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Well, I was a little kid watching an episode of "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" with the X-Men guest staring and there was this wierd-looking blue demon-guy. I was really impressed that there was this evil-looking guy, with a spooky power, who was even a prankster, but he was a HERO. I thought that really cool, so when I was old enough to buy comics I checked out the X-Men and found I really liked alot about that spooky, blue guy I remembered.
Hmmm...
Well...I first got into the X-Men through the rather unusual route of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...really...the original comic was a parody of X-Men, Dare Devil and Ronin...but because its shipping date was so spasmodic, I decided to look up X-Men 'cos I liked the 'team' aspect. The first issue I got was #276...and Kurt wasn't even in the book at the time, he was kicking butt in Excalibur...so I liked Wolverine at the time...still do, but no where near as much as Kurt.
Being something of a completist, I went out in search of back issues...and thanks to re-prints and trade paperbacks, I think I'm missing two issues since the new team came in, and a few annuals...and my interest, and devotion, slowly turned to the blue-hued cutie...I liked his love of life, the way he so totally accepted himself for who he was, the way he could make you laugh...he could even get Logan to lighten up...and the way he just looked so wickedly cool! That, and the fact that I've always felt a bit of a misfit myself...a grown woman that reads comicbooks, watches cartoons and plays videogames? We're a rare breed...
So naturally I went back to the comic bins, managing to find ALL the back issues of Excalibur...but then there wasn't nearly as many of those...and grabbed just about every thing I could find that he appeared in...
And my feelings haven't changed...no new characters could take his place...not even the much hyped Gambit...who I think is something of a Nightcrawler rip-off anyway...both have accents, both are charming, flirting with everything in sight (pre priest days), both are extremely agile, both have girlie pink power signatures...
And who was it that made the cut for X2, hmmm?
Long live the misfit!
I'm probably gonna get ragged on for this....
Okay, so I watched this show called gundam Wing...and there was this really cute Blond guy on it> the sweet innocent type, you know. Then his dad got shot, one of his 29 sisters died, and he went nuts. i stooped watching Gundam Wing. (Well, really it was cause that damn things like a soap opera and i couldn't watch it all the time, and it got reeeealy confusing...'Look, i can braid my hair and go Psycho!!'ummm...don't ask...) But I still like the blond guy, so I looked up his voice actor and saw he did some other voices I liked and some i didn't know. Well, only one of those other voice was avalible for viewing with out paying many many dollars was this dude he did on X-men evolution named Nightcrawler. i didn't know much about Nightcrawler, except I read a book with him once, and he was my favorite Charater in it, cause he was friends with my faovrite Star Trek charas(It was a cross over book) and he was just cool. So, I watched Evolution. And i feel in love. And ended up paying this dude $10 so I could borrow his tape for the weekend. Then i realized that this chara must be in more mediums, looked him up on the web and absorbed information on everything about him until I became a nightcrawler Know it all...you know, if I'd just spent the money on one of those other shows Brad Saile had been in, it probably would cost me less, cause I dubt there much merchandise for My little pony tales....at least not as much as on Kurt.
Wow.... GUNDAM to BRAD SWAILLE to NIGHTCRAWLER...what a unique way to become a card carrying Elfaholic! (Btw TERRA ditto about DATA and Kurt in that X-MEN/STAR TREK:TNG novel!)
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Nandireya:
...a grown woman that reads comicbooks, watches cartoons and plays videogames? We're a rare breed...</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
I wish there were more of ya NADIREYA, especially here in South Florida!
I was drawn to/got hooked on the character for kinda the same reasons as a lot of my fellow Elfaholics....how cool, freaky, unusual, and wierd he looked when I first saw him! (Kudos to DAVE COCKRUM for that of course)
The book was an old ish of Uncanny X-Men....# 104 to be exact....and I traded an old Spider-Man comic for it back in grade school just because I was curious about the funny looking blue guy with 'chicken-feet' that I saw on the cover. Once I got to know the character I instantly bonded with him and adopted him as my favorite X-Man! (He eventually passed Batman and tied Spidey for the title of "My favorite Superhero") Been a rabid 'Elfmaniac' ever since!
[img]smile.gif[/img]
BAMF!
lets see.. i guess i'm kind-of-sort-of recent Elfaholic. see i wasn't into comics at all (tho i loved cartoons based on comic, X-Men and Spider-Man, liked the Batman movies..er.. the first two anyway...) until i was like 18 when someone gave me some Sandman trades as a gift and i realized hey comics were purdy cool. so i started picking them up at the corner store if i saw them, try whatever tickled my fancy judging by the cover or whatever. usually X-Men cause i liked the cartoon. i discovered i especially liked X-men comic as well as the show [img]smile.gif[/img] but Kurt was not a member of the team then! but since i had decided X-Men was my favourite, i started collecting it and invested in some trades of back-issues and thus, i discovered Nightcrawler. he appealed to me imensely straight off the bat. his design and attitude were this great paradox, plus paradoxes aside, he was just cool looking! i never liked characters with point and shoot powers or are imensely powerful, so his powers appealed to me as well. i had to find out whre he had dissapeared to in the current comics and i eventually figured out he was in Excalibur just in time for it to be canceled shortly thereafter [img]frown.gif[/img] admitedly Excalibur at that time was not great, but nontheless i went and got the backissues... after reading the early Excalibur i went from regular fan to diehard fan of Nightcrawler. [img]smile.gif[/img]
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Nocturne:
... after reading the early Excalibur I went from regular fan to diehard fan of Nightcrawler. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
NOCTURNE that is sooooo great to hear! What a thrill it is knowing that so many fans became crazy about the character from those awesome, early EXCALIBUR issues! Nightcrawler once thought to himself "Once an X-MAN, always an X-MAN"....very true, but I believe that it was the title and team of EXCALIBUR that brought out the very best in Kurt Wagner !
BAMF!
Ha! Yeah- I DEFINITELY know what you mean about the earlier Excaliburs. I first came across them in my friend's comic collection- I knew nothing about comics at the time- but she was a die-hard shadowcat fan, and since the powers that be figured out that Kitty and Kurt made a great team (helloooo! Is anyone out there LISTENING???? grr...) wherever there was Shadowcat, ther was also Nightcrawler. I totally passed over Kitty in favor of the "cool blue guy with the swords!" - I also sorta instantly fell into the catagory of all the angry fans who got mad at Captain Britain and wanted Kurt and Meggan to run off together. (Hey- Cap got better- --but still-- in those early issues- sheez...)
About the power thing- I totally know what you mean. I always got upset with superheroes that had to many powers. After I had been a fan for a little while- and I "expanded my horizons" to look at some of the other characters, I found myself really bored with all the characters who were just these mega-super-people. Too many powers, and there's not a lot of room left for personality. But I found myself reading comics going "He can teleport... that's... such a lame power... THAT'S SO COOL!!!!!!" I had many arguments with my comic-reading friends about that one. (Heck, I wish I could teleport- I'm always locking myself out of the house...) SO..yeah.. man- that was longer than it needed to be...
Early Excalibur is probably about the only time i was a fan of Claremont's writing. the rest of the time i endure it, but don't like it. (i read it like so -- "yadayadayadayadayada oh useful bit yadayadayadayadyadayada skim an entire page... oh! useful bit balablablabla... i mean honestly half the stuff written is drawn right there in the art! sheesh!) but he had hit on something with Excalibur. the mix of characters and humour and situations just worked. not to mention the art. look at the art from the other X-titles of the day then look at Excalibur - NO COMPARISON! you can barely tell what was going ON in X-Men in those issues, the art was fugly. but Davis's art was crisp, clear easy to follow and just plain purdy. how i miss it so.... and i wasn't even there when it was in it's glory days.
and about the powers. yup, as i said, what fun is it to read about acharacter who can save the world (or destroy it) by blinking? *yawn* i like my guys to be underdogs! saving the day despite facing overwhelming odds! have you seen what's happened to Rogue??? egad, i wish morrison had gotten her so he could have kileld her like he wanted to. she was interesting when she was first introduced, but she is boring now, and even more so now that she has the powere of EVERYONE she has ever touched at her disposal.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by BAMF:
Wow.... GUNDAM to BRAD SWAILLE to NIGHTCRAWLER...what a unique way to become a card carrying Elfaholic! (Btw TERRA ditto about DATA and Kurt in that X-MEN/STAR TREK:TNG novel!)
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Data AND Gerodi. That woulda probably hooked me to him then, nut I was....8 or 9 I think. The only comics I read were Barbie and Betty and Veronica. Still, I always remembered him after that...and feel so smart when I knew who that kid was in X-men on the basket ball court...and then felt stupid when I figured out that wasn't who is was....And yes, I do everything unique!! [img]tongue.gif[/img] I know have the crazy Quatre laugh down pat. Liven parties and scare you friend out of there mind when you come up behind them!!!
But Kurt's got heaps of powers and abilities...
Beside his teleporting, he's got the agility thing...some sources say it's part of his mutancy, some say it's just hard work...he can stick to just about anything...he can become all but invisible in shadows...his got that ever so handy tail...he's got a completely flexiable, cat-like spine...and, though he never uses them in a nasty way, his got fangs.
And then there's his learned skills...martial arts...fencing...acrobatics...
The guy can kick serious butt...but chooses not to...he'd rather talk his way out of things...
And yet teleportation and the occasional sticking to things is about all the writers ever seem to use. Rogue really has the power of ANYBODY she's EVER touched? That is just so lame! Now I'm glad I don't get X-treme. I like my superheroes with a bit of vulnerability...