I agree its hard to capture Claremont's x-men vibe without an essay.
And, I might be interested in running something that could match what's wanted. But, because the vibe of Claremont's x-men has so many elements, it might be hard to capture the most important elements Exwrestler, Choomie and maybe others would want in a game.
As a quick digression, and to establish where my biases are, I was almost exclusively a Marvel comics fan in the 1970's and 1980's as a kid/teenager. Not all of Marvel, mind, but I didn't really get into reading DC until I was almost in my 30s. My most favorite titles from the 1970's to 1980's were, in order of importance to me: Englehart's run on Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts; Claremont's X-men run; Frank Miller's relatively short run on Daredevil, and the various writers/artists on Iron man through the end of the Armor Wars storyline.
I didn't become aware of Wolfram's Teen Titans until I watched the first animated Teen Titans with my kids, and got introduced to the Trigon storyline and Deathstroke, etc. I never went back and read the original, so I don't have any inkling what made that story special to its fans.
So, from that basis, here's what stands out to me as important elements of that era, not in any particular order:
- Melodrama among the heroes
- Flawed characters - they seemed to my young mind to be 3 dimensional because of their foibles, idosyncracies, and flaws
- Stakes both personal and setting threatening
- Frenetic reveals of heretofore unknown backstory (note: unknown to me, who was reading these stories for the first time)
- Epic villians, who have plans and the means to enact those plans
- Scenery chewing superhero brawls, with the heroes usually getting their butts kicked right up until the last moment
- Rapid setting expansion (galactic empires? extra dimensional threats? etc - again, all new/expansionist to me as I didn't read, for instance, Fantasic Four)
Does this jive with what you'd want in a game? Or, if there are other distilled important bits you'd want to see, what are those?
Would you want an established comic book setting (e.g. Marvel or DC), or a published roleplaying seeting (e.g. Freedomverse), or homebrewed just for this game?
If an established setting, would you want to play a published character (e.g. Cyclops) or an original character?