In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics).

This is a special SUB-set, which is "Claremontisms," which are honoring one of the bits that Chris Claremont frequently features in his work (especially his X-Men work).

Today, we look at the phrase "all my heart."

The phrase has become most associated with Scott Summers and Jean Grey, but I believe it actually first appeared by Claremont in Ms. Marvel #17 (by Chris Claremont, Jim Mooney and Tony DeZuniga), where Carol Danvers is talking with a friend of hers about her life...

But clearly, Scott and Jean are the people that you really think of with this particular phrase, and that's clear in X-Men #137 (by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin), where the X-Men are getting ready to die in defense of their friend, Jean Grey, against the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. Jean, whose Phoenix powers have been temporarily blocked by Professor X, decides to wear her Marvel Girl outfit into this final battle and she and Cyclops have a tender moment before the battle begins...

Cleverly, the very next issue (by Claremont, Byrne and Austin), which is Scott looking back on his life with the X-Men and with Jean (before he decides to take a leave of absence from the X-Men), we get to see the FIRST time that the phrase was used by Scott and Jean...

While the X-Men were in Japan for Wolverine's wedding (which sadly never took place), Storm drastically revamped her look, and that freaked Kitty Pryde out. Storm was irritated at how Kitty kept shutting her out, so finally, in Uncanny X-Men #180 (by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr., Dan Green and Bob Wiacek), Storm confronts her about their impasse...

Just three issues later, the X-Men returned from Secret Wars and Colossus has ended up falling in love with an alien while the X-Men were away and he breaks up with Kitty Pryde. She is distraught, and she emotes with Storm later in the issue (by Claremont, Romita Jr. and Green)...

In Uncanny X-Men #190 (by Claremont, Romita Jr. and Green), the evil wizard Kulan Gath has transformed New York City into some sort of middle ages "sword and sorcery" area, and the United States government is freaking the heck out about what they should do about it. Their only hope, really, rest within the superheroes who happened to be in New York City at the time, including the Avengers and, yes, those filthy mutants, the X-Men, so Val Cooper talks about how she really hopes that the X-Men come through...

An example of a "bad" version of "all my heart" came in New Mutants #33 (by Chris Claremont and Steve Leialoha), where the Shadow King manages to take over Storm's mind and she makes sure to tell him that she is all his...

The following month was the launch of the X-Men/Alpha Flight miniseries (by Chris Clarmeont, Paul Smith and Bob Wiacek), and in that series, both X-Men and Alpha Flight show up at a mysterious place where a plane flown by Madelyne Pryor crashed and yet all of the passengers have seemingly been transformed into god-like beings. The members of X-Men and Alpha Flight slowly see their greatest wishes coming true (like Rogue can now control her powers, for instance), but other members of the team, like Northstar, are unsure if this is really fool's gold or not, even as his sister is delightfully embracing the possibility of having her alternate personality erased. When it seems like something at the place has attacked Shaman, Northstar asks her about her thoughts about the place still...

In the first issue of Classic X-Men, Chris Claremont and John Bolton do a back-up story (well, a little more than just a "back-up," as it is woven into the original story of Giant-Size X-Men #1, showing why some of the X-Men decided to leave the team. This is the introduction of the famous "Jean Grey was into Wolverine" retcon that Claremont (and other writers) later played up a lot, even though in the original comics, the Jean Grey/Wolverine deal was wholly one-sided. So Jean explains to Professor X that she can't stay on the X-Men because of her attraction to Wolverine...

Finally, in Excalibur: Special Edition (by Chris Claremont, Alan Davis and Paul Neary), we see the collection of heroes who formed the new superhero team, Excalibur, and when they are all together at the end, it is a somewhat surprising member of the team who drops the "all my heart" line....

He doesn't strike me as the type of guy who'd normally be dropping "All my heart" into conversations, but hey, Claremont invented the guy, so I guess he knows him better than I do. Which is fair enough.

That's it for this edition of Drawing Crazy Patterns - Claremontism Edition! If anyone else has ideas for things that get repeated a lot that you'd like to see me spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!