Question about backup stories in X-Men Classic

[shaxper]

I have a run of these and it looks like just about every issue up until around #45 contains a new backup story that adds to or retcons past X-Men events. Most of the ones I've read were either awful for pointless, but I'm particularly attached to the young Scott Summers stories in #41 and #42. I'm thinking of selling off the run to make space and keeping 41 and 42. Were there any other backup stories worth holding on to?

[The Lucky One]

I have a run of these and it looks like just about every issue up until around #45 contains a new backup story that adds to or retcons past X-Men events. Most of the ones I've read were either awful for pointless, but I'm particularly attached to the young Scott Summers stories in #41 and #42. I'm thinking of selling off the run to make space and keeping 41 and 42. Were there any other backup stories worth holding on to?

Can't really help you... I thought most of the early ones were actually quite good, really fleshing out the characters in ways there just wasn't room for in the original stories. The Magneto story in particular, telling about the death of his daughter Anya and the first manifestation of his power, is extremely poignant. If I didn't already have about half the run, I'd offer to buy them myself.
;)

-D

[DDM]

The back-up Classic X-Men #1-44 are not retcons. For instance, Uncanny X-Men #100 is the first official appearace of the Council of the Chosen Hellfire Club (lead by humans), yet Classic X-Men #7 details the origin of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club (lead by mutants) as Sebastian Shaw & Emma Frost rise in rank to the Black King & White Queen respectively that evetually appers in Uncanny X-Men #129-134.

Furthermore, Classic X-Men #8 reveals Phoenix's origin; however, Claremont stays true to the original Phoenix story in that Jean Grey becomes Phoenix circa Uncanny X-Men #101 & still holds well with Jean Grey's revelation that she never became Phoenix in Fantastic Four #286 (Byrne used a portion of Claremont's own story for his story).

[Reptisaurus!]

I have a run of these and it looks like just about every issue up until around #45 contains a new backup story that adds to or retcons past X-Men events. Most of the ones I've read were either awful for pointless, but I'm particularly attached to the young Scott Summers stories in #41 and #42. I'm thinking of selling off the run to make space and keeping 41 and 42. Were there any other backup stories worth holding on to?

I read the first few, and wasn't a fan. But, in general, and this is TOTALLY personal preference, I'm more a fan of plot driven superhero comics than character driven superhero comics.

They were probably really good examples of a style of writing I just don't care much about.

(Except the one with Nightcrawler in it. Nightcrawler rules!)

[shaxper]

Can't really help you... I thought most of the early ones were actually quite good, really fleshing out the characters in ways there just wasn't room for in the original stories. The Magneto story in particular, telling about the death of his daughter Anya and the first manifestation of his power, is extremely poignant. If I didn't already have about half the run, I'd offer to buy them myself.
;)

-D

GOOD CALL on the Magneto backup! I'd totally forgotten about that one. Though, in most other cases, I would disagree about the backup stories fleshing out the characters. Often times, they either felt like obligatory fillers or means of retroactively laying earlier hints for later revelations. Stories like the one about the insightful alien plumber on the Shi'ar homeworld or the one where Jean is hypnotized into a night of cheap thrills were just plain awful. Others, like Wolverine's first near encounter with Sabretooth were just sort of "eh". I'm glad you reminded me of the Magneto story, but I can't think of any others that seemed worth holding on to.




The back-up Classic X-Men #1-44 are not retcons. For instance, Uncanny X-Men #100 is the first official appearace of the Council of the Chosen Hellfire Club (lead by humans), yet Classic X-Men #7 details the origin of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club (lead by mutants) as Sebastian Shaw & Emma Frost rise in rank to the Black King & White Queen respectively that evetually appers in Uncanny X-Men #129-134.

Furthermore, Classic X-Men #8 reveals Phoenix's origin; however, Claremont stays true to the original Phoenix story in that Jean Grey becomes Phoenix circa Uncanny X-Men #101 & still holds well with Jean Grey's revelation that she never became Phoenix in Fantastic Four #286 (Byrne used a portion of Claremont's own story for his story).

They're retcons in the sense that neither were what Claremont had originally intended nor lead the reader to believe in the original issues. In both cases, Claremont has gone back, changed a few words, and added these backup stories to make everything sync with his more recent directions. While you discuss the most drastic examples of this, such modifications are all over the earlier Classic X-Men issues and were probably the very purpose for its inception. Just look at the heavily modified story in #1. Other details, like changes in Night Crawler's ability to teleport blindly or even the name of the Starjammers' ship are changed to make up for inconsistancies in Claremont's storytelling. In the most desperate cases, Claremont uses the backup stories to add to or justify these changes. Other times, the backups work independently of the reprinted story, validating something else currently happening in the X Universe, such as Mr. Sinister appearing and claiming he's been watching Scott for years (let's go back and show that in X-Men Classic). And, of course, there are also an abundance of times where the backups just feel like excessive filler.

So, can anyone think of other times where the backup stories were worth reading?

[spoon_jenkins]

I like most of the Claremont/Bolton collaborations - I guess that's most or all of them through #24, at which point Nocenti or others do most of the writing, so I doubt my opinion will be that helpful. Like The Lucky One, I think those early ones tend to be nice character studies are are an important addition to the X-Men saga. I really like the "silent" (a la G.I. Joe #42) story in Classic #6, featuring Jean and Scott.

[DDM]

I like most of the Claremont/Bolton collaborations - I guess that's most or all of them through #24, at which point Nocenti or others do most of the writing, so I doubt my opinion will be that helpful. Like The Lucky One, I think those early ones tend to be nice character studies are are an important addition to the X-Men saga. I really like the "silent" (a la G.I. Joe #42) story in Classic #6, featuring Jean and Scott.

Chris Claremont wrote the backstories for Classic X-Men #41-43 involving Mr. Siniter's origin & Phoenix after she died on the Moon.

[Gnarl]

Didn't those feature a pic that was redrawn to remove Nightcrawlers shadow invisibility?

[J'onn J'onzz]

I've got them all up to 38. Is it worth getting the rest? The first few were okay to me but some of the later one got stupid...

[DDM]

I've got them all up to 38. Is it worth getting the rest? The first few were okay to me but some of the later one got stupid...

Yes, particularly Classic X-Men #41-43. Phoenix has a conversation with Death (who resembles Scott Summers) & he tells her she must grow by making mistakes. Phoenix has remorse for the evil she has done as Dark Phoenix as she experiences death from the D'Bari & Shi'ar perspectives. Death then looks at Phoenix's cards of future as she awakens as Madelyne Pryor...

Chris Claremont has said he enjoys all the Ann Nocenti Classic X-Men stories.

Classic X-Men #44 is an Ann Nocenti story about Rogue & Mystique.

[spoon_jenkins]

I've got them all up to 38. Is it worth getting the rest? The first few were okay to me but some of the later one got stupid...
I think I'd echo DDM that the stories in #41-43 are good and significant. I like the Rogue story in #44. The back-up in #39 is an early Jim Lee work (a couple months after Uncanny #248).

[shaxper]

Okay gang, I finally kicked my own butt into going through these issues, one by one, and hand picked the ones that I feel had worthwhile backup stories. They are:

#7 - "Out with the Old": the retcon that attempts to link Sebastian Shaw and the mutant inner-circle of the Hellfire Club to the mysterious Council of the Chosen that backed mutant-hunting Sentinels. I don't care for the story, but it's a necessary part of following the Clarement continuity.

#8 (untitled): the retcon that explains how Jean Grey wasn't Phoenix. Another key story that I don't particularly care for.

#12 "A Fire in the Night": A partial origin of Magneto which is amazingly well done but is incompatible with Magneto's character prior to 1980 when he was simply a maniac bent on taking over the world.

#14 "What Stuff Our Dreams Are Made Of": A rare glimpse of Lilandra in the story of how she came to Earth. Both a necessary explanation and a great story for a character that doesn't recieve enough attention.

#15 "Starjammers Aloft!" The origin of the Starjammers, another great Claremont invention that doesn't recieve enough attention.

#19 "I, Magneto" More partial origin of Magneto. I really don't remember this one at all, but felt it was worth having.

#36 "Outside In" The absolute best done backup of the series in which Sean helps Moira say goodbye to Proteus.

#41 "Little Boy, Lost" A story of Scott's years at the children's orphanage with Mr. Sinister watching over him. The ending is surprising, explains a lot about Scott, and makes Mr. Sinister into one serious bad-ass.

#42 "When Dreams are Dust" A continuation of the previous story about Scott at the Orphanage in which we see Mr. Sinister doing more to indirectly control his life. This one didn't move me as much as the previous one, but it was still very well done.

#43 "Flights of Angels" The final fate of Phoenix after she dies. I'm not a huge fan of this story since I still think the whole "Jean Grey wasn't Phoenix" thing is bull, but it wasn't a bad story and it seemed worth keeping.

#44 "Her First & Last" An origin story for Rogue that does an excellent job of finally showing the emotional bond between her and Mystique.

[Rob Allen]

These stories include some rare scripting credits by longtime X-Men letterer Tom Orzechowski. Here's what he wrote about them recently:


Around '85, Marvel launched Classic X-Men, which reprinted the new team's stories. It carried no ads, which allowed for original backup stories. They tended toward human interest, sometimes presaging events we knew to be years away in continuity. After a couple of years Chris Claremont was drifting away from it, and I wrote two of them. In #26, while the team was in Calgary, Alberta, Wolvie had a moment to recall his wilder days there... and then the main story resumed. I wrote a 12-pager from his days when he arm-wrestled for a living in the worst bar in town. In #40, the lead story had the team in Manhattan. My backup had Nightcrawler outclassed by an streetwise mutant kid named Gyro. She had only one leg but her ability kept her always on balance; the crutch was a prop she used as a distraction as well as a weapon. The Wolvie stuff sort of showed up in the first X-Men movie, but I think any writer establishing him as the angry outcast with no memory would have done similar. Gyro never showed up again, which sort of surprises me but I'm not complaining. A third story, proposed and accepted but never developed, featured Jean Grey thinking back to simpler times, her past as a fashion model (X-Men #46!), while as a subtext her Phoenix powers were starting to overwhelm her nd cloud her judgment. A fourth, never submitted, would have dealt with Charles Xavier's college days, and the teacher who influenced his own taciturn style in the earliest X-Men issues. I knew those chacters so well that it was easy to spin the concepts, for 12-page non-continued stories at any rate.

[eltini]

As for me I remember a very nice story with Jean Grey and Worlverine in the very early issues, and another one with Jean and an old woman who had escaped from death camps in Germany.

IIRC there were also some modifications to the original stories with more pages drawn by Kieron Dwyer I believe and that was not a good idea...

[shaxper]

As for me I remember a very nice story with Jean Grey and Worlverine in the very early issues, and another one with Jean and an old woman who had escaped from death camps in Germany.

There were two Jean and Logan stories. One was in #1. In both, Jean gets placed in a situation with Logan where she gets too hot and bothered, runs away, and gets all disturbed. I don't recall the death camp story, though. Are you sure you're not thinking of the Magneto origin?

IIRC there were also some modifications to the original stories with more pages drawn by Kieron Dwyer I believe and that was not a good idea...

Virtually all of the early issue reprints were modified in one form or another to better fit continuity or to make the story make more sense. I started a project a long time ago, attempting to chronicle every appearance of the X-Men at http://xmenresource.tripod.com/1971.html. In it, I go into specifics about all the Classic X-Men modifications done for each X-Men issue up to #112.