Tuesday 15 January 2013

Classic X-Men #11: Chris and Ororo

Classic X-Men #11's original backup, "Hope", is a story about a writer. That always gets my attention. He's called Phil Halloran, he's late for a deadline, and he thinks everything he writes is garbage. He has facial hair carefully trimmed in a particular way. I don't think I'm being too adventerous in saying this is a representation of Claremont. And not the kind of joking cameo that we have of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, but a more sigificiant instrospective sort.

He meets Storm - one of Claremont's favourite characters - at the top of the GPO Tower, where he'd possibly gone to commit suicide. She takes him flying and there is Adventure. The standard format of stories like this is that the guy is left happy and inspired, but this instead has a far more ambiguous ending. It's his life, to do with as he pleases, he says. Unexpectedly honest stuff for an authorial self-insert, if that's what that is.

1 comment:

  1. I don't know that Claremont has ever admitted to being the writer in this story, at least not anywhere that got that admission written down, but I do know that its generally accepted to be Claremont by most readers and critics, for what that's worth.

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