In the comic book industry, very few writers evoke a sense of awe and admiration among fans and creators as much as Chris Claremont does.
Though he is more well-known for his masterful 17-year run on The Uncanny X-Men, Claremont’s first regular writing assignment for Marvel Comics was on Marvel Premiere (1972) which featured Iron Fist from issues 15 to 25. He started on issue 23 but by the time no. 25 went out, Iron Fist was on his way to starring in his own series.
Having an opportunity to interview the fabled writer is quite a privilege especially considering how many would love to talk to him and discuss his incredible career.
For more than a year, I failed to get a hold of Claremont to interview him about his time as Iron Fist’s writer.
Then last month, I caught Claremont chatting with fans on Instagram. He was promoting an interview he did on Forbidden Planet when he decided to spend some time to engage his followers about what they thought about his talk.
This was how I was able to “interview” him, in a sense.
After 15 issues, Iron Fist (1975) was canceled but it had a dangling plot that involved Davos the Steel Serpent, the yin to Danny Rand’s yang. This was resolved in a two-parter on Marvel Team-Up (1972) #63-64.
Danny next appeared on Power Man (1972) #48-49 and was later retitled Power Man and Iron Fist by issue 50. All three issues were by Claremont and Byrne but it was the former who stayed until issue 52. It was then that Claremont also left the title to tackle the adventures of Marvel’s merry mutants full time together with Byrne.
I AM IRON FIST: Hi Chris! Can you describe for us what it was like to write Iron Fist, a martial artist and superhero at the same time during the kung-fu craze of the 70s?👊
CHRIS CLAREMONT: Totally cool and a whole lotta fun!
IAIF: Yes, I can tell it was a lot of fun for you! I had a blast reading and re-reading that whole series. Thank you for making it great!
I read somewhere that said that you originally planned for Sabretooth to be a Wolverine villain and that his first appearance in Iron Fist #14 was just a way for you to introduce the character outside of the X-Men title. Is that true or was Sabretooth really intended to be Iron Fist’s nemesis?👊
CLAREMONT: Sabes started in Iron Fist—as Mystique did in Ms. Marvel—but then both books were canceled. I refuse to let great characters go to waste so I moved them over to X, which in hindsight was a mistake.
Imagine Sabes and Mystique and Rogue as Avengers villains! Wouldn’t they have been great on-film?🤔 But that’s the core reality of this business: would’a-should’a-could’a.😉
IAIF: Wow! Seeing those three against the Avengers would be incredible! Then again, I grew up with them as X-Men villains so I think it was still the right call especially since the MCU now has the X-Men. You may yet see them as Avengers villains after all.👊
CLAREMONT: Since I’m not really writing them anymore, forgive me but I’m not really interested. Other writers have taken them all in far different directions than I would have.
IAIF: Yeah, the characters are far different today than they were when you were writing them. Many have become anti-heroes rather than just villains.
Thanks also for clarifying that Sabretooth was meant to be an Iron Fist villain from the start. It definitely clears up all the speculation that these villains were created with the intention to be moved over to the X-Men eventually.
I’ve been meaning to ask you this next one for as long as I can remember but I have a long lead up to the question so please bear with me.
When I was nine years old, I was only able to read Iron Fist issues 3, 6 and 7, and I thought all along that Iron Fist and Colleen Wing would be lovers eventually. That’s because, on the cover of issue 6, Yu-Ti says, “your beloved Colleen Wing” to Iron Fist and the caption at the top of the title said, “The Living Weapon vs. the Woman He Loves.”
Then, in your introduction to The Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu Omnibus Vol. 2, you referred to Colleen as “…Danny’s best friend and the woman he would come to love, Colleen Wing,” and about Misty, “and her partner in Nightwing Restorations, Misty Knight…”
My question here is three-fold: Did you originally plan for Danny and Colleen to be lovers yet decided later on for them to just be friends instead?
If so, what prompted the decision to change course and let Danny and Misty end up together?
And why is it that in the aforementioned introduction that you talked about Danny and Colleen as if they were lovers when they never were?
CLAREMONT: Covers and cover copy are often done well in advance of the book itself; occasionally there can be whoopsies. Case in point. Whatever the original intent, Colleen became the woman-best friend Danny loved like a sister. Misty was his true (romantic) love. Because back then, it was something rarely seen—anywhere. Made for a lot more drama, especially given Danny’s proclivity for acting like an ass.🙄
IAIF: But you wrote Danny that way! Haha! Regardless, I still feel Danny and Colleen would have been a great pair. I still want to see it happen someday in the comics. Misty has moved on to another relationship, after all, and so has Danny. Misty’s with Falcon now, in case you wanted to know.👊
CLAREMONT: If it works for you, great.
IAIF: It worked in the Netflix series so that was a real treat for me.
I’m watching your interview (on Forbidden Planet) and I’m loving the new tidbits of information about my most beloved characters.
It’s interesting how you said you hired John Byrne to work with you on Iron Fist. Were you associate editor (based on what you said in the interview) already at the time which gave you the power to green light which artists you want for your books?
CLAREMONT: Nope. I just ran him up the food-chain Len (?).
Len Wein was Marvel’s Editor-In-Chief at the time.
IAIF: Cool! Haha! That was one historic decision that you made right there.
In the Forbidden Planet interview (which I’d like to share a portion of to my readers here), Claremont talked about how he was able to land the assignment on writing Iron Fist’s stories and what brought him and John Byrne together.
“I did a couple of Giant-Size Dracula’s with Marv Wolfman and along the way Iron Fist, which had gone through as many writers as they had issues it seemed, and finally, it fell into my lap,” Claremont told Forbidden Planet. “I did a couple more issues in Marvel…not Two-In-One…Presents? (it was Marvel Premiere) Not sure. And then the series got the green light to go into his own series and I got the green light to hire John Byrne. And we were off. That was I think ‘74 or ’75 somewhere in there.
“The most extraordinary thing was just over the course of 16 issues watching John just erupt as a visual talent, a storyteller, I mean,… the stuff he…the first issue had no…
“Well, it was like looking into the first issue that Barry Windsor-Smith did of… It wasn’t Conan. … It was something he did for Marvel. It was really, really rough. And it was like, ‘Oh my God!’ one of those things you do overnight.
“There was no hint, well there was a big hint of what was coming, but it was extraordinarily challenging to pick it out. But then, once he hit with Conan, once he went off and did the side issues with FF (Fantastic Four) or Avengers, every issue got better and better.
“John was pretty much the same way.”
IAIF: I agree with your assessment of Byrne’s growth as an artist. When someone looks at his work from issue to issue, you could see he was getting better with every single issue. You can’t say that about many artists back then and even now.
This next question is for Iron Fist fans like me, who would love to see a new series from Marvel once again (his last one ended in 2018). Do you think you can write Iron Fist stories again, a mini-series perhaps, to revisit some of the stories you told and possibly forge a new path for the character?👊
CLAREMONT: Not sure it’d be as much fun, actually. So much about the character and his reality have changed over the decades.
IAIF: Quite true, actually. Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction built on the foundation you established decades ago and expanded on the mythology, and others like Kaare Andrews and Ed Brisson have followed suit. I hope someday Iron Fist will come full circle and you can write his stories one last time.
You worked on the X-Men for nearly two decades which is mind-boggling. That was one of the best runs by a creator on a single title! Thank you for that.
If you had the chance back then to continue writing Iron Fist’s solo series, how long do you think you would have been able to tell his adventures? Did you have something like a five-year plan that was scrapped because of the cancelation?👊
CLAREMONT: Well, it wouldn’t have been in Iron Fist per se because IF wasn’t so much canceled as it was merged with Power Man (Luke Cage) into Power Man and Iron Fist, which was fun—but once John left as penciller, not so much. Loved the characters but… And the X-canon was demanding more and more time, so something had to give.😢
IAIF: We love the characters you created and molded around Iron Fist! I grew up loving the character and the series because of your writing and John’s work. I really wish you and John could have continued working on both X-Men and Iron Fist if not for the demands on your schedule.
Thanks for writing the series so beautifully! And thanks so much for indulging me! It’s such a pleasure to talk with you.👊
I AM IRON FIST 