Welcome to the X-Men
Chapter 1
Surviving the Experience (Chris Claremont and the X-Men)
Welcome to the X-Men
There are worse ways to track the evolution of Marvel than focusing on the transformation of the X-Men from poor-selling cult favorite in the 1960s to bestseller in the 1970s, unstoppable franchise in the 1980s and 1990s, to the subject of a creative rebirth in the 2000s, victim of inter-corporate fighting in the mid-2010s, and yet another renaissance led by Jonathan Hickman in 2019. [1] Writing about Marvel in the 1980s without discussing the X-Men would be like writing about 1960s popular music while ignoring the Beatles. No doubt it's possible, but what would be the point?
The X-Men during this decade offer a wealth of material to examine, as well as a number of useful lenses through which to examine it. As a story about Marvel and the marketplace, the X-Men are a fascinating study in the development of a multi-book franchise despite the misgivings of the X-Men's central creative figure, the writer Chris Claremont. As the story of Claremont's seventeen-year run on the X-Men comics, it shows how the books changed along with the artists with whom he worked. Or as the tale of the balance of power between the man most closely associated with the franchise and the dictates of the company that published it, it is that rare case when the writer manages to incorporate nearly everything the editors impose on him while still maintaining his overarching vision. The story of the X-Men is also the story of a particular kind of storytelling: the apotheosis of Marvel's facility with soap-operatic long-term plotting, elevated by Claremont to near-Scheherazade levels of narrative complexity. And, last but not least, Claremont's X-Men succeeds thanks to his almost pathological preoccupation with depicting his character's inner lives as clearly expressed thoughts and speeches, and never more effectively than when he uses this approach in the service of exploring his female characters' response to trauma.
After Kitty Pride arrives at the Xavier institute for the first time, the cover of X-Men 139 introduces a line will stick with the franchise long after Claremont's departure: "Welcome to the X-Men, Kitty Pride. Hope you survive the experience!" Almost three years later, when, Rogue, up to that point a supervillain, is accepted into the fold by Xavier, the cover repeats the phrase, substituting Rogue's name for Kitty's. Havok later gets the same greeting, and soon it moves from the cover to the stories themselves: old X-Men use it on new X-Men, almost as if they were old fans greeting the next generation. The X-Men is all about "surviving the experience," whatever that experience might happen to be.
The Xavier School really needs to work on its marketing
It would take years for this theme to become central to the X-Men mythos. When the 1980s began, not only were the X-Men a seventeen-year-old property, but Claremont had been working on the book for five years. The first issue of X-Men with a 1980 cover date was number 132 ("And Hellfire Is Their Name!" pencils by John Byrne), not quite halfway through the most consequential storyline in the franchise's history. A little bit of backstory is in order.
Note
[1] Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely reinvigorated the line with their New X-Men in 2001. A decade later, the company tried to push The Inhumans at the expense of the X-Men. The Inhumans are 1960s Lee/Kirby creation with a small but devoted fanbase; though mostly guest stars in other comics, they had their own series and miniseries throughout the last three decades of the twentieth century (including Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee's remarkable 1998 12-issue series published as part of the Marvel Knights imprint). Though Marvel editorial has never confirmed it, the (temporary) retreat from highlighting the X-Men, along with the suspension of the publication of The Fantastic Four(the series that started Marvel as we know it), is widely understood to be the result of a dispute between Marvel's corporate owner, Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox. In the 1990s, when Marvel was experiencing significant financial distress, the company sold the film and television right for the X-Men and the Fantastic Four to Fox. The Fantastic Four films were not hits, but the first X-Men movie helped launch the current era of superhero dominance at the Multiplex. When Iron Man (2008) kicked off Marvel's incredible box-office success with Disney (and Disney's acquisition of Marvel the following year), the newly-formed Marvel Cinematic Universe could not use either of the Fox properties (and only managed to include Spider-Man after making a deal with Sony). Disney announced its acquisition of Fox on December 14, 2017. The deal became final in 2019, which also happens to be the year that Marvel recommitted itself to the X-Men line.
Next: All-New, All-Different