1985 - The Fuzzy Blue Elf gets his own miniseries

Nightcrawler
4 issue miniseries
November 1985 - February 1986
Writer/Artist: Dave Cockrum
Nightcrawler has long been one of my favorite X-Men and it was nice to see him get his own miniseries. Dave Cockrum, who co-created Nightcrawler with Len Wein, wrote and drew the entire miniseries.

Nightcrawler's attempt to rescue Kitty’s pet dragon, Lockheed, during a Danger Room scenario lands them both in an alien dimension. Fortunately, Nightcrawler finds himself at home among sky sailing ships and pirates. After a couple of issues, Kitty and Illyandra yank him out of that dimension and throw him into another which resembles that of Kitty's fairy tale from The Uncanny X-Men #153.

The first two issues are a lot of swashbuckling fun and high adventure. Unfortunately, the last two issues are less memorable with a story line that weakly parallels the Wizard of Oz with Kitty/Dorothy, Colossus/Tin Man, Wolverine/Lion, and the Nightcrawler/Strawman. There’s only so much cute you can put up with and it seems to me at least that it went one for a bit too long.

I was disappointed with this miniseries since it had no real character development. Nightcrawler’s past and origin, which was partially revealed in The Uncanny X-Men Annual #4, never surfaces in this series. No attempt was made to pick up the ongoing X-Men plot thread about his relationship to the mutant shape-shifter Mystique. It was also unfortunate that Amanda Sefton, Nightcrawler’s girlfriend, didn’t play any role in this series.