Chris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
By the time this issue came out my circle of friends were all hitting the local comic shop for back issues of DD - when Frank Miller took over DD it was a 'slow burn' - DD had been off everyone's 'radar' - pun intended - for so long; it took some for us time to get into it. This issue introduces Yukio - a character that has MUCH more potential - movies have kind of taken her edge off. This cover is one of my all time favorites.
Why did Logan immediately trust Yukio?! You would think he could ‘sniff’ out that she didn't have pure intentions. Also how she could be in love with Logan so quickly after meeting him? (🙄) Not sure where this story is building up to but I’m excited to find out!
This issue has some of Frank Miller’s worst qualities in it, the most egregious of which is stuff happening off-panel and the protagonist just accepting whatever is happening like it’s just another day. Yukio shows up out of nowhere, fighting The Hand, and Wolverine is just like… sure, no problem. It does have Miller’s incredible use of perspective to create dynamic scenes - my favourite here being the view of the city through the panel-like windows. However, this also includes Miller’s rough-shod art style, lacking in detail - something that worked wonders in Sin City, but feels flat in an X-Men spin-off, where the likes of Byrne and Cockrum have such great detailing on the characters especially.
In all,this issue feels a lot more Miller and a lot less Claremont, both in the good and bad ways.
I own this original comic book. This entire series is a nostalgic brick in my brain. To say I love this series is a vast understatement. The writer, Chris Claremont, took a mysterious enigma called Wolverine and with this mini-series fleshed out one of the most enduring and popular characters in all of comic-dom. This series is so enduring that they made a movie outta it. The character Wolverine was transformed into a quiet, noble, berserker who was given a "bum deal" from the father of the woman whom he loved and history is made with the blood a thousand Hand ninja paying the road to superhero stardom.