Chris Claremont

“The really nice thing with 'Future Past' is that you actually have a superhero film - much to everyone's surprise, I will hope - that is about something. It's about racism, I hope. It's about resisting oppression. It's about fighting for freedom and the cost of fighting for freedom.”

“The wonder, especially about the 'New Mutants' is, they're all kids. They're all growing. They're changing, literally, from page to page in terms of character and approach, past, present, and future. As a writer, that's the most delicious thing to play with.”

“You have an iconic character in Superman. You want to keep him vital and relevant to the audience as it evolves. So there's a creative dynamic.”

“You know, for a normal kid it might be how to ask somebody out on a date or how to deal with the SATs or just how to deal with the bully down the block. And the X-Men have the conflict of Magneto or aliens or what-have-you.”

“I always had a sense of where I was going with 'Dark Phoenix.' Jean had the greatest power imaginable... and, how's she going to deal with that?”

“If you're going to create a character, the tools you use to make that character 'real' are the lives you see around you. The people you listen to on the street. The emotions you see on faces and bodies while you're sitting... in a Starbucks, watching the world go by.”

“My wife and I have this discussion all the time. Her primal influences are J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald. Mine are Rudyard Kipling, Edith Nesbit and T.H. White. So, we have certain structural differences in form and content right off the bat!”

“The first rule is you have to create a reality that makes the reader want to come back and see what happens next. The way I tried to do it, I'd create characters that the reader could instantly recognize, and hopefully bond with, and put them through situations that keep the reader on the edge of their seat.”

“A lot of people didn't like the 'Fantastic Four' for the first year and a half. It took a certain measure of time for me to find my feet in terms of what I wanted to do with the concept.”

“I guess you go back to the old writer's adage that when they do your stuff in Hollywood, you smile sweetly upon your credit - if there is one - and enjoy the show.”

“Look at 'Avatar:' the foreign ticket sales were over twice the domestic returns. The mind boggles at those kinds of numbers, but that's what you get when you effectively reach out to a global audience. If that kind of thing came to comics, it would undoubtedly change how people perceive the mainstream industry.”

“I wish the 'Dark Phoenix' saga had been done more effectively than it was, but that was out of my hands.”

“X-Men has always been about finding your place in a society that doesn't want you.”

“The success of 'X-Men' paved the way, I have to presume, for Sony to make Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man.'”

“Like 'Uncanny X-Men,' 'New Excalibur' is the story of people thrown together by fate and wild circumstance who find their way to true and lasting friendship.”

“One of the virtues of 'The X-Men' was that it managed to transcend the expectations and prejudices of the medium. It appealed to a vaster audience than anyone had ever anticipated from any superhero book, much less 'X-Men.'”

“All good communal storytelling comes from the sagas and arguments within the writers room.”

“We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.”

“I get to watch stories I wrote brought to life by the most brilliant actors in cinema.”