Chris Claremont's Page o' Angst, Day 5: Sniffle sob cry BOOM!

Page from Uncanny X-Men #243 (April 1989), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Marc Silvestri, inks by Hilary Barta, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Joe Rosen

Chris Claremont's Page o' Angst, Day 4: Whiiiiiiiiine, eh?

Page from X-Men/Alpha Flight #2 (December 1985), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Paul Smith, inks by Bob Wiacek, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Tom Orzechowski

Chris Claremont's Page o' Angst, Day 3: Sob sob sniff

Page from X-Men Forever #4 (September 2009), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Tom Grummett, inks by Cory Hamscher, colors by Wil Quintana, letters by Tom Orzechowski

Chris Claremont's Page o' Angst, Day 2: Blubber blubber sob

Page from New Mutants Special Edition one-shot (1985), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Art Adams, inks by Terry Austin, colors by Christie Scheele, letters by Tom Orzechowski

Chris Claremont's Page o' Angst, Day 1: Oh boo hoo hoo hoo

The Mid-Day Matinee this week, all week: Chris Claremont's Page o' Angst! So stop yer cryin', we got work to do, with no quarter asked and none given! By the Goddess, by the White Wolf, by the focused totality of my power, let's stress out a little with the Uncanny Mister C!


Page from Excalibur Special Edition one-shot (December 1987), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Alan Davis, inks by Paul Neary and Mark Farmer, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Tom Orzechowski

24 Hours with Jack Kirby: Hour 14

It's Christmastime and the Uncanny X-Men are enjoying a bit of much needed R&R at Rockefeller Center! (Yes, yes, I know it's actually August 28, not Christmas. Bear with me. I'm goin' someplace with this. Sheesh.) Wow, and it looks like everybody who's anybody is there in the snow of Manhattan today! There's Nightcrawler (using his image inducer to cosplay either Errol Flynn or Tony Stark), Colossus, Storm, Phoenix, Cyclops, Wolverine, Moira MacTaggart, and Banshee. Apparently they left Chuck in the car. Oh, don't whine...he's perfectly happy there...he's got his Game Boy.

But look close, Waldo-style, and you might spot more than our uncanny 'uns hanging around 30 Rock. Could that be...Matt Murdock?:


And check it out: Colonel Nick Fury's there, accompanied by the lovely Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine! Better make sure you buy her a fancy and expensive gift for the holiday, Nick...that Dustbuster ain't gonna be appreciated! (And look, it's Chris Claremont. Is it just me or is he giving Storm the googly-eyes? Face front, CC...or at least put your eyes on your lovely companion, Marvel colorist Bonnie Wilford!)


And take a look who's skating on the Rock Center Ice Rink!:


Also, somewhere in that crowd? Liz Lemon.

Turn the page and the cameos keep comin' so hard they're seeping through from another universe! There's Galaxy Broadcasting anchorman Clark Kent arm in arm with belle du super Lois Lane, while Julius "Be Original" Schwartz looks over their shoulders to make certain their Christmas kisses stay "G" rated.


But the best Christmas gift of 'em all...is a cameo from The Dynamic Duo! No, not those two...these two!

All panels are from [Uncanny] X-Men #98 (April 1976), scripted by Chris Claremont, pencilled by Dave Cockrum, inked by Sam Grainger, colored by Janice Cohen, lettered by Sam Rosen

Don't got the comic? Have somebody read it aloud to you!:

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?



Is it Mister Sinister?



Is it Wolverine?



No! It's this guy:

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:






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.









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:



PS: I was jus' kidding about Royal Roy.