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We were planning an X-Men graphic novel, but we weren't quite calling them that, yet. That format was still being referred to, in house, often as not, as a "direct sales edition".

Some of you may recall the "war" between Marvel and DC over who "owned" the format, and what it was called. "Prestige Format", "Bookshelf Edition", etc. "Graphic Novel" -- which nobody really liked because of the sometimes unfortunate definition of "graphic" -- sort of won by default.

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Black Widow in WWII? How did they explain that???

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A young Natasha had been established, years earlier, as being at the seige of Stalingrad, or Leningrad, or one of those Russian cities. Altho it was long past working, in terms of her still being a reasonable age, for some reason it was something Chris could never seem to let go of.

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Yes and no.

I certainly grew tired of plotting one thing, and then having Chris script it as something else. That rather goes against the notion of a "collaboration".

But I did get tired of THOSE X-Men. As I've noted elsewhere, I strongly disagreed with Chris' characterizations, and, eventually, I realized that since those were what was seeing print, those were who the characters "really" were. So if I didn't like what Chris was writing, I didn't like the characters!

JB: We were planning an X-Men graphic novel, but we weren't quite calling them that, yet. That format was still being referred to, in house, often as not, as a "direct sales edition".

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JB,

Not looking for plot points--

1. Do you remember what the story was about?

2. Can you tell us what villian(s) you were going to use?

I´d scan it, if I wasn´t a very busy internationally acclaimed film director.

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Black Widow in WWII? How did they explain that???
+++++++++

Beats me. The story takes place in Madripoor and she shows up with her trusted protector/aide/driver Ivan or Piotr, I forget.

I remember this as one of the last Jim Lee issues that was reasonably readable. It was also the ish when I decided I couldn´t stand his cookie-cutter females anymore.

for some reason it was something Chris could never seem to let go of.

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Is this Chris Claremont's mutant power? Never, ever dropping certain aspects. The power to dig over something ad infinitum...

Flavio: Nathan, there is a lot of interesting X-info in the ART OF JB book, too.

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No worries-- I will get to that book at some point! This thread has a lot of life left in it! :)

Fun stuff... :)

From 'The Comics Journal' -- 1980 Summer Special...

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BYRNE: Chris's idea of a perfect issue of X-Men, I think, would be 22 pages of them in the mansion or walking around in the Village or at Scott's apartment or something like that where they sit around, out of costume, in jeans and T-shirts, and just talk. Jeans and T-shirts, that's become like a buzzline. Anytime Chris would discribe a scene--he doesn't do it any more, because he finally realized what he was doing--he'd say, "Well so-and-so is doing this and that, and bla-de-blah, and what they're wearing is, oh, jeans and a T-shirt." And finally one day he said, "Around the mansion, I figure Storm wears jeans and a T-shirt," and I said "Storm?! The former African goddess?! Is this the same character, or have we got a black maid now named Storm? What is this? Jeans and a T-shirt?" He said, "What do you think she'd wear?" I said, "A caftan, maybe, something loose and flowing." and Shooter says something with big sleeves so when you look up 'em you can see her t*ts and--

[laughter]

ITKOWITZ: I understand why he likes jeans and T-shirts, because it looks like that's all he wears.

BYRNE: Yeah. Chris-people are Chris. All his men are him, and all his women are either his wife or Modesty Blaise, except for Chris's mother characters. His mother characters are all airheads. It's like when they have children, they lose whatever intellect have. There's nothing there once they've dropped the kid. Their intelligence comes out with the kid, I guess. Really bizarre.

ITKOWITZ: And you work with this man.

BYRNE: Yeah, I work with this man. How much of this is going to be in the interview?

CATRON: All of it.

BYRNE: Great. Chris has a couple of buzz-things that always come out. "Jeans and a T-shirt" is one of them he doesn't do so much any more, and the other one was, "Is there any reason--

STERN AND BYRNE (in unison): "--this character couldn't be a woman?"

BYRNE: That was the other one. We'd be talking about Scott, and he'd say, "Is there any reason this character--?" "No, Chris, it's because for 87 issues he's been a man..." And Mary Jo Duffy takes the blame. Doctor Frankenstein. She wrote the letter in Iron Fist #8 that said, "Chris writes the best women in comics," and he's been trying to live up to that letter ever since.

STERN: And Mary Jo's been trying to live that letter down.