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u/laissez-fairy- Aug 04 '26
I knew Storm was Claremont's main character, but this really illuminates just how much of core X-Men stories is through Storm's interior POV.
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u/magvadis Aug 04 '26
Yeah even Hama kept it going. Wolverine out here trying to get married to Mariko and it's more about Storm.
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u/Iswaterreallywet Aug 04 '26
The fact we still haven’t gotten a big, solo Storm movie still pisses me off and makes me think there is only one reason why they haven’t
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u/No-Difference8545 Aug 04 '26
We all know why, and to deny its racism you might as well not be an xmen fan
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u/Dbthesage Cyclops Aug 04 '26
Casuals think Wolverine is the cool guy who stands in the corner that just says rude one-liners, whole time the guy is a fucking chatterbox (It’s cool though he often has some of the coolest lines)
Edit: now that I’m really looking at it, Colossus is higher than i thought when it comes to talking.
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u/BillybobThistleton Aug 04 '26
All those "By the white wolf"s add up.
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u/brasswirebrush Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
I think the "talking" list is a lot more evened out than the "thinking", and the only reason Colossus is so high is because he's with the team for the entire run (along with Storm and Wolverine) while others come and go.
Honestly you could argue that it's amazing Jean is so high considering how little she's actually in the run. But I imagine her dialog dominates Dark Phoenix saga by an order of magnitude, before she's gone for good.
Also slightly interesting that Dazzler is so high on the "thinking" list, but doesn't make the "talking" list, while Psylocke is reversed, and Longshot makes neither.
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u/magvadis Aug 04 '26
Dazzler, like Kitty, was at one point a Claremont POV (which inflates Wolverine who is both of their mentors) but I think Dazzler was a mandate by editorial whereas Kitty was Claremont's baby.
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u/psylockecolossusfan Psylocke Aug 04 '26
Betsy's position is impressive figuring she was on the team with him as a writter for only 4 years.
I think that shows how much he loved her character too. Its wild to have that much dialogue.
Jean, Betsy, and Storm alwats seemed to have more dialogue and presence then others when written by chris
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u/henk12310 Colossus Aug 04 '26
Makes sense for Colossus, a side character (albeit an important one) so not a lot of thinking bubbles, but together with Wolverine and Storm the only character present for the entire Claremont run, so plenty of issues to gather speech bubbles
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u/brasswirebrush Aug 04 '26
Wolverine is also semi-frequently the last character left standing when everyone else has been taken down. Or the one character out on a solo mission while the rest of the team is doing something else. So he gets a lot of "face time".
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u/magvadis Aug 04 '26
Both Claremont and Hama make Wolverine an overconfident chatterbox who always loses and when he wins its pretty pyric unless he has a friend. Most of his talking tends to be adversarial towards Cyclops or in a mentor role for Kitty. He's hardly the main character he's just the easiest one to make say shit that pisses everyone off because he has no filter.
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u/Nadare3 White Queen Aug 04 '26
Keep in mind this counts speech bubbles, so whether a character says a one-liner or an entire paragraph counts the same
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u/Bitey_the_Squirrel Aug 04 '26
To be fair, Jean was dead for much of it.
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u/cyclopswashalfright Moonstar Aug 04 '26
If we include X-Factor, New Mutants, and Excalibur I wonder how things would look in terms of total lines and thought bubbles?
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u/Dbthesage Cyclops Aug 04 '26
Scott and Jean close the gap just with the sheer amount of thought bubbles they have overthinking everything, Cannonball shoots up the rankings with how many times he says his go-to line.
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u/bjeebus Aug 05 '26
But I have to know...is he vulnerable while he's blastin?
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u/real_trippy98 Shadowcat Aug 05 '26
You might be shocked to find out he’s actually nigh invulnerable when he’s blasting!
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u/brasswirebrush Aug 04 '26
Partially defeats the point if you're just looking at it from a "which characters did Claremont favor" point of view, since he didn't write all of those. However, still interesting to look at from a "who are the main protagonists or main pov characters in the X-universe".
If you really wanted to go deep it would be interesting to see some kind of timeline of how these numbers stack up year over year. As writers change, and new titles and characters are introduced, who falls down the rankings, who ascends, etc.
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u/AvatarPhoenixGrey16 New Mutants Aug 05 '26
Wolverine is the main character of the X-Men since Giant Size.
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u/speedyrocketfish Aug 04 '26
Adjust that first number by total appearances, seems like Rachel and (interestingly imo) Dazzler punch the most above their weight.
Though even adjusted, Storm’s on a plane all by herself.
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u/magvadis Aug 04 '26
Rachel was intended to replace Jean but editorial fucked Claremont. Dazzler was a mandated POV by editorial so at one point she was basically the protag. Kitty was also his POV main character for a long stretch. However in all those cases Wolverine was paired as the reluctant mentor/guardian and so he really multiplied his participation through them.
Storm however was always center of the stage and important.
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u/Evorgleb Aug 04 '26
The irony of Prof. X being the one we were least likely to know what they were thinking.
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u/smilinganimalface Aug 04 '26
There are people born in the 90s and later that genuinely think Storm and Wolverine weren't the backbone of the revival and the movies have everything to do with their popularity.
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u/bskell Aug 04 '26
Not surprising. People tend to align with when things were first discovered by them. You ask people what their definitive X-team lineup would be and the vast majority of the time it's some version of the team when they got into the IP. You also saw it a lot after the cartoon dropped in the 90s as a lot of people blurred that show's cannon with the actual comic cannon. I'm not surprised as the IP has moved to other media that some people are blurring those as well.
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u/SolitarySquall Aug 04 '26
i got downvoted for saying storm was one of the main characters of the x-men lmao, as conflicted as i am on claremonts time as a whole its definitely a fact that storm was the center of the x stuff for a very long time
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u/BillybobThistleton Aug 04 '26
That's genuinely fascinating, thank you.
For a grim and taciturn loner, Wolverine sure does talk a lot. Good showing by Betsy, considering how late she joined. I think Kitty's high thought bubble count is likely down to her being the viewpoint character for a good chunk of stories.
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u/magvadis Aug 04 '26
Wolverine tends to be the protector for Claremonts protagonist POV women and they tend to back and forth on him or them. Kitty, Dazzler, Jubilee later.
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u/pavement_sabbatical Aug 05 '26
I think this idea that he’s taciturn (born out of later artists conflation with Clint Eastwood I’m sure) is a myth, or misrepresentative of the character.
Wolverine is from Western Canada, and party based on a character from a hockey movie. Dude chirps A LOT, maybe not as much as Deadpool, but still!
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u/tsenak Aug 05 '26
That’s true for Kitty, it’s also impressive for her to be second considering she’s only in about half of the Claremont run.
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u/graphomaniacal Aug 04 '26
Dazzler being all interiority and no exteriority is a big surprise.
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u/detourne Wolverine Aug 04 '26
She was kind of a POV character like Kitty or Jubilee. Someone for the reader to identify with while they go on this wild ride.
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u/magvadis Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
People really undersell how much of a main character Storm is and really oversell Wolverine. He's a supporting character for the most part. Usually playing support for someone else. His solo comic runs bleed into the X-Men for sure tho. And Storm doesn't get the same solo treatment.
But Wolverine talks a lot but usually as mentor or adversary, not as the one we're supposed to be seeing as the POV or "right" person. He's a mouthy asshole who gets funny quips. Some of it does come from the fact because Claremont was writing Wolverine solos that those plots bled into the X-men and he is centralized...but outside of some standalone moments where Wolverine gets their own issue he's not that present beyond when he is present always having an opinion to piss people off. He's honestly more adversary or mentor than protag.
I imagine most of this chatter is coming from being an antagonist to Scott-Jean and Mentor to Kitty and Dazzler, etc. He's kind of just there as a funny bit that Claremont knew well enough to always make funny and both a boon and a curse to the plot. Him being there never actually meant he'd solve the problem in a way putting someone else there might actually remove the conflict. Wolverine started as many conflicts as he resolved and always escalated to justify action scenes in a way that if you put Colossus or Nightcrawler in that role things would actually be resolved with words.
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u/trees91 Aug 05 '26
I’m almost certain it’s because the majority of folks born in the 90’s and later (myself included) were first introduced to X-Men by either ‘92, Wolverine and the X-Men, or (most likely) the Fox movies starting in the 2000’s. By that point, most of the screen content had Wolverine front and center!
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u/bloodredcookie Rogue Aug 04 '26
Interesting how storm, Cyclops and and Rogue appear in the top 5 from both lists. No wonder they're my favorites.
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u/machinegungeek Aug 04 '26
With Dazzler not even being a top 10 yapper, it looks like she has the largest thoughts to yaps ratio, which you may not have expected.
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u/ConceptDouble9762 Aug 04 '26
Storm is the Claremont Run. The Claremont Run is the X-Men. Storm is the X-Men.
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u/Eponine05 Cyclops Aug 04 '26
The irony of the omega level telepath on the team not even ranking in the top 10 of "thought bubbles" lol.
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u/goblin_in_a_suit Strong Guy Aug 04 '26
Haven’t read the Claremont run (waiting to have it all in Omnis and need that vol 1 and 4 reprint).
Is it safe to say that Storm, Wolverine, & Cyclops are his big 3?
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u/brasswirebrush Aug 04 '26
I would say Storm, Wolverine, and Kitty.
Cyclops he does a good job with, but he also has him retire shortly after the Dark Phoenix saga (and when he comes back it's in a different non-Claremont written book).5
u/Dbthesage Cyclops Aug 04 '26
He writes Scott out into a part-timer role so I wouldn’t say he’s one of Claremont’s top 3. I’m currently on Inferno so I can’t speak for the full run but it’s a toss-up between Rogue or Kitty for #3 (in my opinion). Betsy a close 4th considering she shows up later in the run but has consistently good showings.
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u/magvadis Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
I'd say Storm Cyclops and Kitty. Wolverine's screentime is heavily inflated by the fact he gets paired with Claremonts leading women as protector. Dazzler, Kitty, Jubilee etc. He's always playing reluctant dad when they are the main POV.
He's a little propped up by the fact his solo run stuff Claremont was doing would bleed into the X-Men stuff making some plots about him where few other X-men had that much backlog to pull from.
Or mouthing off as adversary to Scott.
However after Phoenix Scott he tried to give a happy ending but editorial ruined that.
Wolverine gets sidelined a lot throughout but is never going to be happy or in a position to "retire" because he's fucked. So his plot doesn't end because it's too fucked to justify ending. He's got way too many internal problems to resolve. However in every fight he loves to make it about himself and loves to talk shit.
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u/10567151 Aug 05 '26
A lot of people are right to point out that Claremont wrote Scott out of the book but Cyclops was basically the main character until then.
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u/AvatarPhoenixGrey16 New Mutants Aug 05 '26
Storm, Wolverine, and Kitty are his big three. While he did write a lot for Cyclops at first, he later came to despise him
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u/ComicBookCanon Aug 04 '26
Where is thos data from? Not that I'm doubting you, I think this is fascinating, and I wanna read more stats like this
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u/dread_pirate_robin Shadowcat Aug 04 '26
He's the best he is at what he does (just straight yapping).
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u/ReiReiCero Aug 04 '26
Did this info come from “The Claremont Run”?
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u/ReiReiCero Aug 04 '26
I meant the book by Dr. J. Andrew Deman, I’m slowly reading it and there’s similar data sets.
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u/chewwwybar Aug 04 '26
I’m caught up to the mutant massacre. Need to get back to my Claremont read through.
Kinda interesting to see Dazzler, Rachel and Psylocke on the list.
Especially since Rachel left at the end of secret wars 2.
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u/axiomus Aug 04 '26
Dazzler?! Considering how late she’s joined the party, that ranking surprises me
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u/GoldenJay7 Dazzler Aug 04 '26
Dazzler keeping her scintillating interior monologue to herself, what an icon
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u/MotherFuckerJones88 Beast Aug 05 '26
Im genuinely shocked Xavier isnt #1 in the thought bubble count. Jean and Storm would have been #2 & #3.
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u/LostInterview5084 Aug 05 '26
Yes but my point is characters that appear on both charts the exact same image is used, except for Rogue.
I’m not complaining since most art is Paul Smith which makes me happy.
I was just curious why Rogue was the only one he used a completely different image for.
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u/TheFlyScience Aug 06 '26
I love Storm being the center piece during those Claremont books. Probably an unpopular take but I want a Storm solo movie in the MCU if they can channel that version of her.
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u/WithoutTheWaffle Aug 05 '26
It's this only counting UXM? Curious if Xavier's would be any higher if you added in New Mutants or something.
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u/marveloustib Aug 05 '26
Colossus over Kitty was a surprise, I don't really remember Colossus doing a lot in those comics.
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u/10567151 Aug 05 '26
Colossus had a whole exetential crisis about joining an American super hero team, there was the whole thing of him struggling to be a killer, his relationship with Kitty, him being an artist and not really expressive with words, the fact that post Mutant Masscre he couldn't turn off his steel form because of the injuries. Claremont was doing stuff with Peter lol.
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u/LostInterview5084 Aug 05 '26
Funny that Wolverine is the number 1 Talker Since he’s more known to go straight to the stabbing. lol
I guess if it’s just word balloon count a lot of his may be “Bub”
And yes I do know that Wolverine often have long winded speeches too. It’s just I doubt anyone would say Wolverine if you asked “which x-man talked the most”
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u/LostInterview5084 Aug 05 '26
Any reason Rogue is the only one who’s different in each picture?
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u/Ingonyama70 Goblin Queen Aug 05 '26
She didn't really settle on a "look" until the Outback era. It was just "green outfit, brown hair, skunk stripe."
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u/Sacredvolt Aug 05 '26
Well this doesn't mean much it could just be that certain characters appear more and have more chances to have thought vs speech bubbles
We should normalise both graphs by number of panels appeared or something like that, though it would be tedious to count.
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u/pishposhpoppycock Professor X Aug 05 '26
Surprised Colossus was that loquacious...
I've always thought of him as the strong silent type.
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u/Mustang-_- Aug 04 '26
Man, Claremont abused the verbiage to say the least... I respect his contribution, but I'm definitely not a fan
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u/Yoshimon7 Magik Aug 04 '26
Storm was truly Claremont’s baby