I've noticed something. X-Men characters seem to disappear often, and honestly, it's annoying when your favourite, lesser known X-Men disappear for say, a decade, right? I want to know what happened to these characters:

1. Cypher and Warlock

After New Mutants #50 concluded, these two guys (who so happen to be my favourite X-Men), are thrown back into Limbo. Anyone's heard any news about these two guys appearing any time soon?

2. Nightcrawler

I know his death was relatively recent, and they brought an AoA version and Kid version of him out in Uncanny X-Force and X-Treme X-Men recently, but is there any news or hints saying that the ORGINAL 616 Nightcrawler's coming back? I know comic books are given crap for not letting characters die long enough, but honestly, theyre killing off the wrong characters. I'm sorry to say this, but they shouldve buried or retconned the whole Hollow/ Penance thing, which brings on to my next person...

3. Hollow/ Penance

Being a fan of Generation X, I can't help but wonder, WHERE IS THIS DEAD PLOTLINE. I mean, this character had so much potential, but honestly, I can't help but feel her origin is a black spot on the X-Men history that should be written away. She was in Avengers Academy, sure, but someone needs to clean her act up.

Anyone else?

I've got nothing on any of these characters, sorry. My only interest is in Nightcrawler. Incidentally, WHAT THE HELL ARE THE BAMFS?! Seriously. I've looked in the Marvel Database and it just says they're demons or something. WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY, WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE NIGHTCRAWLER AND HAVE HIS POWERS?!

@JonSmith said:

I've got nothing on any of these characters, sorry. My only interest is in Nightcrawler. Incidentally, WHAT THE HELL ARE THE BAMFS?! Seriously. I've looked in the Marvel Database and it just says they're demons or something. WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY, WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE NIGHTCRAWLER AND HAVE HIS POWERS?!

what is a BAMF??? - Comic Vine

and if you look at comicvines page about bamfs it says.....A race of impish interdimensional 'Gremlins' who resemble miniature versions of Nightcrawler. The X-Men have encountered various versions during their adventures, but the Jean Grey School is currently infested with dozens of mischievous Bamfs who may be connected to Azazel who arrived on earth flanked by bamfs.

Forget them, WHERE'S LIFEGUARD ?!

@AgeofHurricane said:

Forget them, WHERE'S LIFEGUARD ?!

@AgeofHurricane said:

Forget them, WHERE'S LIFEGUARD ?!

Right!^

Where are Pixie, Elixir, and Surge??? And those dumb@$$ 5 lights everyone hyped about...? And X-club!?

At least we got Sage back! :D

If Cypher and Warlock are hanging out in Limbo, then it wouldn't be too far out of the realm of possibility for Magik to find them and bring them back.

Nightcrawler has been dead for almost three years so I'm guessing he's gonna be making his comeback pretty soon.

@t3hLomb said:

If Cypher and Warlock are hanging out in Limbo, then it wouldn't be too far out of the realm of possibility for Magik to find them and bring them back.

Nightcrawler has been dead for almost three years so I'm guessing he's gonna be making his comeback pretty soon.

Not THAT Limbo. Writer's limbo. If you read GMorrison's Animal Man, that's a brilliant description.

@poisonfleur said:

@AgeofHurricane said:

Forget them, WHERE'S LIFEGUARD ?!

Right!^

Where are Pixie, Elixir, and Surge??? And those dumb@$$ 5 lights everyone hyped about...? And X-club!?

At least we got Sage back! :D

Holy crap, where the hell is Hope's gang? I swear there was so much hype, Generation Hope?! I swear they've been thrown back to writer's limbo post AvX.

Pixie's was in Wood's X-Men, no? OH MY GOD. ELIXIR. FORGOT ABOUT HIM. He's one of my favs from New X-Men: Academy X.

5 Lights, Magma, Dani, Surge, Prodigy, Dust, Mercury, Loa, Pixie, Elixir... The list goes on. Writers limbo sucks.

@IllyanaRasputin said:

5 Lights, Magma, Dani, Surge, Prodigy, Dust, Mercury, Loa, Pixie, Elixir... The list goes on. Writers limbo sucks.

Dani is coming back in Fearless Defenders, isn't she?

@tomchu said:

@IllyanaRasputin said:

5 Lights, Magma, Dani, Surge, Prodigy, Dust, Mercury, Loa, Pixie, Elixir... The list goes on. Writers limbo sucks.

Dani is coming back in Fearless Defenders, isn't she?

Yes, in Cullen Bunn's Fearless Defenders.

why the hell is captain britain with the avengers? where's megan? shatterstar , feal, longshot and wolvesbane

wait did some one say Sage is back? Where?!?

@McKlayn said:

wait did some one say Sage is back? Where?!?

Xtreme X-Men, but that is being cancelled so no idea where she will end up.

i love sage :'( i tend to stay out of None Cannon Titles, i just dont have enough money lol but yea they are doing a cross over with Astonishing & AOA soon, that features AOA Nightcrawler so maybe sage will left off on a real team before its canceled

@judasnixon: actually, Wolfsbane retired to raise her kid. The kind of normal thing characters used to do in limbo, she'll be back when she has a story, as will probably most of the characters people have mentioned.

@McKlayn: it's not so much non cannon as it is non 616, but yeah, I tend to be the same way.

I get the feeling that this crossover will result in some characters being recruited to Astonishing from the books that are being cancelled, probably to give Astonishing another chance. I wouldn't mind seeing Sage end up there.

I hate it when good characters go into comic book limbo, because you don't know when they will exactly come back to the main stories. I just hope all of these characters will come back to the comics soon.

@judasnixon: did she? shoot. I have such a hard time keeping caught up with that book..

but my point remains the same, sometimes characters go off to do normal things that don't necessarily warrant detailing in a super hero comic. Most of the cast of X-factor, for example, have all done that for years at a time before winding up there.

If you don't see Karma for a while, you just assume she's being a librarian, raising her siblings, Cecilia is probably busy being a doctor; lots of great characters, we can assume, do things beside be X-men or whatever. Do you really want to know where and what every character is doing all the time? I don't. Besides being unrealistic, it would eliminate so much of the element of surprise and mystery that happens when a character who hasn't been around suddenly shows up. I've never been much of a Bishop fan, but when he showed up at the end of last week's X-force, I was like, man, what's he up to now? Do we really wanna lose that?

@dangallant984 said:

@judasnixon: did she? shoot. I have such a hard time keeping caught up with that book..

but my point remains the same, sometimes characters go off to do normal things that don't necessarily warrant detailing in a super hero comic. Most of the cast of X-factor, for example, have all done that for years at a time before winding up there.

If you don't see Karma for a while, you just assume she's being a librarian, raising her siblings, Cecilia is probably busy being a doctor; lots of great characters, we can assume, do things beside be X-men or whatever. Do you really want to know where and what every character is doing all the time? I don't. Besides being unrealistic, it would eliminate so much of the element of surprise and mystery that happens when a character who hasn't been around suddenly shows up. I've never been much of a Bishop fan, but when he showed up at the end of last week's X-force, I was like, man, what's he up to now? Do we really wanna lose that?

I agree, except the whole not a bishop fan thing <3 bishop he's one of my all time favs,

Also on the subject of Astonishing, and the whole cross over thing. Who exactly is in the line up of xtreme and aoa atm?

@McKlayn said:

I agree, except the whole not a bishop fan thing <3 bishop he's one of my all time favs,

Also on the subject of Astonishing, and the whole cross over thing. Who exactly is in the line up of xtreme and aoa atm?

that I couldn't tell you. I heard Dazzler was in X-treme X-men, and AoA has, I assume, some alternate reality X-men from a story I was pretty luke warm about in the 90's.

@tomchu: HA HA Sorry I thought you were talking about the place

@dangallant984: You're right, i don't. Particularly one of the reasons why so many have grown sick of Wolverine, because we're overdosed with his daily happenings at every single given opportunity, unlike in the good ole' days, where he'd tend to take some time out to attend to actual personal matters. But i think writers need to utilize this aspect of 'giving characters a break' more, Gillen did it with Emma during Uncanny, and it just recently happened with Jubilee. Now it needs to happen to Elixir, 'cause i think he must have gotten over Necrosha by now.

@AgeofHurricane: yeah, see that's another thing I like about them putting him in the headmaster role, now they've always got a reason why he wouldn't be around. Same with Iceman and Beast; now that these characters effectively have day jobs, it can just be taken for granted that they're too busy to be full time X-men; it puts them into the background without having to take them away. But those three are lifers, most characters should sporadically want to do other things.

It's why I didn't mind when Elixir or Jubilee went away, because I knew that, in all likelihood, it meant they'd be central to the story when they returned.

Something I think they really flubbed up during the Utopia era was to bring back so many characters and not explain what they'd been up to in their absence. I know you could go through and be like, oh, he was on the run from the law, she was being a pop star, he was skiing, but that doesn't give them any reason for being brought back into the story, hence everyone just becoming generic cannon fodder.

@dangallant984: Yeah. The biggest flaw of Fraction's run (save for the writing itself) was bringing back dozens of characters for the sake of bringing them in. It was more or less ff.

@AgeofHurricane: agreed. wait, what's ff? flavour filler?

@dangallant984: Lol fan-fiction.

@AgeofHurricane: haha, right. either way, a terrible waste of a lot of good characters.

@AgeofHurricane: @dangallant984:

But then again, how is that bad? I mean, its good to catch up with certain characters, I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing Cecelia Reyes once in awhile. Where is she? Is she in X-Club?

@tomchu: It's not bad, it only becomes a bad thing when we see too much of character in question.

@AgeofHurricane said:

@tomchu: It's not bad, it only becomes a bad thing when we see too much of character in question.

You mean if we see too much of one character? Can't be THAT bad unless its someone who appears in another book already, like Wolverine or Storm, unless its brilliantly written.

@tomchu: Yes. If we see too much of a character to the point where their own personal life isn't even personal anymore, in the literal sense. Take Wind Dancer for example, after her NW stint it's safe to assume that she's happily getting along with her mutant free lifestyle, just as much as Beak and Angel are, and that's a nice thought. and Storm's not even on the same level of exposure analogous to Wolverine, not even close.

@AgeofHurricane said:

@tomchu: Yes. If we see too much of a character to the point where their own personal life isn't even personal anymore, in the literal sense. Take Wind Dancer for example, after her NW stint it's safe to assume that she's happily getting along with her mutant free lifestyle, just as much as Beak and Angel are, and that's a nice thought. and Storm's not even on the same level of exposure analogous to Wolverine, not even close.

It's still good to check up on Beak, Angel, and Wind Dancer every now and then right? An arc every 20 issues or so, especially since Marvel tries to play the whole "our universe" card.

Fair enough, but I thought Storm = Avenger was a dumb idea. Storm has a massive role in the X-Verse, but Wolverine's more exposed, since he's (literally) everywhere. Solo, Avengers, School, Astonishing. You name it. Wasn't there an issue a long time ago which showed Wolvie fight the main character on the cover, but even mention Wolvie does not appear in the entire issue?

@tomchu said:

@AgeofHurricane: @dangallant984:

But then again, how is that bad? I mean, its good to catch up with certain characters, I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing Cecelia Reyes once in awhile. Where is she? Is she in X-Club?

She's been featured pretty regularly in Astonishing X-men lately, but she was just an easy example because she obviously would have other things to do besides being an X-man. My point is partially that some characters don't, but more so that most characters do. The ones that don't become the centre that holds the concept together over time, and the ones that do add perspective, acting as agents between the concept and the illusion of an outside world. Most characters in X-men are the latter, and there's a lot of them. And every character is only part of the story, that's what they're there for; I don't need, or want, to know what every character who's ever been part of the story is up to all the time.

@dangallant984 said:

@tomchu said:

@AgeofHurricane: @dangallant984:

But then again, how is that bad? I mean, its good to catch up with certain characters, I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing Cecelia Reyes once in awhile. Where is she? Is she in X-Club?

She's been featured pretty regularly in Astonishing X-men lately, but she was just an easy example because she obviously would have other things to do besides being an X-man. My point is partially that some characters don't, but more so that most characters do. The ones that don't become the centre that holds the concept together over time, and the ones that do add perspective, acting as agents between the concept and the illusion of an outside world. Most characters in X-men are the latter, and there's a lot of them. And every character is only part of the story, that's what they're there for; I don't need, or want, to know what every character who's ever been part of the story is up to all the time.

Okay right, you actually have got a very good point there.

Still, the X-Universe has been around since the 60s (and not exploding till mid 70s), and in that time, there's has been A LOT of characters introduced, with some of them not really getting the attention they deserve, or just left aside and not picked up by the next writer, leaving them in Writer's Limbo. Of course, focusing 24/7 on a lesser-known character like Chamber or Husk is a bit too much, but then again, giving them a spotlight issue can't be THAT bad right? (WTAX #17's Doop issue is a brilliant example here)

@tomchu: You make very well educated posts. To further @dangallant984 's statement, Claremont kind of started a trend of using character foils that basically exploded in 90's and underwent an massive influx of trash characters in the early 2000's From these three "events" many supporting characters were formed. I personally love Cypher, I would love to see him adopt an almost oracle like position over the entire x-universe, but again even then he will be a supporting character. That is where he needs to stay as well. One of the worst elements in modern X-titles is the sheer lack of supporting cast. That is one of things that made Claremonts so damned interesting. After UXM 201, it was Storm's book. Everything revolved around the depowered Storm, even Wolverine to a large degree AND IT WORKED. I think each supporting character should stick to their main archetype. Example when I see Jubes I wanna see wolvie. When I see Beast I wanna see Iceman. When I see Cannonball I wanna see Mirage. So and so forth. No one has been able to reproduce that type clear dynamic since not even Claremont himself.

@tomchu said:

Okay right, you actually have got a very good point there.

Still, the X-Universe has been around since the 60s (and not exploding till mid 70s), and in that time, there's has been A LOT of characters introduced, with some of them not really getting the attention they deserve, or just left aside and not picked up by the next writer, leaving them in Writer's Limbo. Of course, focusing 24/7 on a lesser-known character like Chamber or Husk is a bit too much, but then again, giving them a spotlight issue can't be THAT bad right? (WTAX #17's Doop issue is a brilliant example here)

No, it's not bad at all, it's just that part of what makes it exciting for characters who aren't regularly featured to show up is that you don't know what they've been up to, so they bring a new story in with them.

Where is that girl Namor destroyed a city for? Did she drown or something?

@chiq said:

Where is that girl Namor destroyed a city for? Did she drown or something?

haha! that was really the icing on the cake; he never found her!

maybe she was never there to begin with..

@dangallant984 said:

@tomchu said:

Okay right, you actually have got a very good point there.

Still, the X-Universe has been around since the 60s (and not exploding till mid 70s), and in that time, there's has been A LOT of characters introduced, with some of them not really getting the attention they deserve, or just left aside and not picked up by the next writer, leaving them in Writer's Limbo. Of course, focusing 24/7 on a lesser-known character like Chamber or Husk is a bit too much, but then again, giving them a spotlight issue can't be THAT bad right? (WTAX #17's Doop issue is a brilliant example here)

No, it's not bad at all, it's just that part of what makes it exciting for characters who aren't regularly featured to show up is that you don't know what they've been up to, so they bring a new story in with them.

I guess, I mean, Doop hasnt been in the X-verse for awhile, which is brilliant because Jason Aaron brought in what he did for the school, which I thought wrapped it up really, really well.

@chasereis said:

@tomchu: You make very well educated posts. To further @dangallant984 's statement, Claremont kind of started a trend of using character foils that basically exploded in 90's and underwent an massive influx of trash characters in the early 2000's From these three "events" many supporting characters were formed. I personally love Cypher, I would love to see him adopt an almost oracle like position over the entire x-universe, but again even then he will be a supporting character. That is where he needs to stay as well. One of the worst elements in modern X-titles is the sheer lack of supporting cast. That is one of things that made Claremonts so damned interesting. After UXM 201, it was Storm's book. Everything revolved around the depowered Storm, even Wolverine to a large degree AND IT WORKED. I think each supporting character should stick to their main archetype. Example when I see Jubes I wanna see wolvie. When I see Beast I wanna see Iceman. When I see Cannonball I wanna see Mirage. So and so forth. No one has been able to reproduce that type clear dynamic since not even Claremont himself.

So basically what you're saying is that we have a few focused X-Men, and then the rest of it is a mountain of supporting characters? I'm sure there are people who would pay to see their favourite supported character be part of a main team. And plus, what you're saying is the Mike Carey's X-Men (Pre-Messiah Complex) was done wrong, because it featured characters like Iceman, Mystique, Sabretooth, Rogue, Cannonball and Cable in their own full-fledged team, instead of focusing on Rogue and then give her a ton of side characters, which is what Mike Carey did much later in Legacy.

@tomchu: ehhh, might be a bit of loaded statement. Sort of, but honestly X-Men as a whole has a ton of characters now. Marvel could corner the paper market for a year and all the characters would still never see the lime light. Instead of commenting on Carey which his stories were ok, but not the focus of my statement, let me elaborate more on what I really meant. You have various factions within the X-Universe. You have (at minor length) the O5 (Scott, Jean, Bobby, Hank and Warren), Havok and Polaris, Storm's Team (Ororo, Piotr, Kurt, Kitty, Anna-Marie, Alison, Longshot, Betsy, Logan, Rachel and Jubilee), The ONM (Sam, Dani, Bobby, Illyana, Amara, Doug, Rahne, Warlock), The X-Terminators (Rusty, Skids, Rictor, Artie. Leech, Takeshi), Cable's X-Force (Nathan, James, Shatterstar, Domino). Only the bold names in conjunction can really hold a book together, but the non-bold are key to make these characters seem so interesting. And even then some groups are not capable of selling a book like the X-Terminators or holding consistent sales like (original) X-Force. Does that make any amount of sense? The big "IT" factor personalities are Scott, Ororo and Logan. Thus I think personally there should only be three book with one of each of these characters headlining with as many of the faction to support the lead character as possible.

Also I sometimes miss the potential they had in X-Men Unlimited. Originally that book was to showcase lesser featured characters but it however got changed obviously.

@tomchu: @chasereis: I pretty much agree with what you're saying, Chase', but I don't necessarily agree that it's that black and white. All of the O5, for example, have been both main and supporting characters at different points. Kitty, up until recently, was usually the main character of whatever book she's been in. Then there are characters like Madrox, who was a supporting character for thirty something years, and then became the main character in his own book. Cannonball and Magic were main characters in the New Mutants, but supporting characters in X-men.

Wolverine is the main character in any book with his name on it, but he's only a supporting character in the new X-force and even in Avengers. Xavier was one of the main characters originally, but became a supporting character in the 80's.

My point I guess, is that even the main characters of some stories are the supporting characters of others.

And, yeah, I really enjoyed the longer, self contained stories of X-men Unlimited; it was like getting an annual every three months! sweet deals indeed.

@dangallant984: Actually, Bendis forgot Namor's entire thesis. Deliberately.

@AgeofHurricane: is that conjecture or fact? just curious..

@dangallant984: I don't really think it's conjecture considering Bendis' track-record of just conveniently forgetting things when "handling" a situation, but it's not a fact either. Though that doesn't matter, because Namor nor any other character that featured in the issue, mentioned Transonic, so it's either the former, or Bendis just doesn't know about the character.

But no, it's not a fact. Sadly she hasn't been seen since.

@AgeofHurricane said:

@dangallant984: I don't really think it's conjecture considering Bendis' track-record of just conveniently forgetting things when "handling" a situation, but it's not a fact either. Though that doesn't matter, because Namor nor any other character that featured in the issue, mentioned Transonic, so it's either the former, or Bendis just doesn't know about the character.

But no, it's not a fact. Sadly she hasn't been seen since.

so it is conjecture.

That's what I thought, knowing your opinion of Bendis, but that's fine; despite not sharing your opinion of him, I do appreciate hearing the genuine criticism.

And now I'm actually curious about what happened to her, where before I really couldn't give a toss. Was she ever actually there? Was Emma just manipulating Namor to some unknown end? Where is she now? Will we ever find out? This is the kind of stuff that keeps me interested.

@dangallant984: @AgeofHurricane:

Hahaha, who is this girl that Namor destroyed a city for? When did this happen?

I guess, I mean, one of the key defining characteristics of the X-Men (or frankly, any team) is teamwork, synergy between characters. If you didn't have that, then what's the point of being in team book right? I guess that's why Uncanny X-Force worked quite well, because Archangel, Psylocke and Fantomex were so intertwined, while Deadpool provided dark humour to the series, and Wolverine providing some depth to the series to a certain extent.

Rusty and Skids are able to hold a book? I haven't seem them since... Firefist/ Rusty fought the Vulture, drawn by the (in)famous Rob Liefeld, and then they appeared later on as Acolytes, and then one of them died or something right?

@tomchu: It was Transonic, one of the Five Lights; it went down in AvsX, but I don't remember which issue. After the series was over, I left all my copies at the laundromat, like I do with all the comics I know I'm not going to read again.

But, yeah, I like Namor a lot, but he's really not a team player. The interesting potential for group dynamics was one more missed opportunity in the short life of the Extinction team.

@dangallant984:

Oh really? that's weird, I have zero recollection of that happening, and I've read all Uncanny X-Men, WtaX, Legacy tie-ins, AvX:VS, and AvX core series.

Uncanny X-Men, I felt, was too short-lived. Post-Schism, they effectively went for 3 missions, before being thrown into AvX and then cancelled. I personally liked Uncanny X-Men, #4 was a brilliant argument, where it put the X-Men in the position of the humans and the Phalanx in the standard role of the mutants, hated and feared, with the issue concluding when Storm asks whether the Phalanx could have been reasoned with instead of simply being obliterated like most other creatures the X-Men face. Also, Tabula Rasa had a great moment between Psylocke and Magneto. Also, IMPERIUS SEX.