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Chris Claremont's nearly 17-year run on the X-Men ended somewhat unceremoniously in the early '90s after creative disagreements about where the series should go drove a rift between Claremont and then X-Men editor Bob Harras, as well as artist Jim Lee. 

At an X-Men writers panel at Terrificon 2026, Claremont discusses the many times he's come and gone from the mutant team, and fires a barb at the Image Comics founders, Lee included.

"It's like how many times have I been fired from X-Men? At least four. The first one was interesting. You know, [X-Men editor Bob Harras] had to come in and say, 'I probably shouldn't have let you leave the book.' And I said, 'I probably shouldn't have gone, but there we are.' That was after Image was born and, you know, certain artists decided they'd rather have all the money."

Not long after Marvel removed Claremont from Uncanny X-Men and X-Men later, Lee and Whilce Portacio left Marvel as one of the Image Comics founders alongside fellow superstar artists Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Jim Valentino, Erik Larsen, and Marc Silvestri, which Claremont says led to a regretful conversation with Harras. 

The alliance was indeed formed for financial reasons as well as creative ones, as the founders all wished to take complete ownership of their personal creations rather than leaving ownership to Marvel under their work-for-hire contracts. Interestingly enough, Claremont almost became an Image founder himself before his planned comic fell through.

As for the other three times Claremont left X-Men behind, he first returned as an ongoing X-Men writer in 2000, sticking around for another two years. He then returned in 2006 for several relaunched comics including Exiles and Excalibur as well as X-Men Forever, a title that showed some of what Claremont would have done with the X-Men had he not left the franchise. Finally, from 2019 through 2025, Claremont wrote a number of legacy stories flashing back to his heyday on the X-Men starring characters such as Wolverine and Gambit.

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