim Shooter to rechristen the new building “Four Freedoms Plaza” after the Normal Rockwell paintings, but that’s another story.)
Their working relationship would not survive their mutual dedication to craft. When Byrne departed X-Men, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the question of whether Colossus would pull up tree stumps with a flippant air or as the result of great effort. As the scripter, Claremont got the literal last word on such matters. Byrne looked for an opportunity to be his own scripter, eventually landing on Fantastic Four. But in a universe of shared characters, this could not be the end of their creative interactions, so further friction still ensued. A few examples:
• In X-Men #146, Claremont and Cockrum depicted Arcade striking a match on Dr. Dooms’ armor. Doom ignores this bit of rudeness. Byrne felt Doom would have reacted violently, so in Fantastic Four #258, Byrne wrote that this minor indignity was actually suffered by a Doombot whom the real Dr. Doom destroyed for being a bad simulacrum. This established a “doombot did it” defense that could be used anytime in the future that Dr. Doom’s actions needed retconning.
• In X-Men #167, Lilandra learns that (in Fantastic Four #243-4) Reed Richards has helped Galactus to survive, despite his habit of eating inhabited planets. I suspect that Lilandra was speaking Claremont’s mind when she appeared holographically to Reed Richards, telling him that she would hold him responsible for the next genocide committed by Galactus. Byrne was irate that FF-associated characters had been used in this way by Claremont without clearing it with him and his editor. Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter told him to see it as a story opportunity. Byrne took Shooter up on the challenge in two ways. First, he wrote a story (FF #261-2) in which Lilandra puts Reed on trial after Galactus eats the Skrull homeworld. A galactic tribunal declines to punish him. Reed’s defense was, “Galactus does such terrible things that some greater order of the universe must surely have a higher plan to use him for an even greater good somehow.” OK, but what greater good would that be? Byrne concocted “The Last Galactus Story,” which was published serially beginning in Epic Illustrated #26, but Epic Illustrated was cancelled before the finale of the story could be told, and it’s never been told since. The upshot was that Galactus outlasts the lives of all the stars in the entire universe and then explodes, beginning a new universe, with his herald becoming that universe’s Galactus to keep the cycle going.
• Bob Layton and Jackson Guice were orchestrating the launch of X-Factor (finally published in Feb 1986) with Alison Blaire as the “babe” on the team since Jean Grey was dead. But Kurt Busiek had been talking about his idea for the Phoenix Force to hide Jean Grey’s real body at the bottom of Jamaica Bay and then assume Jean’s identity. Byrne wrote this into Fantastic Four #286, depicting the Phoenix as a hostile force given compassion by an act of Jean’s will. (See black and white pages below.) Claremont was allowed to re-write these pages with the Phoenix depicted as a friendly force coming to Jean’s aid instead. Jackson Guice drew the new pages (see color below) in imitation of Byrne’s style, and Byrne asked that his name be taken off the masthead for this issue since it did not represent his vision any more.
• In the “Acts of Vengeance” crossover event which originated in Byrne’s Avengers run in 1989, Marvel heroes faced villains usually associated with different heroes. Claremont caused his team Excalibur to travel to a silly dimension where mashups of various heroes fought each other, with Byrne (wearing an Avengers “A” on his chest) and Claremont (wearing an X-Men “X”) presiding over the madness and trying to outdo each other like a couple of kindergarteners.
All of this sets the stage for the Fantastic Four versus X-Men miniseries that I talk about in this thread here.
