Despite being created in an innately ephemeral medium, the Claremont run on X-Men, a 16 year narrative spanning hundreds of comics, has managed to endure through a complex evolution of cultural transmission, including major technological leaps in comics publishing. 1/9 #xmen

In the history of literary studies, accessible archiving has played a pivotal role in defining the legacy of authors such as Sophocles, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare and many more – we’ve lost many classics. Others are classics simply for enduring. 2/9

To isolate one of those, any competent Shakespeare scholar will be the first to tell you that our cultural presumption that he’s the best is based largely on certain happy accidents of history that allowed for his work to be preserved and proliferated. 3/9

The point here is that we undervalue the importance of provenance in an author’s cultural legacy – the history of publication and distribution surrounding authors’ works and their cultural capital. 4/9

Claremont’s run on X-Men is nearly impossible to collect in paper form without access to incredible financial resources, networks of knowledge, and networks of distribution. This is a problem, especially for a run that is holistic and cumulative. 5/9

Marvel’s attempts to republish the run have been scattered, inconsistent, and even exploitative at times. At other times, they’ve been exceptional. 6/9

We also need to recognize the importance of piracy in keeping the Claremont run in currency. X-Men comics have had a rich and absolutely essential proliferation through scanning, bootlegging and torrenting, and those pirates preserved C’s relevance in an enormous way. 7/9

Today we have Marvel Unlimited, a comparatively inexpensive, widely accessible, completely legal avenue by which new readers can read the entirety of the Claremont Run. They even have him featured currently as a creator spotlight. 8/9

The point here is simple: as Claremont’s work experiences a renaissance of interest (popular, critical, academic), the existence of an accessible archive opens the doors for this rediscovery to develop and should not be undervalued as an important contributor to his legacy. 9/9