In every Look Back, we examine a comic book issue from 10/25/50/75 years ago (plus a wild card every month with a fifth week in it). This time around, we head to March 2000 for the return of Chris Claremont to the X-Men titles in X-Men #100!
Chris Claremont, of course, is the comic book writer who is most associated with the X-Men. This is because he wrote the series from 1975 until 1991. While he didn’t create Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler, the writer who DID create those characters with Dave Cockrum, Len Wein, left the X-Men very early on, so it was Claremont and Cockrum who had to really do most of the development of those three major new characters, and then Cockrum left the series, as well, after a couple of years, and Claremont, of course, stuck with the series for well over a decade, so it was Claremont who was the key developer for Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler, as well as Wolverine, who Wein had created BEFORE the introduction of the All-New, All-Different X-Men, but then joined the X-Men in Giant-Size X-Men #1, the issue that introduced Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler. Over the years, Claremont also created new characters like Rogue, Psylocke, Kittty Pryde, and Gambit. Claremont was pushed out of the book in 1991.
Well, in the late 1990s, Claremont started a new gig at Marvel as the eitorial director of the company, and the writer on Fantastic Four. Fans were hoping to see him return to the X-Men, and he secretly began to write some of his old friend Alan Davis’ X-Men run in 1999, and in March 2000, Claremont returned to the X-Men titles as the writer of Uncanny X-Men and X-Men with X-Men #100 by Claremont, Leinil Francis Yu, Mark Morales, Liquid Graphics, and Richard Starkings.
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Who were the Neo, the main villains of Claremont’s return?
In the last storyline before Claremont’s return to the series, the High Evolutionary had developed a device that could turn off the mutant gene, and he used it on the Earth, eliminating all mutants on the planet. The now-powerless X-Men, though, managed to defeat him, and destroy the device on his orbital space station, returning mutants to Earth.
What they didn’t know, however, is that there was a secret race of mutants known as the Neo who were living in seclusion on Earth, and when the High Evolutionary canceled out all mutant powers, the Neo lost their powers, as well, and that led to the destabilization of their home, causing a number of deaths. Claremont starts this issue with a six-month time jump, and in that time, a number of changes have occurred. The Neo blamed the X-Men for the actions of the High Evolutionary, and in X-Men #100, they show what they have been planning for months, as they launch an attack on the X-Men, beginning with Nightcrawler (who has retired from superheroing, and gone to work for a church as a priest)…
This was such a powerful opening to the book, as Claremont kicks things off by shocking us by the sight of Nightcrawler as a priest, only to follow that up with the dude being SHOT! Then the Neo show up, led by Domina and Jaeger. Yu’s design of the Neo is very strong, and they really felt like a powerful new threat to the X-Men. Of course, the timing was a bit weird with the Matrix having just come out a year earlier, so “Neo” was sort of a famous pop culture term at the time, so it was kind of odd to see that being the term for this group of mutants, but still, the important thing is that they seemed like a legit, and imposing threat to the X-Men.
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How did X-Men #100 homage the original X-Men #100?
In the original X-Men #100, the X-Men are on a space station being used to build Sentinels, and Dr. Peter Corbeau brought the X-Men there to rescue their teammates Jean Grey, Banshee, and Wolverine, who had been captured earlier. The X-Men defeat the bad guys, but have to escape the space station, which is now falling apart.
So in this issue, the X-Men are once more on a space station with Corbeau, this time trying to turn High Evolutionary’s orbital station that he used for his anti-mutant weapon into a livable habitat. It is here that we discover that the X-Men are now very different, with Psylocke (who had lost her powers a year or so earlier) now rocking telekinesis, and the team all having new costumes, and a new member in the Indian superhero, Thunderbird.
In a badass touch, Kitty has knives made out of broken Wolverine bone claws…
The team all has new costumes, as well…
However, just like the original X-Men #100, this space station is going down, as well, as one of the crew members, who had become Kitty Pryde’s boyfriend, is actually secretly a member of the Neo, and they want this station destroyed and the X-Men killed, but the boyfriend wants to spare Kitty. She fights back, and in a great sequence, the X-Men work together to save everyone from the destroyed satellite in a shuttle, but just like in the original X-Men #100, when Jean Grey sacrificed herself to save the others (by piloting the shuttle, which had a damaged shield, thus blasting Jean Grey with radiation as she landed the ship), here, Kitty saves the others, but is forced to stay behind on the satellite. However, since she knew her new boyfriend planned to spare her, she finds a suit he had hidden, and she uses it to escape the ship…
Meanwhile, Nightcrawler, being hunted, turns to another retired X-Man, Cecilia Reyes, who had gone back to being a doctor. She helps him, but it makes the Neo hunt HER, too. She shocks Jaeger, however, by using her force fields as an offensive weapon, killing the Neo leader in battle in an awesome scene…
Now Domina has an even MORE personal reason to want the X-Men dead! So the Neo were established as major threats, Kitty has to go out on her own, we saw various other little revelations (like Psylocke having new powers, Thunderbird being on the team, Rogue being on the outs from Gambit, Colossus able to kiss Rogue without her absorbing his powers) that would help fuel the book. This was a great opening to Claremont’s return.
If you folks have any suggestions for April (or any other later months) 2015, 2000, 1975 and 1950 comic books for me to spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Here is the guide, though, for the cover dates of books so that you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. Generally speaking, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book throughout most of comic history has been two months (it was three months at times, but not during the times we’re discussing here). So the comic books will have a cover date that is two months ahead of the actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Obviously, it is easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was internet coverage of books back then.
