Brian: Sounds like Claremont was a BIG influence on Bendis.

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How so? Don't know Bendis' work well enough...

Nathan, this:

"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"

That's a Bendis comic right there!  Now, I do actually like some of Bendis's work. But, he does have the reputation of basically doing nothing but "talking heads" comics. And, in my opinion, somewhat deservedly so.

"No, Chris, it's because for 87 issues he's been a man..."

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Ha ha ha!

More JB on working with Claremont...

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

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ITKOWITZ: How much of the X-Men are you doing now?

BYRNE: Oh, 87%. No, a lot. A lot more than Chris will give me credit for. A lot. A big chunk. A huge amount. Fifteen of every 17 pages.

ITKOWITZ: As far as the plotting goes?

BYRNE: It depends on any given story. A whole bunch of the Hellfire Club storyline was mine. Chris said, "Uh, I'd like to do something with the Hellfire Club, y'know, and Jean is the Black Queen... but we need a villain." And I said "Mastermind! We'll give him this face, and we'll call him by this name, and we'll have these three guys and this is what they'll look like!" Chris came up with the idea of making one of them a cyborg, and I came up with the powers for the other two. The fight scenes and all that kind of stuff, it's all me. Even Chris would have to admit to that! And no matter what Chris said in his interview [Journal #50] --I never created a character whose power was turning on computer lights!

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A character that turns on computer lights?? Dazzler? I don't have Comics Journal #50...

Good stuff...

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

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BYRNE: I'd like to see Thor vs. Superman.

STERN: The Golden Gladiator vs. Green Lantern.

BYRNE: Aquaman vs. Sunfire.

STERN: We could have the Flash vs. the Whizzer vs. Spitfire vs. Quicksilver vs. God knows who else runs fast. Whirlwind, Black Top, all of those characters.

ITKOWITZ: Vs. the guy who takes the mongoose blood.

BYRNE: Radioactive mongoose blood.

ITKOWITZ: That's got to be the silliest thing. Every time there's a quiz: "What is the most unusual hero-- who has injected mongoose blood into his veins?" Mongoose-Man! Of course! Who else could it be?

CATRON: Who was that, Beast-Boy?

STERN: No, you idiot, that was the Whizzer! Beast-Boy got some sort of poison and his father turned this experimental evolution ray on him, and he turned green and funny.

ITKOWITZ: It was DC's High Evolutionary.

STERN: Yeah, see, that's the difference between DC and Marvel. At DC the turns the raygun on his son and he becomes Beast-Boy. At Marvel the guy uses the ray to create a race of men and becomes the High Evolutionary. DC has Matter-Eater Lad, and we have Galactus.

BYRNE: Archie [Goodwin] was concerned yesterday. He asked me, because I was the only one handy he thought would know. He said, "Does Galactus really eat planets?" I said, "Well, literally, you mean, eat the planets? No, he consumes the energy and leaves chunks floating." He said, "Oh, then we can't call him 'consumer of worlds.'" I said, "Well, he's always been called that."

STERN: Sounds like a guy who buys worlds.

CATRON: [laughter] Yeah, he goes around shopping.

STERN: "The one with the rings on it, thanks." I love that.

CATRON: I can see the guy unit-pricing worlds. "Well, this one's 55 pounds for 99 cents..."

STERN: "And now the consumer report."

ITKOWITZ: If one world costs 39 cents, how much will four worlds cost? Is this going to be in the interview?

BYRNE: I sure hope so.

You're right! I missed the cover number...

When the interview was published, the "editors" at the Comics Urinal put all the stuff Rog had cut into sidebar "outtakes", where, just as predicted, it did not translate.

Early plans for Alpha Flight...

The Art of John Byrne (Volume One - 1980)...

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Do you think there'll ever be an Alpha Flight book?

John Byrne: Well. Stern and I are talking about a two-part premier. The weird thing is, the two-part story we did in X-Men, and the Canadian story we did in Iron Fist both took place in the middle of winter. So I said, "Let's do a Canadian story that doesn't take place in the winter, so people can see that there's not snow up there all the time!" The only thing I could come up with is a story that takes place at the magnetic North Pole, which is in Canada. So there'll be snow everywhere anyway, even though it does take place in the summer.

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Wonder what that story was?? Guess JB came up with a few more after that! :)