Remember a week ago when I mentioned that
posting might be irregular moving forward? Today's one of those days... except to avoid a big fat nothing, I'm going to subject you to a summer rerun. My sister and her kids are concluding a 10-day visit today - they live in eastern Washington, near the Canadian border. They've stayed with us for the duration and have had a great time - a couple of day trips to Chicago, lots of family meals, and she's had the chance to show her family around the places she grew up. Solid family times.
But I'm not leaving you without something good.
This post originally ran on August 16 2013. It garnered 8 comments back then - we'll see if it's worthy of further conversation today. So thanks for putting up with my "dreaded deadline doom". If you came here to see my review of the final chapter of
Maus, volume 1, I hope to have that up either Thursday or next Monday. For now - enjoy some Dave Cockrum art on the character he loved!
Bizarre Adventures #27 (July 1981)
"Show Me the Way to Go Home..."
Jo Duffy/Bob Layton-Dave Cockrum/Ricardo Villamonte
Doug:
How about this for a splash page? That's some good Dave Cockrum X-art,
isn't it? And did you notice that Dave placed himself on the cover of
the TV Guide? Funny guy... Today concludes our trip through this
magazine. We've previously toured the
Phoenix and
Iceman
entries and today we'll finish the excursion with a look at the fuzzy
elf, Nightcrawler. You'll notice that Jo Duffy is responsible for the
script, as she was on the Iceman tale. I felt that that story was not
terrible, but mediocre. We'll see how this one goes.
Doug:
As the team watches an old Zorro flick an alarm suddenly goes off in
the mansion. The team recognizes it as emitting from Cerebro, but at a
pitch they've not previously heard. Nightcrawler, on Cyke's orders,
"bamfs" ahead to check it out. As the team arrives to the control room,
Kurt Wagner has a wry smile on his face -- Cerebro has detected half a
mutant! So, it's into a cruiser and off to Poughkeepsie to check it
out. Upon arrival, they find the Vanisher, last seen in battle against
the Champions and frozen in the Darkforce of Darkstar. And there he
stands -- half a mutant! Cyclops warns Kurt not to touch the Vanisher,
but you know how that goes -- Nightcrawler reaches out and then there's a
huge "BAMF!"
Doug:
Yeah, he really shouldn't have touched the Vanisher in the middle of
that Darkforce. That loud "BAMF!" sent the two teleporters through
time, space, and dimension to lord-knows-where. As they finally slipped
back into reality, there was a separation and Nightcrawler landed on a
planet full of shapely females -- offering him to be their god or king!
Nightcrawler's
flattered, but takes the high road and tries to teleport away. But
instead of "bamf!", we hear "poot!" Now, in the presence of
fine-looking women that's not exactly the best noise to make! It sets
in pretty quickly that ol' Kurt Wagner isn't going anywhere soon. Some
unknown distance away the Vanisher has landed and is having a similar
experience. However, being an egomaniacal villain, he's trying the
high-and-mighty approach, even as he too is offered godhood and/or a
kingship.
The
women find him humorous, and despite his failed attempts at
manipulating the Darkforce, the ladies decide to keep him. So they
literally drag him off to places yet unknown to us.
Doug:
Scene-shift back to Nightcrawler, who has been set up like a shiek or
sultan with the ladies as his harem. It's definitely a wine/women/song
setting. It gets pretty cryptic in a hurry, as Nightcrawler enjoys
himself but with lots of questions. The ladies (by the way, check out
the various costumes in the story -- seems like some Legion wear might
be sneaking in here and there) tell him that males are not native to
their planet, so when one arrives they make him their god or king -- to
further the population. But, they also tell, the gods and kings never
seem to last too long. An oracle is mentioned, and Nightcrawler says
he'd really like to see that. So it's up from the table and off on a
short field trip. Inside the cave of the oracle, Nightcrawler is
stunned to see a television! Once turned on, a little old lady, looking
like Granny from the Looney Tunes, greets him. She tells Kurt that all
he needs to do to get home is to go to the Well at the Center of Time.
It's
a crater only a few miles away that can transport him right back home.
However, she cautions that if he takes anything from there, or leaves
anything behind, she can make no guarantees -- he has to leave exactly
as he came in. And then as he and the escorts turn to leave, the oracle
tells him to watch his tail while he's there. Huh?
Doug:
We cut to another part of the world where the Vanisher has set himself
up as a god. The locals are waiting on him hand and foot, but the
Vanisher is stuck in his old ways. He looks at each piece of treasure
bestowed upon him and wonders how he could fence it! Suddenly
Nightcrawler steps forward from the shadows, spooking the Vanisher.
Nightcrawler tells him what he's learned about leaving, but the Vanisher
rebukes him -- he ain't going! So the X-Man says if the Vanisher won't
come along peacefully, he'll have to go by force! The Vanisher throws a
vase at his would-be abductor, and then appropriates a sword.
"Swashbuckling?" says Nightcrawler, who then grabs a cutlass of his
own. The two men duel, with Nightcrawler getting the better end of it
all. He finally subdues his foe, and bodily removes him from his
harem. As the two Earthlings march out, the women tell them to be
careful -- they seem not at all bothered that the "gods" are leaving.
Doug:
Nightcrawler hustles the Vanisher to the Well at the Center of Time.
Upon seeing it, the Vanisher emphatically declares that he's not jumping
into that crater. He then uses the Darkforce to craft a huge hand,
pick up Nightcrawler, and drop him.
Nightcrawler
is losing his patience quickly, when the Vanisher pulls a "sheet" of
Darkforce from his body and hurls it at Nightcrawler. Kurt's engulfed
in the stuff, and disappears! As it's like one big shadow, Nightcrawler
did a fade-out. However, upon returning he encourages the Vanisher to
restore the Darkforce to his outer covering -- it's apparently wearing a
little thin. At that moment huge beasts rush the two mutants, forcing
them to their only recourse -- jumping into the crater. They do, and
fall back through the inter-dimensional abyss. Back in Poughkeepsie,
Nightcrawler and the Vanisher reappear right where they'd "BAMF!"ed out
only seconds before. The Vanisher tries to go all Mr. Threatening on
the X-Men, but his steam is lost when he notices he's... naked! His
teleporation powers restored, he gets outta Dodge pretty quickly! Storm
asks Kurt for an explanation and all he tells her is that he's been to
paradise... and someday he's going back!
Doug: This
story, of the three in the book, would have looked the best in color
(although it is striking in the format you see). I imagine it would
have looked something like the Thing/Hulk graphic novel
The Big Change.
I thought this story was a nice way to end the magazine -- pretty light
and breezy fare. Cockrum just had a passion for Nightcrawler, and that
spirit shines through the art. It's fun. Overall, I'm not sorry I own
this magazine -- if I hadn't said it before, this was the first time
I'd read any of these three stories. They're all OK -- if I had to rank
them, I'd probably go Nightcrawler, Phoenix, and Iceman. However, the
Iceman story far and away looked the best -- it was just beautiful!
Bronze Age X-Men -- that's just never going to be a horrible experience,
is it? Nope -- like golden days of yore. Thanks for sticking with me
over these past three months!
