Tue Sørensen: How do you regard Sovereign 7 compared to the other work you've been doing in terms of how big it is?

Chris Claremont: Well in a creative sense I think it's a natural progression of stories and themes I've been working on my entire life. In terms of a contract the relationship with the publisher I think it's groundbreaking. It's the first time in my experience in comics that one of the two major publishers, Marvel or DC, has been willing to enter into a relationship with a creator that's essentially a partnership, as opposed to an employer/employee relationship. S7 is a fully creator-owned series even though it's set completely in the DC heartland universe and is fully interactive with Superman, Batman and all the other series.

Tue Sørensen: So you can get to use Darkseid and all these other great characters?

Chris Claremont: I have use of the DC characters. They have use of my characters it's as if I had taken over The Flash or The Green Lantern or whatever. The difference is that it's mine. And that, I think, creates a relationship where both sides are encouraged to make nice with one another, to play well together, to work collaboratively for the benefit of both, and not take each other for granted, which unfortunately happens a lot in the work-for- hire situations.

Tue Sørensen: We understand that the team S7 comes from a kind of alternate world. Don't you think it's kind of like we're up to our ears in alternate worlds which is a trend that you started with the "Days of Future Past" storyline [in Uncanny X-Men # 141 & 142]?

Chris Claremont: I never said that "Days of Future Past" was an alternate world I said it was a possible timeline.

Tue Sørensen: An alternate future?

Chris Claremont: Not in my stories. We passed one of the crucial dates, 1984, and what happened [in the "Days Of Future Past" timeline] did not happen and yet the Mutant Control Act was passed. My point was: you never know whether the future we saw in "Days Of Future Past" was going to come to pass until we actually got to 2015, or 2021, or whatever the specific date was. And although at the time I had every expection that I'd be writing the X-Men at that point, I figured it'd give me enough time to figure out a resolution! But I never considered that an alternate timeline. Whether subsequent writers, and artists, and editors held different views I don't know.
In terms of S7 yeah, they all come from different Earths. I suppose you could consider that the "Chris Cosmos" which sort of fits, at this point not quite as neatly as an absolutist might prefer it, in the DC cosmos but then, you know, nothing in life has any business fitting in perfectly unless you're a machinist. You take a little dot tape (?), you slap it together, you make it work. The point is: this isn't being introduced as a sceneless part of the DC universe. It is my story that we are fitting into the DC universe. It requires me to accept some ground rules in reality it also requires the DC universe to accept some ground rules in realities, one of which is that there're seven alternate worlds out there alternate Earths from which my characters come. There's a cosmology from which my characters come that will interact with and affect the DC universe but its completely apart from it. And if for whatever reasons Sovereign 7 were to go elsewhere that (the "Chris Cosmos") would come with it.

Tue Sørensen: That's a great concept!

Chris Claremont: Well it's a self-contained concept that interacts. In the same way that, ideally, Wonder Woman is a self-contained concept that interacts.

Ulrik Kristiansen: How would you describe your development as a writer from when you first broke into the business 20 years ago and until the present day?

Chris Claremont: Actually, it was 27 years ago but why be technical? (laughter) It's a matter of learning craft; basically of taking what started out as a purely passionate impulse, and learning how to train it; having the knack that enables you to play the violin and developing the technique that'll enable you to do a scholacci (?) concerto, or having an affinity with wood and being able to make a classic piece of furniture. The thing is that comics is art and it's also a craft. Writing is a craft. You have to learn the structure and mechanics of building a plot, not simply in comics; not simply a plot for each issue, but for a whole storyline of issues, or an entire run of a book.
In Sovereign's case I view it as a never-ending novel. There'll be end-points natural break-points along the way, but the series itself I foresee is going on for as long as I'm interested in it.
But there are mechanical demands. You have to fit the story into 22 pages. You have to present it in a visual manner. These are the things that you might have an instinct for, but you have to train the instinct, focus the instinct, know how to take apart a plot and put it back together again, know how to establish character and event and situation in as few words as possible and actually mostly through the artwork.
All these are things you have to learn and unfortunately in comics there is no real school that will teach you this. The Joe Kubert School teaches art, but there isn't any equivalent that'll teach you story; writing a story.
So in a lot of cases you end up having to learn by doing, and hopefully over time you develop good instincts and cast off the bad ones.

Tue Sørensen: Many other art forms are crafts as well, such as painting...

Chris Claremont: And photography.

Tue Sørensen: Yeah, so it's the same... When you first introduced Madelyne Pryor how did you have in mind to explain her? Did you have an explanation at the beginning, or did you just fill it out later as the clone business?

Chris Claremont: I had an explanation in the beginning.

Tue Sørensen: You did? What was it?!

Chris Claremont: That's for me to know! (sly grin).

All: (laughter)

Chris Claremont: The original Madelyne storyline was that, at its simplest level, she was that one in a million shot that just happened to look like Jean [Grey, a.k.a. the first Phoenix]! And the relationship was summed up by the moment when Scott says: "Are you Jean?" And she punches him! That was in [Uncanny X-Men #] 174. Because her whole desire was to be loved for herself not to be loved as the evocation of her boyfriend's dead sweetheart.
I mean, it's a classical theme. You can go back to a whole host of 30's films, 40's, Hitchcock films -, but it all got invalidated by the resurrection of Jean Grey in X-Factor # 1. The original plotline was that Scott marries Madelyne, they have their child, they go off to Alaska, he goes to work for his grandparents, he retires from the X-Men. He's a reserve member. He's available for emergencies. He comes back on special occasions, for special fights, but he has a life. He has grown up. He has grown out of the monastery; he is in the real world now. He has a child. He has maybe more than one child. It's a metaphor for us all. We all grow up. We all move on.
Scott was going to move on. Jean was dead get on with your life. And it was close to be a happy ending. They lived happily everafter, and it was to create the impression that maybe if you came back in ten years, other X-Men would have grown up and out, too. Would Kitty stay with the team forever? Would Nightcrawler? Would any of them? Because that way we could evolve them into new directions, we could bring in new characters. There would be an ongoing sense of renewal, and growth and change in a positive sense.
Then, unfortunately, Jean was resurrected, Scott dumps his wife and kid and goes back to the old girlfriend. So it not only destroys Scott's character as a hero and as a decent human being it creates an untenable structural situation: what do we do with Madelyne and the kid?

Tue Sørensen: They have become superfluous.

Chris Claremont: Pretty much, yeah. So ultimately the resolution was: turn her into the Goblin Queen and kill her off. And that doesn't even work anymore, because now I've heard they've resurrected her for some story [X-Man # 5 and subsequent issues].
The fact is that, the X-Men to my way of thinking, at this point... I can't follow them. I don't know who the characters are, I don't know what the story is, and quite frankly, I'm not interested. It's not a book that has any appeal to me as a reader, so... I don't worry about it.

Tue Sørensen: Did you intend Magneto to be dead and gone by the end of X-Men # 3?

Chris Claremont: No, no. Originally he was going to come in X-Men # 1; the whole story would be self-contained in X-Men # 1. The only function that issue had was basically as a supremor to introduce new readers to the X-Men. What was the core of the team? What was the genesis of it? What was its reason for being? What was its major opposition? It was basically to restate the theme. It was a book that for readers of the series would be sort of like "Yeah, okay, I've got it now move on." It was there primarily to bring new readers in. If you wanted to give [an issue to] someone who had never read the X-Men before, but wanted to know what it was all about give them X-Men # 1! And then the end of it would be the springboard for the launch of the issues which would begin with Uncanny X-Men # 281, and X-Men # 2. Actually, ideally X-Men # 1 should've been X-Men # 0.
But as for what I was going to do with Magneto, I really had no effective plans beyond the idea that I wanted Xavier once and for all to die in the 300th issue.

Ulrik Kristiansen: Why?

Chris Claremont: Well because I think it was a necessary transition. The father had to give way... I mean, the reason I brought Magneto in as headmaster was that I wanted to change the dynamics of the school, and I wanted to change the dynamics of Magneto. I wanted to redeem him and I wanted a new brand of villains for the 80s and 90s. That ran into a lot of opposition, and was ultimately nullified. In terms of the X-Men the storyline involved Wolverine being killed, resurrected by the Hand as their master assassin, Colossus in battle with him tearing the claws out of Wolverine's hands, his healing process going into overdrive in the course of the storyline and purging him of his adamantium completely, so that for a couple of issues he would be sort of like this silver- hairy creature. All of his hair folicles, all his bodyhair, would be adamantium. And he would look like sort of a polar-bear. And then it would all fall away, and he would be a natural person, with natural claws.

Tue Sørensen: As he is now...

Chris Claremont: Well, the interesting thing is my story was rejected. A lot of my stories were rejected, and has suddenly come up in the last 3 years as X-Men stories.
What I was building to was the final conflict with the Shadow King, which had the X-Men basically heading off to stop what the Shadow King was trying to ignite: a war between humans and mutants homo sapiens and homo superior. And the X-Men were basically gonna stop it. And where I was going to go from there I wasn't sure, but that was issue 300 or so. Tue Sørensen: But something went wrong with that story, because Fabian Nicieza was the one who finished it in [Uncanny X-Men] # 279 and 280...

Chris Claremont: What happened was that the editor on the book [Bob Harras] and I had, for a long period of time leading up to that point, increasingly disagreed on the direction the book should go in how the book should be handled -, and the editor at that point made the decision that I should no longer plot the book. And when he made that decision I made my decision which was that I wasn't going to stay on it if I wasn't plotting it and left. The transition occurred on page 12 of Uncanny X-Men # 279; that's the last page I wrote. [X-Men #] 1, 2 and 3 were basically my wrapping up as many loose ends as were available. It was not a happy time they're not very good issues, I think. And that's the way of it. But that book at that point was in the process of being defined by the editor and the new writers and artists, and it has been so ever since.

Ulrik Kristiansen: You've used strong female characters Storm, Phoenix, Caryn Delacroix, Magik on many occasions. What exactly do they for instance express or symbolize for you? Is there anything in particular that fascinates you about these character types?

Chris Claremont: I guess I'm just trying to write women who reflect the women I know in real life. I've no real interest in boring characters male or female. If there's a standard for heroic male characters why should it be different for heroic female characters? Frankly, I find most guys boring! (Laughter)
Initially it was to fill a vacuum. I didn't see any women that I liked in comics so I wrote in my own. And unfortunately it hasn't improved that much over the years.

Tue Sørensen: Did you ever think about making an X-character homosexual?

Chris Claremont: I thought about it a lot. The practical limitations were that under the Comics Code any expression of overt sexuality, hetero or otherwise, was problematic. My point was always: I had no interest in doing a character whose sole reason for being was being gay. I had no desire to do a character, like: "YES, I'M GAAAY!!!" Who gives a... You know, who cares? The point would be, if you have a character and somewhere along the line you discover the fact that the character likes the color red, or cooks, or drives slow cars, or listens to Biff Spiderbeck, or what-have- you; that they may have a different sexual orientation... it's just a part of the element. And more often than not, my inclination would be to do it as a throwaway, so that when you went back and looked you'd say: oh that character is... So, is it a problem? If it is a problem then you sit back and think about it. If it isn't a problem then you go on.
But in terms of the X-Men nothing in the mix of characters really suggested themselves as being gay. I had a story with Wolverine where that could be explored I never got around to writing it. There were relationships that I had which I felt transcended gender.

Ulrik Kristiansen: Storm and Yukio?

Chris Claremont: Storm and Yukio is something that I never really got into. I mean, I had my own thoughts, but I never really got into it. I was thinking more in the lines of Misty Knight and Colleen Wing, which was my first notorious "HA! Are they lesbos?!" sequence. No, they're best friends, who've been through death and worse together and therefore they have a relationship that is closer than most marriages. So what? You know, my attitude basically is: what they do behind closed doors is none of your damn business! And I still hold to that.
So, in terms of the X-Men, no. Not really. Because as I said none of them really got to that point. What would've happened in time had I stayed on the book with character A, B, or C who knows? But I'm not on the book, so it's moot.

Tue Sørensen: It's a very interesting project you're doing with George Lucas (the novel Shadowmoon). Do you think that there's any chance it might be turned into a movie, and would you like to ever work in the film business?

Chris Claremont: Shadowmoon is a fascinating project. Working with George Lucas is a real treat. The decision whether or not any movie or what-have-you is done with it, is only his. This is work for hire. He owns the project, he owns the characters, he owns the property.

Tue Sørensen: Did he ask you to go into this deal?

Chris Claremont: No, he and Bantam Books my publisher worked out that arrangement. Bantam asked me to come in and I was approved by them. And then he and I met back in 1993 to talk about the concept.
Yeah it'd be fun to work in the film business, but it's not easy. It's a craft like everything else. It's a learning-curve. My problem is that I have too much to do now to take the year that I will need to even start to learn how to do this. So, unless someone is willing to make me an offer I can't refuse, the likelihood of me jumping into the film business any time soon is pretty slim.

Tue Sørensen: We've heard this rumor that you originally intended Aliens vs. Predator [The Deadliest of Species] the entire story to have been a film?

Chris Claremont: No, the original plot for issue # 11 was [that, on the splash-page, we have] a director, a camera, a crew the whole thing and the director is yelling "Cut!" And then on page 2 and 3 we have a double-spread where you pull back and the whole scene that ends # 10 is revealed to be a set! And all the characters, they are either watching or they are acting. Caryn Delacroix is the head of productions at 20th Century Fox, Shirow and DeMedici are the screenwriters, TOY is the director... Delacroix is the producer... and it's all set in Hollywood! Then gradually, as you work through the issue, Aliens would start popping up on Melrose Boulevard! Things would start going wrong, and you come to realize that this is just another Virtual Reality scenario that TOY is using to throw Caryn i.e. Ash off the pace. Fox's attitude was that it was a "fascinating" idea They thought I was totally whacked out! But they were involved in far too much litigation over Alien IV and Aliens vs. Predator to start any trouble whatsoever. They felt that this was getting way out of hand "it's too much aggravation, could you please do something else?"
So I did something else. Again, it's their toys their sand- box they have the right of ultimate approval or disapproval. Actually, I think the rewrite on that issue is a better story, a more appropriate one for the series. The first version was a terrific piece of self-indulgence which happens every now and then! But that's why you have editors to look at them and say, "EEENHH!! Noo, I don't think so! That's a piece of bullshit! Go away!"

Ulrik Kristiansen: There seems to be a lot of different opinions about the general market situation and quality compared to what it was for instance 10 years ago. What's your lowdown on it?

Chris Claremont: My lowdown on this: the mid-80's, The Uncanny X-Men sold 400,000 copies a month. There were a dozen books that sold over a 100,000 copies a month. Now, there are a dozen mainstream titles that barely sell 20,000 copies a month. Major companies are publishing titles that when I started in 1973 would be cancelled in a shot, because the sales were so low! They don't even begin to cover the cost of printing the books. I think the market is in a very difficult place right now. I think, like the stock-market of the 80's, a lot of the cynicism and bad business-practises of the last ten years have come home to roost. I think, the fact is that many publishers, and many creators, have forgotten their obligation to their readers to provide good, solid, exciting, engrossing stories every month every month! You can't just do 3 books a year and expect people to be interested. You need the dependability, the quality, the passion You need the commitment. You can't half-ass (?) this thing. You can't assume the audience will always be there. You can't take them for granted any more than they should take you for granted. And I think unfortunately we're paying the price for that. The sad thing is, there's no easy or quick fix to this; you have to rebuild the relationship of trust and commitment one brick at the time. Unfortunately, with some companies being public and having quarterly reports to the stock- holders... it doesn't give them a whole helluva lot of flexibility. Or a margin for error, or safety in that regard. If they don't show a fast turn-around of the numbers, they're in deep trouble! And this is an industry that isn't good at short- term fixes. Yeah, you can kill Superman, or you can change the X- Men's reality... but then what? I mean, if you take a major character that people have loved for 30 years, and you latterly announce that the last 20 years of that series has been a lie, because the character is a clone...

Ulrik Kristiansen: Who would that be?!

Chris Claremont: No comment! Well, the point is, you take the emotional investment, the care, the passion that a whole generation of readers have given this series, and you say: "It's a lie! Tough! Move it on. You're outta here! Who cares?" Then you have driven a stake through the heart of one of the core elements in our relationship: that you can trust a publisher. That what happened, happened; that truth is truth.
If you're saying that John Smith is not Hero-Man, that he is a xerox of Hero-Man, and the real Hero-Man is named John Jones, and has been running around off-stage for 20 years... how do we know that's the truth? What's to prevent someone coming in, in 2 years and say: "OUP! We lied! John Jones is really the clone, and John Smith is really the real Hero-Man... Nope! There's a third guy: John Bairsford-Tipton, who's the real Hero-Man!"
Why should you care? And if you don't care, why should you bother reading the book? [As a publisher or creator,] You're asking for a lot of money. You're asking for a lot of commitment. You're asking for a lot of effort on the part of the reader; a lot of passion. If you don't give that in return, then the contract is broken and if the contract is broken, they'll find somewhere else to go, and somewhere else to invest their money, and their time.

Ulrik Kristiansen: I think it's about time for that ultimate, last just- between-you-and- us question...

Tue Sørensen: What was your original intention with Mr. Sinister?

Ulrik Kristiansen: He's been around for a hundred issues and we still don't know anything about him!!

Chris Claremont: Ah yes, you do! Sinister was Scott's boyhood friend in the orphanage. He's an 8-year old kid he's always been an 8-year old kid. He ages one year for every 10 of everybody else!

Tue + Ulrik Kristiansen: Awright!! (Finally the truth comes around!)

Chris Claremont: So he's a 50 year old guy in a 10-year old's body and boy is he pissed!!

(Intense laughter).

Chris Claremont: That's why he works with clones. It's the only way he can deal with the adult world because he is not gonna be an adult for another 50 years... at the earliest!!! And that's why he takes a long view of things; because he's going to be around for a 1000 years, give or take a few... at least!

(Chris regains a hold of himself and we catch our breath for laughter).

And... you know... Sinister, the Shadow King... I was trying to build up a whole network of people who were using the concept of mutants, evolving the threat to the X-Men from pure prejudice to the realization on the part of the world at large that mutants are exploitable commodities. That to have a telepath working for you is a good thing. And that the danger now is going to come from governments, corporations, and organisations trying to get the earth's governments and the Russians worrying about a mutant gap, which is what the Shadow King was all about, and the Hand with Tsuriyaba was all about and what Sinister was all about.

Tue Sørensen: It's very interesting.

Chris Claremont: It's interesting, but from what I gather in terms of the current X-Men, it's not part of the mix. The key to it was always to deal with them in terms of how they interacted with the real world; that they were a part of the real world, that they lived in the real world, that they had a future in the real world. That at some point Storm might well marry Forge and go off living happily everafter or not. That Nightcrawler and Amanda had a future. That Kitty would or would not become the new Saturnyne. All these elements were there.
The problem was that for me, putting an ancient Roman city in the jungle was Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Arthur Conan Doyle. It was a hoot! This is fun! Actually it was a Roman-Incan city, so you had mixed elements... [Anyway,] That didn't sit well with the new writers on the book... so they blew it up. And you know, Sam Guthrie came from basically a family of Appalachians, of Harlan (?) County coal-miners "No, he's a super-being from another universe!" Fine...

Tue Sørensen: Did they say that?!

Chris Claremont: Yeah, he's some sort of god-being, or something... That's what I heard.

Tue Sørensen: My God!

Chris Claremont: Ask Fabian [Nicieza]. It was his idea.

Tue Sørensen: Actually, we heard that Fabian has been taken off the X- books...

Chris Claremont: Yeah, he has.

Tue Sørensen: Do you know why?

Chris Claremont: I have my suspicions, but you should go to the source for that. Or better yet: interview the editor on the book, and ask him why he has so much trouble keeping writers.

Tue Sørensen: Actually, we did make an interview with Bob Harras, and he said about your leaving the book that it was so long ago that he couldn't remember what happened.

Chris Claremont: That's very discreet of him.

Ulrik Kristiansen: Ok, that about wraps it up for now. Chris thank you very much for your time. It was great talking to you.