|
|
Post by impulse on Jul 22, 2022 13:35:03 GMT -5
I never saw a problem with Claremont's writing. About 2 years ago, I re-read issues 94-143 of UXM for the first time since I initially read them in the 80's. While I didn't enjoy them as much the second time around, I didn't think his dialog was as bad as many make it out to be. To me, it seems to be a bandwagon people have jumped on. Just my opinion. It was always a bit unwieldy and overwrought IMO, but in his heyday the overall writing was strong enough that it worked well enough. For me, it was his later writings where it started to really stick out, especially where he tried to write a younger character and infuse (what I am sure he thought was) contemporary slang and lingo of the day. It was just cringe-inducing. But mine is just one opinion. |
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 22, 2022 21:44:32 GMT -5
I've been reading the Wolverine Epic, and I think some of it isn't his fault... Marvel at the time WANTED the writer to remind you about the characters powers every issue.
|
|
|
|
Post by spoon on Jul 23, 2022 1:39:06 GMT -5
I definitely like the Alan Davis written part a lot better than Claremont's. Claremont had some very obvious tics that could get annoying, but also he had no real grasp on the characters of Captain Britain (who was written as arrogant and incompetent, so that Nightcrawler could take center stage as a leader. In addition to his dialogue tics, this is also unfortunately a common habit of his; bringing his pet character(s) to a new book and ignoring previous characterization of the ones who were already there. I can't say whether he is intentionally doing so to boost his pets at their expense or whether he just can't be arsed to try to be consistent with other writers' work, but I went from being a fan of his primary X-MEN run to dreading hearing he was taking over a book I liked. I haven't read anything of his in a while, but the last thing of his I remember reading where this happened, the results were cringeworthy and disappointing to say the least. In fact, that was New Excalibur, ha. How fitting. Claremont was the original writer on Captain Britain. Not just the original writer when Captain Britain made his first US appearance, but his first appearance in Marvel UK. Maybe folks who have read Captain Britain more broadly are thinking of specific stories that portrayed him in a more favorable light, but recollection of the Alan Moore stories I've read is that Captain Britain was sort of a punching bag. It was almost as if it was a critique rather than a celebration of British national symbolism. I think the Kurt/Meggan/Brian love triangle was one of the more interesting things Claremont did on Excalibur, and I thought it was a shame Davis squelched it. I hate Claremont boosting his pets at the expense of other character (just look at my rant about Wolverine stabbing Rachel in this thread), but I feel like his treatment of Nightcrawler in Excalibur was a very different situation from his Wolverine and Storm obsession. |
|
|
|
Post by spoon on Jul 23, 2022 1:46:57 GMT -5
I never saw a problem with Claremont's writing. About 2 years ago, I re-read issues 94-143 of UXM for the first time since I initially read them in the 80's. While I didn't enjoy them as much the second time around, I didn't think his dialog was as bad as many make it out to be. To me, it seems to be a bandwagon people have jumped on. Just my opinion. Yeah, over the past couple years I've re-read two of portions of Claremont's runs I was enthusiastic about. One was Dissolution & RebiArth/The Shattered Star (which I actually like a lot of, but I found the fill-in issues in the 260s and a couple of Silvestri's issues to be among my least favorites). The other was Cockrum's second run. I was surprised that enjoyed them much more as I binged through. |
|
|
|
Post by badwolf on Jul 23, 2022 17:48:28 GMT -5
I've been reading the Wolverine Epic, and I think some of it isn't his fault... Marvel at the time WANTED the writer to remind you about the characters powers every issue. Yes, and it wasn't a bad philosophy when the only thing we could do was wait a month for each part (thinking of story recaps here) and new readers couldn't just look something up on the internets. Just like we had to be reminded that Alicia Masters was blind in every issue of FF she was in. It reads funny in collected editions now.
I really enjoyed Claremont's return to X-Men with Alan Davis and Chris Bachalo. I feel like his old quirks had diminished by then... of course he himself was much older, and in general styles had changed. |
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 8, 2022 11:46:34 GMT -5
I definitely like the Alan Davis written part a lot better than Claremont's. Claremont had some very obvious tics that could get annoying, but also he had no real grasp on the characters of Captain Britain (who was written as arrogant and incompetent, so that Nightcrawler could take center stage as a leader. Now NIghtcrawler might be my favourite Marvel character, so this was absolutely unnecessary) and Meggan (who was written as naieve and dumb, while in the Captain Britain comics she lacked education (due to her isolation as a child), but wasn't stupid.) It was clear that Claremont had read the Moore and Delano Captain Britain stories and really liked them, because he kept wanting to bring back Fury and Mad Jim Jaspers, but couldn't. So we got Nimrod and Jamie Braddock's sudden mutant powers instead. Also turning Courtney Ross in a version of Saturnyne was weird and then immediately killing her off was even weirder. Neither Claremont's or Davis' Saturnyne (or for that matter anybody else who ever wrote the character since) ever got close to the character as written by Moore though.
I knew Captain Britain from the original run (at least a handful of issues), but was well familiar with the Moore/Davis run before Excalibur started.
I hated the Americannes of the lineup (if they needed a teenage girl, someone furry, and a telepath, Wolfbane and Psylocke were right there) (I know Nightcrawler was technically German, but by that point a naturalised American). Also, I felt like Claremont was deliberately taking Moore's ideas and simply reiterating them (or … stealing them, knowing most American readers would be unfamiliar) but in a way that completely took all the inherent interest from them. I hated the comic with a passion and, given the sarcasm I'd heard Claremont express towards Moore's writing in the past, made me feel as if it was deliberate sabotage.
|
|
|
|
Post by SJNeal on Aug 8, 2022 15:10:23 GMT -5
Probably (definitely?) in the minority here, but I'll take the last ~40 issues of the series over anything that came before. I loved both Ellis and Raab's runs; maybe because they were obvious attempts to make the book "matter" and took a more serious turn.
I also loved Ken Lashley's art, but he was paired with Lobdell, who really phoned it in during his time on the title.
|
|
|
|
Post by k7p5v on Dec 26, 2022 2:50:28 GMT -5
Gotta agree with the majority: When Alan Davis is involved, the title becomes highly recommended (IMHO):  |
|
