INTRODUCTION SPECULATION

The following began as a footnote to last week's UNCANNY X-MEN OMNIBUS volume 3 review, but grew so long I decided to turn it into its own post:

As I've noted before, whenever Marvel puts out a Silver or Bronze Age Omnibus, they include the introductions from prior Marvel Masterworks volumes which collected the same material. In the case of UNCANNY X-MEN, when Marvel started the line in the late eighties, most of their volumes featured intros from Stan Lee. Somehow, the first UNCANNY Masterworks had an intro from Lee but also one from Chris Claremont, possibly depending on the edition (I know mine had one by Lee, but the UNCANNY OMNIBUS volume 1 features the Claremont one, which I assume was produced for the very first printing in 1989).

Moving on, when the Masterworks program was revived in the mid-00s, volumes 4 and 5 featured intros from Claremont, 6 had one from inker Terry Austin, and then editor Louise Simonson arrived for volume 7 and the subsequent 8 and 9. I have no objections to Simonson; I'm quite happy she penned at least one introduction. My point, really, is -- why not spread the introduction love? If Chris Claremont is currently unwilling or unable to do them, what about others who worked on the series? Sadly, penciler Dave Cockrum passed away before Marvel got around to reprinting his second run in 2008 -- but what about his successor, Paul Smith? Or even longtime letter Tom Orzechowski and colorist Glynis Oliver -- were either of them approached to write an intro? They got the inker to do one, for Pete's sake (for a volume in which he worked on three out of ten collected issues)!