Of late, with more and more writers returning to the full script method, we are seeing more and more words on the page. People who simply do not think in pictures doing all their storytelling in the text, instead of letting the artists do their jobs.

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JB, I have to disagree with this. If anything, I think you are seeing less verbage in comics, with many pages containing sparse dialogue, few captions and no thought balloons. It's the influence of would-be movie scriptwriters. This leads many fans (including me) to think they often aren't getting their money's worth.

Take the Brian Bendis example. Now, I like Ultimate Spider-Man just fine, but you get a lot of this type of dialogue:

Mary Jane: "Big day?"

Peter: "Yep."

MJ: "Well, good luck."

Peter: "Thanks."

Here's a great (although admittedly extreme) illustration of my point, comparing a page from a Lee-Ditko Spider-Man comic to a similar page from Ultimate Spider-Man.

So Destiny and Mystique are extraordinarily long lived now? Is this Chris trying to tell us that Irene Adler is the Irene Adler? Is he following Alan Moore down the road of appropriating public domain characters?

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Oh crap! I can't believe I never made that connection. I don't know if that was his intent, since I haven't read X-Men much in a long time, but I should have realized the names were the same.

"Long lived Mystique/Destiny": This first issue from X-Treme X-Men (2001) was the first time where it was said they were this long lived. I don't think Chris Claremont wants to make Irene the Irene Adler, but he certainly wants to explore a victorian and Shelock Holmish aspect of the characters. No necessity for that to make them the actual Conan Doyle character i think. Irene the medium and Raven Dark-Holme(s) work just fine as Holmeslike characters without being the actual ones.

And given the importance of Roy Thomas at Marvel in the late 60s and 70s... we never got the actual Sherlock Holmes established as existing in the marvel history? (Thats a question. It seems surprising that Roy had forgoten to include Sherlock.)

Before 2001 we already knew that Raven and Irene had been working with Logan in the 30s, as established in "X-Men: True Friends", a mini finaly published in 1999 but originaly conceved as an Excalibur annual in the late 80s.

"X-Men: True Friends" (Claremont/Leonardi/Austin - 1999)  Is a story where Kitty and Rachel are transported in the 30s' England and fight there the Shadow King.

Mystique at this time live as a man "Mr Raven".

Claremont intend to include an alternate reality "Mystic" in upcoming issue of his current run of exiles. This version of the character according to Claremont lived most of his/her life in the shape of a man. He will join the Exiles roster soon.

Maybe then we will learn more about the victorians Irene Adler/Raven Darkholme. And of their life trough the first two 1/3 of the 20th century too. At least I hope so.

Chris said too that Mystic had children with destiny.

About this alternate reality Mystic who will soon be member of the Exiles cast:

Claremont continued. "On the other hand it also allows you to be totally different. For example the new Mystique we're bringing in is actually more pronounced like 'Mystic' and its Mystique in her sort of male Basil Rathbone incarnation. This is a variation on the theme; it's a shape-shifter who was married to Irene Adler, and had a daughter Rogue but this one has lived a life as primarily a male character. It allows us to use the character but a totally different take on it."

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=10068

We go back to Frank Miller's comment that Xavier's school should be for Gender Confused Adolescents, rather than Gifted Youngsters.

Note to Self: Not being able to see the art clearly
imparts "mood".

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Like i said it was a litle bit boring, but the colors were pretty and i preffer to see the good side of things.

Being a "flower child" does not automatically make someone Politically Correct.