2. Chris Claremont
Whoa, what? The guy listed as the best X-Men writer is also one of the worst? No, I didnt accidentally include his name twice. And no, Im not crazy. Chris Claremont was the greatest X-Men writer ever. But in 1991, after he and artist Jim Lee launched a new X-Men book just titled X-Men, Claremont only managed to write three issues before leaving. At that time at Marvel, there was much more focus on the artists, and Claremont frequently clashed with the editors and Jim Lee. Then in 2000, Claremont was invited to take over the two core X-books, Uncanny X-Men and X-Men. There was a lot of fanfare behind this and many fans, including me, were quite excited. Initial interviews and news about the books seemed very positive. Throughout the 90s, the X-Men were almost in a state of perpetual sameness. Two separate teams of X-Men, one led by Rogue and the other led by Gambit, and an assortment of new villains. It seemed like the return of Claremont would mark a return to greatness. Instead it was more like a return to mediocrity. Claremonts second run on the X-Men was one of the worst periods for Marvels mutants. He seemingly paid only the barest attention to continuity that happened after he left the book, and it showed in his writing. The villains seemed interesting on paper, but were mostly forgettable. Reportedly, Claremont had a lot of difficulty dealing with then-editor in chief Bob Harras, so when Harras was replaced by Joe Quesada, it was a positive sign for X-fans, and it did indeed give us Grant Morrisons X-Men run. Quesada also gave Claremont his own X-title, called X-Treme X-Men featuring Storm, Rogue, Thunderbird, Psylocke, Sage, and Bishop, with Gambit and Cannonball later joining. And the book was every bit as bad as the title. Cornball dialogue littered the pages, and there was an overuse of mind control as a plot device. This then continued when, following Morrisons departure, X-Treme X-Men was cancelled and Claremont returned to Uncanny X-Men. Claremont did get a chance to redeem himself later when he started writing X-Men Forever, a series free of continuity and picking up exactly where he left off with X-Men #3 all those years ago. This series was far more entertaining, but it wasnt enough to make up for the period of time when he was tarnishing the very franchise he helped build. How bad was it? Well, the only reason Claremont is not ranked #1 on both the best and worst lists is because there was someone else who did a far worse job