I disagree wholeheartedly with the statement that Chris Claremont was not good at writing female characters. If there was one thing he was good at, it was that. Storm, Kitty Pryde, Psylocke, and Madelyne Pryor were all standouts from his initial run. In fact, I'd argue that Storm's character arc during his first tenure is among one of the best in comic book history.



Claremont was never focused on Cyclops and Jean. It was his intention very early on to dispose of them by having them "grow up." Obviously his plans were dashed when the editorial edict was handed down that he had to kill off Jean, but it's still factual that Claremont contributed nothing to the Cyclops and Jean relationship after the Dark Phoenix Saga. By the time they came back to Claremont, he didn't seem all that interested in them. Heck, most of his runs afterwards don't feature Cyclops in any kind of major role. Storm has always clearly been his favourite.



I can't say why Claremont never focused on romance with Rogue. The only time he started to go down that route was with Magneto. Rogue and Gambit became more of a thing after Claremont had left the X-books in the early-'90s.



I didn't mind Mike Carey's work on Rogue. She was a smidge more likeable, though I didn't much like the development into this very school marm-esque character without an edge during the Legacy years though. She's white trash and a former villain, she needs to have all kinds of attitude. Overall, I don't mind when the focus is pulled away from romance for female characters, often because that can become their primary storyline and that's problematic when women's stories revolve exclusively around men.



The reason why I say that the cartoon version is superior is that she's far more consistently written and is far more sanitized than her comic book counterpart. Her comic book counterpart is a former terrorist who attempted to murder handfuls of people, stalked Dazzler and caused her to suffer tremendous terror via PTSD, was possibly a racist (yeah, don't think I'll ever be forgetting the fact that her ultimate fantasy is to be a "plantation princess" during the pre-Civil War era and how she views that time like a fairytale), and continually acted like a hypocrite by judging people harshly who were in similar positions as her (Gambit, Emma, Mystique, Scarlet Witch... basically any former villain trying to be a hero). I'm no Rogue fan. I should make that clear. But she's always been more tolerable in adaptations (save for the movies) as she doesn't have the same baggage she does in the comics.