In this feature, I spotlight five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Here is an archive of all the patterns we've spotlighted so far.

This is a special CLAREMONTISM edition of Drawing Crazy Patterns, honoring one of the bits that Chris Claremont frequently features in his work (especially his X-Men work). Here is the sub-archive of just Claremontisms.

Today, based on the suggestion of a number of readers, we take a look at the classic X-Men retort, "I got better."

Enjoy!

NOTE: I'm just using five examples. There are surely more than five. I'm just listing five. Therefore, I did not "miss" any, as I have all I need here. Feel free to suggest ADDITIONAL instances of the term being used, though!

Some folks believe it is a reference to Monty Python. I think the usages are slightly different, but fair enough, we'll share the "I got better" scene from Monty Python's In Search of The Holy Grail...

I honestly don't know offhand where the term was first used by Chris Claremont. The first one I'm featuring today is from 1985's X-Men/Alpha Flight #1 by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith and Bob Wiacek, as Cyclops seemingly dies in a plane crash but is luckily saved by Loki and given a huge power upgrade along with some other people...



Two years later, in Uncanny X-Men #225 (by Claremont, Marc Silvestri and Dan Green), Colossus thinks he actually coined the phrase...



It shows up in World War II in a famous adventure in 1990's Uncanny X-Men #268 (by Claremont, Jim Lee and Scott Williams)...



And by 1991's Uncanny X-Men #277 (by Claremont, Lee and Williams), it is well known enough that the Power Skrulls use it to mock the X-Men....



And finally, Claremont even uses it in song in 2002's X-Treme X-Men #18 (by Claremont and Salvador Larroca), where Jean Grey sings it while entering Storm's soul in the astral plane (where Storm and a number of other members of the team are near death, leaving her teammates to try to keep her from going into the light, as it were)...



As I said before, feel free to point out other examples of the phrase being used!

Plus, if you have a suggestion for a future edition of Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com