This segment is perhaps a little shallow and unfair, but a lengthy discussion of Chris Claremont's work should probably address fandom's complaints about his recurring clichés and recycled X-Men concepts.
Does Claremont often repeat himself? Indeed he does. Does the setup of Sovereign Seven, essentially a mainstream comics vanity project, provide Claremont with ample opportunities to indulge himself? Indeed it does. Is it enough to tank the series? Maybe, maybe not.
At the heart of Sovereign Seven, even though it takes our author more than a few issues to get us there, is a very Claremontian concept indeed. We get our first real hint of the series' major threat in the inaugural annual with the introduction of the Rapture, a flashback story that also details how Cruiser joined the team. (And inexplicably gives Reflex a beard, even though he's cleanshaven when we meet him in the first issue, set only seconds later.) The Rapture is an unseen force capable of overtaking entire populations, filling them with unreasoning rage. We're never really told why they do this, but it's global-scale mind control. A classic Claremont concept spread across the entire planet.
Later, Cruiser attempts to define it more philosophically, describing the Rapture as "The bliss of blind, unreasoning submission, without a soul to call your own, without the responsibility that comes of making a moral choice." If the Rapture had been the series' only indulgence in mind control, it might have been a neat thematic flourish. (Personally, I wouldn't have griped about it. Only one mind-control plotline in a monthly series would've been remarkable self-restraint on Claremont's part.)
Instead, nearly every story, whether directly involving the Rapture or not, features someone being ensorcelled or having their body taken over. As early as the second issue, Cascade is body-possessed and mind-controlled, transforming into a villainess in fetish gear named Nike. In the book's very next story arc, a serial killer arrives with the ability to enchant and body-control his victims.
During the opening year's Christmas issue, we meet Triage -- hulking, armored, and visually a Magneto and Stryfe mash-up. At first he appears to be aligned with the Rapture, but in a later appearance he insists he's fighting against it, which makes him one more mystery in a book that's filled to the brim with them. His signature move is…more mind control. Triage has the power to seize his opponents' wills and turn them into puppets, another variation on the title's endless obsession with possession.
After a series of cryptic appearances, Triage finally declares in issue 24 that he's working with Cascade's mother, Maitresse. This sounds like it should be a huge revelation, but the book doesn't stop long enough to explore what that even means. And earlier, in issues #13-14, we learn that Cruiser's fiancée Alyx -- already ensorcelled by the Rapture -- is now under Triage's control. That's two separate mystery villains taking turns hijacking the same bit character's mind. Alyx never comes into focus as a person we care about; she's just a prop passed back and forth between forces left undefined by our author.
I'm open to the idea that fan complaints about Claremont and mind control are overstated -- after all, he has used the device to great effect in the past, especially when it sharpened questions of free will and personal power. But in Sovereign Seven the motif becomes monotonous, showing up so often that it loses any weight. Unlike the X-Men, we barely know who these characters are before their identities are hijacked. What could be an exploration of autonomy and manipulation instead becomes background noise, emblematic of a series juggling too many mysteries and never letting its core ensemble gel.
At its center, Sovereign Seven could be interpreted as an intentional inversion of Claremont's most famous team book. The X-Men were mutants, "feared and hated" by the world around them. The Sovereigns, by contrast, are displaced royalty, heirs to power and privilege. They aren't outsiders battling prejudice, they're exiles struggling with failed obligations and the prospect of having to live as the plebeians do. It's the antithesis of the mutant metaphor, though Claremont can't resist nodding back to his Marvel past along the way.
Early on, a running gag has pop culture and comic book figures wandering into the Crossroads Coffee Bar. Wolverine makes a cameo in issue #2, seen only from behind. Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin wander through the next issue for a couple of panels, unnamed but unmistakable, with Lockheed poking out of Kitty's backpack and ordering an espresso. Violet Smith and Pansy Jones' coffee bar has a mysterious upstairs level that holds secrets the cast keeps stumbling into (an echo of Excalibur's lighthouse, except that Alan Davis never shows up to actually explain any of the mysteries this time around.)
An obscure story from Claremont's original Uncanny X-Men run is referenced again with the introduction of teenage supporting cast member Casey Rassendyll. (Thanks to commenter Brian for pointing this out in a previous installment.) Casey, we discover, is heir to the fictional European kingdom of Ruritania. This is also the case with Judith Rassendyll, who encounters Nightcrawler in Uncanny X-Men #204, an issue intended to be the first chapter in the long-teased origin of Nightcrawler. Claremont felt the story arc wasn't working and axed it after one issue. Are Casey Rassendyll and Judith related? Was Claremont prepping to make another attempt at telling his Ruritania story, unaware Sovereign Seven was close to cancellation?
The callbacks aren't stopping there. Issue #17 has Lady Blackhawk ferry the team into battle aboard an SR-71 Blackbird jet, a favorite aircraft of Claremont's that he'd previously introduced to the X-Men. Around this time, Sheriff Molly Savoy suddenly manifests the ability to draw a magical sword, and half her body becomes covered in mystical armor, a visual that's reminiscent of Magik from The New Mutants. On the subject of superficial similarities, Indigo is a dead ringer for Nightcrawler, while Rampart behaves and speaks much like cocky New Mutant Sunspot.
The X-Men ghosts keep creeping into Sovereign Seven, sometimes as outright references and sometimes in more subtle nods. Issue 11 is literally titled "Siege Most Perilous," and the jewel introduced back in the first issue bears a suspicious resemblance to Marc Silvestri's design of the Siege Perilous gem from the X-Men days. Later, in the confusing "Genesis" crossover issue, we're told that Cascade's mother Maitresse possesses the twin of this broach…a muddled idea that never gets fully explained, if you can imagine that.
Cascade herself seems built from Storm's template, with maybe a few tweaks. She has Storm's skin tone, though her features are drawn in a non-racially specific way, with light green eyes that evoke memories of Ororo's blue. And just as so many male characters instantly fell for Storm, Cascade has DC heroes like Robin and Superman immediately developing crushes.
Even the cameos echo the past. Sovereign Seven #10 features NPR reporters Neal Conan and Manoli Wetherell, real-life friends of Claremont's who also popped up during his X-Men tenure. This one's hard to grumble over; their presence feels like a tip of the hat to not only his buddies but also longtime readers.
Since Claremont is open to X-Men callbacks, should we be surprised that the Phoenix plays a role in this series, regardless of any potential trademark claims from the House of Ideas?
Perhaps the most flagrant example arrives in the 1996 "Legends of the Dead Earth" annual. In a future-set sequence, Network rescues a girl named Summer Grey from a government facility, a character very clearly meant to be Rachel Grey, the second Phoenix. Just a few pages later, the Phoenix Force itself makes an appearance, though in a separate vignette that seemingly has nothing to do with this Summer Grey.
The theme of the "Dead Earth" annuals was to tell the last stories of DC's heroes, but the issue devotes only a few scattered pages to resolve Cascade's central conflict with her mother, Maitresse. We're told Maitresse has the power to reshape "the face and fabric of this world," and that her defeat would somehow enable the Rapture to devour all creation.
In a bewildering climax, Cascade and a previously unrevealed brother give Maitresse their souls, transforming her into the Phoenix Force. She defeats the Rapture, dies, and in the process "gives the cosmos a soul." It's a wonderfully grandiose idea, but delivered as a handful of cryptic beats that never resolve into a coherent story.
Worse, since Cascade's vendetta against her mother is at the heart of this series, this should have been the defining showdown, the moment when Claremont spelled out the premise once and for all. Instead, it's treated as just another vignette, wedged between unrelated "last chapters" for other characters, and even a baffling interlude featuring a superhero who moonlights as a stand-up comedian. (Apparently this is meant to be the daughter of a cast member, but that assumes readers have memorized all of the Sovereigns' last names and can pick up the reference.)
Hints of Phoenix mythology later reappear in the monthly series. In issue #35, the next-to-last issue, we finally get an origin for Maitresse: while pregnant with Cascade, she attacked the Rapture in her Phoenix-like form. Apparently, the story from the annual was a sequel to this story we hadn't been told yet.
When powered up as this Phoenix-like entity, Maitresse's skin would turn from fair to brown. Imprisoned by the Rapture, and left in that empowered state while pregnant with her daughter, is apparently why Cascade was born with brown skin but racially-vague features. (It's another connection between Cascade and the blue-eyed Storm, who we were sometimes told possessed rare physical traits of all races.)
This story of Maitresse losing to the Rapture, by the way, seems to contradict earlier stories that claimed her own people had imprisoned her in the tower as punishment for her abuses. Like the annual, it's a swirl of gestures toward Claremont's signature cosmic saga, but without the narrative clarity or Jim Shooter-mandated payoff that made the original Phoenix saga resonate.
In another context, these X-Men nods might have been fun Easter eggs, sly winks Claremont's longtime readers would enjoy. But because Sovereign Seven never fully came into its own, the book burdened with so many unresolved mysteries and abandoned subplots, the references often feel more like distractions than cute callbacks. Oddly, this does become one of the more engaging aspects of the series, catching all of the times Claremont's referencing his previous Marvel work under DC's banner.
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