Issue(s): Bizarre Adventures #27 (Nightcrawler story only)
Cover Date: Jul 81
Title: "Show me the way to go home..."
Credits:
Mary Jo Duffy - Script
Mary Jo Duffy & Bob Layton - Plot
Dave Cockrum - Penciler
Ricardo Villamonte - Inker
Ralph Macchio - Assistant Editor
Denny O'Neil - Editor

Review/plot:
This is the Nightcrawler portion of the "Secret Lives of the X-Men" Bizarre Adventures issue. I've covered the Jean Grey and Iceman stories in separate entries.

This is a lighthearted adventure story. Nightcrawler is watching Zorro with the X-Men...

...when Cerebro sounds an alarm, having detected half a mutant. The mutant turns out to be the Vanisher, who was last seen half-trapped by Darkstar. That happened "months ago" and "at long last" the other half of him has appeared.

When Nightcrawler touches Vanisher, the two of them disappear into "a roiling mass of darkforce", traveling "across the dimensional barriers" and through "myriad realities".

In the background of their trans-dimensional journey, we see some alternate versions of them.

When their journey is finished, the two teleporters are separated from each other. Their teleportation powers are not working, but each finds themselves attended by ladies that would like to make them "a god or a king or anything".

Nightcrawler consults an oracle (a television set)...

...and learns how to get home. He retrieves Vanisher and they jump through a volcano and arrive back on Earth (and, according to Nightcrawler, at the moment he left).

Along the way, Vanisher demonstrated the ability to pull darkforce matter off of himself and form it into objects, although they don't have any strength behind them.

When he arrives back on Earth, however, he's completely naked.

I've seen it said that this story demonstrates that Nightcrawler and Vanisher use the Darkforce dimension to teleport, but i don't think that's really what's shown here. Obviously something is going on with the Vanisher; the ability to form objects out of Darkforce is something new. But the fact that he was half-trapped in the Darkforce dimension is only because Darkstar caught him there while he was teleporting; i don't think it's showing anything more than that. And Nightcrawler's powers are reacting to the anomaly but that doesn't necessarily mean his powers are directly related.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - Potentially establishing a Darkforce connection for Vanisher and Nightcrawler.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Per Michael's comment, since Wolverine is wearing his yellow costume, it has to take place prior to his costume change. The Marvel Index places the other story way back in publication time, between Uncanny X-Men #124-125.

References:

• Vanisher was trapped by Darkstar in Champions #17.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Look more closely at the scans of Wolverine- he's clearly wearing his original yellow costume. That's why the Index placed the Nightcrawler story before the Dark Phoenix Saga.

Pfft, it's a black & white comic! Can't i just ignore that? ;-)

I've split the stories into separate entries and placed them appropriately. Thanks for pointing it out.

Sehv is probably Marie Severin.

Also, FWIW, when the X-Men arrive to where Vanisher is stuck, it looks like they're using the old Larry Trask Sentinel ship, which gets destroyed by Dark Phoenix, further justification for the earlier placement (I just noticed that working on my own review of the issue).

Sehv the oracle appears one more time in Nightcrawler's miniseries when he returns to that wacky dimension. Shouldn't she get a character tag? (tbh she's an unimportant character from another dimension who only ever meets Kurt but I was just wondering...)

Added a tag for Sehv. Thanks Nate.