The Last Bamf

[EDITOR'S NOTE: DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T YET READ X-FORCE #26 AND PLAN TO! CONSIDER YOURSELF SPOILER-ALERTED!]

Bamf.

An onomatopoeia that accompanies Kurt Wagner, better known as beloved X-Man Nightcrawler when he teleports into a panel. Or should I say accompanied. Fitting, I suppose, that in last week’s installment in the ongoing X-Saga, Nightcrawler took himself out of frame with the same sound. Permanently.

Introduced in Giant-Size X-Men #1, the visually striking Nightcrawler immediately puts a two-fingered (that’s all he gots, yo!) chokehold on your eyes, and within pages, your heart. Though he looks like a demon, he is the closest thing to an angel that Professor X would ever have grace the halls of his School For Gifted Youngsters.  A man of faith with the visage of Ian’s mom the devil, Kurt was the perfect character to convey the central theme of The X-Men: prejudice. What made him more than a plot device was the fact that amidst all the persecution, he never lost his smile. Which made him a perfect foil for Wolverine. Together with Colossus, Storm and, eventually, Kitty Pryde, they represented the second (and most popular) generation of X-Men. As complete opposites do so often in life, the two became fast friends, and even the grizzled, ornery Logan was not impervious to Kurt’s infectious charm and sunny nature. If you want to see the beginnings of the odd couple, they’re chronicled in my favourite Nightcrawler short story, The Big Dare, which I took the liberty of posting in the gallery below, along with his funeral, and with a second gallery of stand alone images thrown in for good measure and your viewing pleasure.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with him in his graphic form, you may remember him from one of the greatest opening sequences ever, in X2. Also, you could take a page from Ian’s book (no, not ‘Growing Up Small: A Handbook For Short People’.) and just look at the pictures. Ian, after all, claims literacy is overrated. “If I can’t read the sign, they have to let me on the ride, right?! “ Riiight….

Survived by mother Mystique, foster-sister Rogue and a loser half-brother, Graydon Creed. Member of The X-Men. Former leader of Excalibur. Trapeze artist. Sideshow freak. Swashbuckler. Priest. Mutant. Hero. In life he was all of these things. In death, only the last one still applies.

Don’t worry. I realize it’s strange that I’m speaking of him as if he was a real person. I’ll let you guys in on something while that middle-leg Ian isn’t here. (If you must know, he’s off reading his Free Comic Book Day issue of Fraggle Rock and eating penis-shaped crackers. I wish I was kidding.) One of the reasons I still read comics is that, for a few hours every Wednesday, I’m a kid again. No bills, no job, no crabs from the female side of the Explosivo family tree.  Just me, my suspended disbelief and a pile of good guys kicking the Ian out of the bad guys. So, even though the adult side of me knows that within a few years he’ll be back, when one of my childhood heroes, fictional or otherwise, dies, I can’t help but be moved. Let alone one of my top 3 X-Men. (Wolverine and Gambit are the other two. Tell me who yours are in the comments section and I’ll promptly make fun of them. Unless it’s Havok. Or one of the other blue X-Men, Archangel or Beast. Ian’s #1 is probably Banshee. He’s an old-as-shit, cockfaced redhead that screams a bunch. Although, blue people with tails do remind him of his parents, so there is that.)

Honestly, I feel sorry for everyone who can’t tune out the bullshit, ignore the irrelevant and just lose themselves in something they claim to love. Keep bitching about the semantics. I’ll be over here reading my X-Men back issues and putting two and a thumb in Ian’s mom the air for the homey Nightcrawler. (That’s all he gots, yo!)

Bamf.

– Nuv

NEXT ISSUE: THE BIG TWO BATTLE IRON DEFICIENCY!
TUNE IN: SAME IAN-TIME, SAME NUV-CHANNEL…