In this feature, I spotlight five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Here is an archive of all the patterns we've spotlighted so far.
(I'm paraphrasing Nightcrawler in the title - BC)
A couple of years ago, I did a Drawing Crazy Patterns on the Avengers and how their Quinjets kept crashing. Reader David P. thought that it was only right to a similar one for X-Men jets that they've crashed (reader Ross later suggested it, as well). I think I'm going to stick to just specifically the X-Men's Blackbird jet crashing, just to make it a bit more challenging (as otherwise, I'd reach five within the first, like, 40 issues of the All-New, All-Different X-Men if you count ALL the aircraft that the X-Men have crashed).
An interesting aspect of the X-Men's aerial history is that the X-Men's use of the Blackbird jet has lasted longer than the ACTUAL Blackbird jet. I think that this probably qualifies as an example of the Foggy Ruins of Time, as I bet there are plenty of fans out there who only know the Blackbird jet as being the jet that the X-Men use, despite it being an actual plane produced by Lockheed until the late 1990s. So when the X-Men first had a Blackbird jet in the first ongoing issue of the All-New, All-Different X-Men era in X-Men #94 (by Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum and Bob McLeod), it wasn't anything that was unique to the X-Men. But anyhow, they famously crashed it on their first mission as a team (much like how the Avengers crashed their Quinjet the first time they used it)....
By the time the next Blackbird was destroyed in X-Men #135 (by John Byrne, Chris Claremont and Terry Austin), the X-Men had already gone through so many aircrafts that Nightcrawler is already commenting on how typical this was...
In Uncanny X-Men #150 (by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Joe Rubinstein and Bob Wiacek), Magneto caused sort of a force field that worked like an EMP around his island fortress, which was not good for the X-Men when they flew into the field...
I'm going to skip ahead over 200 issues into the Steve Seagle/Joe Kelly era on the next page!
In the first issue of his run on the book with Joe Kelly (Uncanny X-Men #360, with penciler Chris Bachalo and a billion inkers), Steve Seagle was trying to rock a bit of a "back to basics" approach with the X-Men (including returning them to roughly the same lineup they had circa X-Men #175, only with Marrow along for the ride) and in keeping with tradition, their first mission sees them crashing the Blackbird...
After their Blackbird crashed, the X-Men took their enemies' Aurora jet. I'm counting the Aurora jet as basically the Blackbird.
Next, in the beginning of the Magneto War, in Uncanny X-Men #366 (by Alan Davis, Fabian Nicieza, Leinil Francis Yu and a bunch of inkers), Magneto's EMP stuff were at work again...
Finally, in Astonishing X-Men #3 (the mini-series right before "The Twelve"), by Howard Mackie, Brandon Peterson, Tim Townsend and Dan Panosian, Apocalypse's Horseman, Death (secretly Wolverine) attacks the X-Men and crashes the Blackbird...
There have been plenty other examples over the years. These are just six.
I also did one of these for the X-Mansion being destroyed, which I thought of when I was doing this bit.
Thanks for the suggestion, David and Ross! If anyone else has a suggestion for a comic book cliche like this, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com!