[September Spotlight On!] Uncanny X-Men 204
Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 3:27 pm
Come with me, gentle readers, on a journey into the past of one Kurt Wagner. The date, April 1986. The issue, 204. The cover price, 75c.
Only one month prior, the rest of the X-Men had been summoned by the Beyonder into combat for his amusement. The being deemed Kurt unworthy, which drove him into a depression that we find him in as the issue opens.
(Stan Lee Presents - What Happened to Nightcrawler?)
(Writer - Chris Claremont)
(Penciler - June Brigman)
(Inker - Whilce Portacio)
Why is this issue important to the history of Nightcrawler? In it, we have all the classics of a good issue featuring the fuzzy elf. He broods, has a crisis of faith, jumps with gleeful abandon into adventure, saves a lady fair, and has a bathrobe scene.
The crisis of faith comes from encountering the Beyonder. Where most characters in the Marvel universe saw a very powerful being, Nightcrawler saw something with power levels associated only with God or Satan. Bad enough it would be one of those, but what if it was something else entirely beyond explanation through his faith?
Amanda (that heathen witch!) tries to talk him through it, even offering to call in sick to work. Kurt does the courteous, gentlemanly thing and accuses her of using her witchcraft to make him fall in love with her.
So yeah, she leaves.
Cut to a red haired lady jogging in the rain. She's quickly kidnapped by a big metal garbage truck looking thing. Kurt hears the sound (SFLANNNG!) and goes to investigate. He follows what he recognizes as one of Arcade's henchmen back to Murder World. Cue a page of ihm doing cool acrobatics, climbing, and working on a computer/security system while hanging from the ceiling years before Tom Cruise obviously copied it for Mission Impossible.
Arcade does his standard speech to introduce himself to his newest victim and sends her through a pinball (!) machine which lands her in a wilderness populated by redneck hunters and mounted hussars. While she's running, she falls into a lake and nearly gets eaten by a shark (robot, illusion, or hologram?). This is where Nightcrawler makes with the last minute heroics.
He wastes no time with introductions, glad to be playing the part of the knight in shining armor. This is how Kurt should deal with his brooding moods - go on adventures! He even references his amazing mini series Dave Cockrum had done not long before earlier in the book, while in the bathrobe. The rest is pretty standard action as Nightcrawler outfights and outthinks Arcade at his own game, which wins the grudging respect of the showman. The two are given leave to ... well, leave (This time).
While he's escorting Judith back to her apartment, Nightcrawler is in high spirits again. She brings him crashing back down with a lecture on how he's just as bad as those creeps back at Murderworld because he's hooked on the excitement. She goes as far as saying "The way you talk - if creeps like Arcade didn't exist, you'd have to invent him just to give your life purpose!"
His reply gets cut off when they find intruders in her apartment. As he gets ready for some more whuppin', they all kneel in front of Judith. They're from the state department of Ruritania, here to inform her that she's the last of the Elfburgs - the rightful Queen of Ruritania!
The issue ends on a double "?!?" from both Kurt and Judith.
I'm going to try and get a couple scans up, but if you want a copy yourself, it shouldn't be too hard to track down. If you can't find it in a dollar bin at your local comic shop, you can always order it here - Just scroll down a little.
As for the actual point of this thread - what did you guys think of this point in Nightcrawler history? Obviously helps if you've read this issue, but even if you haven't we want to hear from you.
Should the Beyonder have been such a crisis of faith for him? Or was he really more worried about the fact that he was left behind while the rest of the X-Men were taken? Did Amanda make him love her? Should he just ditch his normal costume for a bathrobe?
One last thing - as the thread title implies, we'll be doing one of these a month. Maybe an issue, maybe a storyline, maybe an alternate universe version of the character. What do you want to see? I've got plenty of material lined up for the next few months, but I'm certainly open to suggestions.
Only one month prior, the rest of the X-Men had been summoned by the Beyonder into combat for his amusement. The being deemed Kurt unworthy, which drove him into a depression that we find him in as the issue opens.
(Stan Lee Presents - What Happened to Nightcrawler?)
(Writer - Chris Claremont)
(Penciler - June Brigman)
(Inker - Whilce Portacio)
Why is this issue important to the history of Nightcrawler? In it, we have all the classics of a good issue featuring the fuzzy elf. He broods, has a crisis of faith, jumps with gleeful abandon into adventure, saves a lady fair, and has a bathrobe scene.
The crisis of faith comes from encountering the Beyonder. Where most characters in the Marvel universe saw a very powerful being, Nightcrawler saw something with power levels associated only with God or Satan. Bad enough it would be one of those, but what if it was something else entirely beyond explanation through his faith?
Amanda (that heathen witch!) tries to talk him through it, even offering to call in sick to work. Kurt does the courteous, gentlemanly thing and accuses her of using her witchcraft to make him fall in love with her.
So yeah, she leaves.
Cut to a red haired lady jogging in the rain. She's quickly kidnapped by a big metal garbage truck looking thing. Kurt hears the sound (SFLANNNG!) and goes to investigate. He follows what he recognizes as one of Arcade's henchmen back to Murder World. Cue a page of ihm doing cool acrobatics, climbing, and working on a computer/security system while hanging from the ceiling years before Tom Cruise obviously copied it for Mission Impossible.
Arcade does his standard speech to introduce himself to his newest victim and sends her through a pinball (!) machine which lands her in a wilderness populated by redneck hunters and mounted hussars. While she's running, she falls into a lake and nearly gets eaten by a shark (robot, illusion, or hologram?). This is where Nightcrawler makes with the last minute heroics.
He wastes no time with introductions, glad to be playing the part of the knight in shining armor. This is how Kurt should deal with his brooding moods - go on adventures! He even references his amazing mini series Dave Cockrum had done not long before earlier in the book, while in the bathrobe. The rest is pretty standard action as Nightcrawler outfights and outthinks Arcade at his own game, which wins the grudging respect of the showman. The two are given leave to ... well, leave (This time).
While he's escorting Judith back to her apartment, Nightcrawler is in high spirits again. She brings him crashing back down with a lecture on how he's just as bad as those creeps back at Murderworld because he's hooked on the excitement. She goes as far as saying "The way you talk - if creeps like Arcade didn't exist, you'd have to invent him just to give your life purpose!"
His reply gets cut off when they find intruders in her apartment. As he gets ready for some more whuppin', they all kneel in front of Judith. They're from the state department of Ruritania, here to inform her that she's the last of the Elfburgs - the rightful Queen of Ruritania!
The issue ends on a double "?!?" from both Kurt and Judith.
I'm going to try and get a couple scans up, but if you want a copy yourself, it shouldn't be too hard to track down. If you can't find it in a dollar bin at your local comic shop, you can always order it here - Just scroll down a little.
As for the actual point of this thread - what did you guys think of this point in Nightcrawler history? Obviously helps if you've read this issue, but even if you haven't we want to hear from you.
Should the Beyonder have been such a crisis of faith for him? Or was he really more worried about the fact that he was left behind while the rest of the X-Men were taken? Did Amanda make him love her? Should he just ditch his normal costume for a bathrobe?
One last thing - as the thread title implies, we'll be doing one of these a month. Maybe an issue, maybe a storyline, maybe an alternate universe version of the character. What do you want to see? I've got plenty of material lined up for the next few months, but I'm certainly open to suggestions.