Wednesday, September 24, 2008

My enemy, my narrator

Arch-enemies. Every comic book character has 'em. Superman has Luthor. Batman has The Joker. Spider-Man has The Green Goblin. Iron Man has Oxidation.

So, who, true bull-lievers, do you think is the ultimate arch-enemy of Scott Summers, the mutant known as Cyclops?

Is it Magneto?
Cyclops vs. Magneto


Is it Mister Sinister?
Cyclops vs. Mr. Sinister


Is it Wolverine?
Cyclops vs. Wolverine


No! It's this guy:
Chris Claremont

Chris Claremont


What? Chris Claremont? The guy who popularized the X-Men? The master of the mutant magazines? The writer who invented Gambit? (Okay, let's not hold that one against him.) How could Chris Claremont be the arch-enemy of Cyclops? I hear y'all argue: he isn't even a character in the Marvel Universe!

That's where you're wrong, wrong, WRONG! Chris Claremont is indeed a character in the MU and a denizen of Earth-616. Why, check out his appearances in The Uncanny X-Men and Man-Thing:

Chris Claremont
Chris Claremont
Chris Claremont


Okay, so yeah, our pal Chris exists in the same universe as the X-Men, Man-Thing, Daredevil and Royal Roy...but what possible harm could he do our favorite red-eyed mutant? He hasn't got adamantium claws or an enchanted katana sword or been exposed to radioactive zebra bites or has the strength of a thousand men when you write him a critical letter pointing out that The New Exiles really just isn't that good at all.

No, but Chris Claremont has the most deadly weapon of them all...words. Like Doug Piranha, Chris knows all the tricks: embellishment, exaggeration, magnification, overstatement, ornamentation, promulgation...and hyperbole. What's more, he knows how to use a thesaurus. And in the mouth of an ordinary man that can be a very dangerous thing indeed. But the amassed evil skills of Chris Claremont are only concentrated into a blood-hot furious weapon when one takes on the role that Claremont himself had in Cyclops's life: omniscient narrator.

Chris Claremont vs. Cyclops
Chris Claremont vs. Cyclops
Chris Claremont vs. Cyclops
Chris Claremont vs. Cyclops
Chris Claremont vs. Cyclops
Chris Claremont vs. Cyclops


Golly. Chris is relentlessly evil. No wonder Scott Summers went googly-googly nuts. Well, that an' his girlfriend dyin' all the time.

But weep not for Scott Summers, dear reader. He knows how to take care of himself:
Chris Claremont vs. Cyclops



PS: I was jus' kidding about Royal Roy.


6 comments:

Marc Burkhardt said...

I think Chris Claremont became the arch-enemy of all X-Men around the time he started overindulging in that whole mind-control/body-morph fetish of his.

In Marvel time, it occurred when that wizard guy turned New York into a Middle Earth grotto and tortured Spider-Man.

Kinda creepy.

Phillip said...

I woulda said Havok, but I can see your point.

SallyP said...

And like Doug Piranha, he uses...sarcasm. Oh the horror.

At first I read the line about the enchanted katana sword as BEING bitten by a radioactive zebra, and realized that this could have been a truly epic origin for somebody.

Sea-of-Green said...

Actually, I think Claremont became the arch-enemy of ALL of the X-men the minute he decided that Frank Miller's obsession with Japanese ninja mythology was "cool."

Michael Jones said...

I can't wait for Chris' rendition of The Funky Gibbon in that movie!

Anonymous said...

I never thought anything would make me feel sorry for cyclops but the idea of having a claremont running commentary in your head...SHUDDER