Random Happenstance

Thank you, Dave.


As reported on Newsarama and other sources, Dave Cockrum, longtime artist for Uncanny X-Men and Legion of Super-Heroes, passed away from complications from diabetes the morning of November 26. He was 63.

Although he created other X-characters, Cockrum was the creator of Nightcrawler, my favorite comic character. For the record, I still totally prefer his version, a happy-go-lucky swashbuckler with a penchant for old adventure movies and fun. Uncanny X-Men #149 was probably the first or second X-Men comic I ever read, and that was one of his too.

It's funny, but over Thanksgiving I was reading some old Legion: Grell issues, not Cockrum's. But I was thinking about when I was really little, my family would go into northern Montana to have Thanksgiving with my mom's cousins and family. (Forgive me for not saying exactly where!) And every year, I would read my older cousins' comics like mad: old Superman and Superboy and the Legion issues, comics that charitably were in 'good' condition, but would be the way I would want to read comics for the rest of my life: unbagged, colorful, exciting, and new.

So, I spent a good chunk of my morning (after seeing the news via the Fortress of Fortitude) wondering if I had been reading Cockrum's comics before I even knew it. Thank you, Dave.

From Bizarre Adventures #27, "Show me the Way to Go Home" Plot by Mary Jo Duffy and Bob Layton, script by Mary Jo Duffy, art by Dave Cockrum and Ricardo Villamonte.