The X-Mansion is haunted. Someone, or something, creeps in its ruins and Nightcrawler has assembled a team to investigate. Join Alan Davis, Jonathan Hickman, and Carlos Lopez as they explore a haunted mansion in Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler #1.
Tony Thornley: Hey Rob, are you ready to talk about what happened to one of the most notable Marvel Universe locations post-HOXPOX?
Robert Secundus: I am! Really, this should have been called Giant Sized X-Men: The Mansion (which is not necessarily a criticism).
Head Like A Haunted House
TT: Thatās extremely accurate. Though Nightcrawler is the viewpoint character, this story is very much about filling some HOXPOX plot/continuity gaps. So the issue opens on the mansion (back in Westchester not Central Park), completely overgrown. The overgrowth reminds me quite a bit of those projections of what Earth looks like without humans. Given the amount of growth, how long would you guess the mansion has been abandoned?
RS: A looong time. Itās interesting that they didnāt transport the mansion somehow, but left a Krakoan Gateway there. The Mansion has become such a symbol for the X-Men as a line, even though Claremont moved the team around quite a bit, from Island M to the Australian Outback, etc etc. After Claremont, when gigantic changes have been made to the status quo– whether weāre talking about the destruction of Genosha, M-Day, the Schism and Utopia, Cyclops-the-Activist, The X-Men Live In Hell Now To Avoid Bad Clouds, etc etc, the Mansion has been around in some form. Itās a statement that they left it behind. But the past isnāt completely abandoned: thereās a Krakoan gateway there, waiting for anyone who wants to leave the old behind and join the new world.
TT: Yeah, thatās a very good way to think about it. This is a symbolic move on a meta level as well. Every one of the major X-Men relaunches except the San Francisco/Utopia era involved the Xavier homestead in some form, and the Utopia era wasnāt around long before Schism happened and Wolverine went back to the mansion. Even the Age of Apocalypse involved the mansion in some form. Yet here, itās been left fallow long enough that the Earth is beginning to reclaim it.
Now a little bit of research seems to show that this sort of undergrowth wouldnāt really be possible in the amount of time since the end of Extermination and Disassembled to now (it looks like this much would take about a decade), so I wonder if the reclamation is a little bit due to the Krakoan vegetation as well.
RS: Oh, I hadnāt thought of that, but youāre absolutely right. Weāve seen at the embassy bits of vegetation reaching out beyond the gates, and I guess here, where thereās no one around to curb the growth, we see what the gates do: spark the growth of nature.
TT: I really like that. It adds to the new mythology weāre getting with Dawn of X- Krakoa as a symbol of the power of the Earth and nature itself.
RS: Tony, what do you make of the lineup weāve got on this mission?
TT: Itās an interesting group- Nightcrawler, Magik, Eye-Boy, Cypher and Lockheed. The line-up reveals a really interesting metatextual thing that Iāve liked about the X-Men for years. Weāve basically got two redundant pairs plus Lockheed (who might be the most together of the squad here). Kurt and Illyana as teleporters and Trevor and Doug asā¦ scouts? Information gatherers? You wouldnāt see that on an Avengers or Justice League squad, but in the X-Men it works because of how much they bring to the table outside of their powers. It really shows how multi-faceted the X-Men are.
RS: Even beyond their powersets: Kurt isnāt just a teleporter, heās a somewhat haunted dude because he has to deal with a demonic appearance (and he loves swords). Ilyana isnāt just a teleporter, sheās extremely haunted by her demonic side (and she loves swords). Doug and Trevor both have powers that seem useless, especially for combat, but in practice are extremely, extremely powerful, to the point where both are threats to Moira. And yet theyāre all so distinct! Personally, I love Kurt and Ilyana hanging out. I love their dynamic, and I think he especially would benefit from her experience. And Trevor and Doug are both personal faves. So, for as little character-work went into this issue, I loved the cast.
TT: And an interesting aside- how odd does it feel that the team doesnāt have a telepath? Iām pretty sure thatās for plot reasons. I think the fact it stuck out to me shows how essential telepaths have become to X-Men mythology. Weāll get into why thatās relevant to the story in a minute though.
Matters Sundry And Sidri
RS: So, we did a bit of homework on the race we encounter in this issue, and I think it might be worthwhile to break it down for our readers. The Sidr (or, as they were previously called, the Sidri) are pretty dang obscure, having maybe five appearances in the 616, including a Captain Marvel/Adam-X teamup that is woefully not on Marvel Unlimited [Ed. note: Trust me, this is a blessing], but several of those appearances have been in pretty dang important issues of X-Men. They debuted in Uncanny X-Men #154, aka the issue where Corsair admitted to Scott that he was his father. They were introduced as bounty hunters hunting Corsair down, and by the end of their battle with the X-Men, they had destroyed the Mansion. The issue cemented several key traits: they are weak to heat, they can combine their forms, and, most importantly given the Krakoan status quo, they seem both technological and organic. Scott mistakes them for machines before Corsair corrects him, that theyāre living creatures
They return in Uncanny X-Men #168, where we learn that Professor Xavier is a jerk! In this issue, Kitty is joined by Lockheed (in his first appearance at the X-Mansion after he debuted in the Brood Saga) as they execute a few straggling Sidri whoād hatched in the bowels of the mansion after the events of #154. Itās interesting to note how widely the X-Menās philosophy changed over just a dozen or so issues: there are no speeches about how itād be wrong to kill here. And then the Sidri, as far as I can tell, disappear for a long while (with the exception of the aforementioned Captain Marvel vol 4 #3). Tony, you read their big comeback in X-Men. What happened there?
TT: So their next big appearance is in the X-Women volume of X-Men that immediately preceded Secret Wars. Most readers will probably remember that story as the arc where Deathbird made her comeback after War of Kings, and it was revealed that she was pregnant. However, someone puts a bounty out on Deathbird (or more accurately her unborn child), and the Sidri answer.
Now in this story arc, theyāre basically a miniboss before the story gets to the main antagonists. We donāt get any of the unique stuff that was established in the previous stories, like their ability to combine, their weakness to heat or anything like that. It does give us two interesting tidbits, one relevant to the Sidri as a whole and one to this story weāre talking about.
The first is that theyāre āempathically weakā which apparently makes them vulnerable to telepathic attack. For the squad in that arc, thatās a good thing, but in the issue weāre talking about today, that puts Kurtās team in a tough spot. Secondly, this is where the Sidri encounter Rachel Summers, whose form they take as they haunt the mansion. Rob in your research is their shape shifting ability new?
RS: Itās an extrapolation of what we see in 154, where they combine and slightly change shape– they become a big olā spaceship that looks mostly just like a giant Sidri with jets firing out of its rear.
RS: They have one more appearance, their most recent, in 2016ās Nova #1, where they briefly infest Ego the living planet. Nothing new there, but I thought it worth mentioning in case any completionists want to read the entirety of THE SIDR SAGA.
TT: Which brings them to here. Lockheed is the first to see the ghosts (first as John Proudstar, then as Rachel), then the rest of the team does as well. Hickman and Davis go for a horror movie vibe, which isnāt totally successful. But then Davis gets to do what Davis does best- scifi weirdness- we meet the Sidri again, we get some big-ish revelations, and then the squad rescue a mutant.
Seeding The Garden
RS: For an issue thatās mostly horror/ action sequences, a lot of seeds are planted for the future. Tony, what do you think of the Sidri, in the mansion, going forward?
TT: Every time anyoneās encountered the Sidri in the past, theyāve wanted to exterminate them. This is the first time they seem to be left in peace. Iām certain this is set up for the future (I mean, thereās no way in hell they wonāt go back to the mansion in the near future) but I canāt tell if the Sidri plot is meant to bite them in the ass later or if itās a good thing. What did you think?
RS: Iām not sure either, especially because I still donāt know exactly what the Sidri are. Are they organic? Techno-organic? Are they related to the Phalanx? Could the X-Men be allowing a Babel Tower to be constructed on their own old home? Or are they a biological hivemind that, like the Brood, might become a surprising tool or ally for the X-Men? Warlockās presence here, a member of the Phalanx-aligned Technarchy, complicates everything further. Heās my favorite, so I was glad to see him, but Tony, what did you make of his first real appearance, after all these months of teases?
TT: What a place for this to be revealed and it was so frustrating to have it cut short! I mean, itās been obvious since Dougās Dawn of X design was revealed that his TO arm had something to do with Warlock, and the Crucible issue of X-Men made it explicit that it actually was Warlockā¦ But I was glad to see him, and since he was clearly instrumental in communicating with the Sidri, itās obvious thereās more to comeā¦ And the last big seed of the issue was Lady Mastermind. It was interesting to see that she was the mutant that Krakoa was sensing, but I felt like the reveal was a little underwhelming.
RS: Between the two, I think weāll see more of Lady Mastermind sooner. Sheās another one thatās going to cause problems, I suspect, in their paradise. I was a bit underwhelmed by Warlock too, just because Iād hoped when we saw him next weād learn something. Is Doug working for the destruction of Krakoa, even as heās Krakoaās best bud? Is he cheating on one of his monster boyfriendās with another, or are they a mutant-Island-technobeing polycule? Is Krakoa aware heās been infected by Warlock? Are they all on the same side? And I thought these Giant Sized issues were supposed to carry on one story. What does this have to do with the Children of the Vault? Iām left with a lot of questions, but Iām excited for whatever answers come next.
TT: Yeah, Iām curious if this issue will (retroactively) tie in to the previous Giant Sized or not. But there was so much content here that Iām not sure what I think of it in the end. Itās going to be interesting to see what it means for the future, no doubt.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Self is overjoyed that perfect angel-friend Warlock is back! Kind of!
- Why was this called Giant-Sized Nightcrawler?
- More of Trevor on missions, please!
Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. Heās also very humble.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. Heās also very humble.
Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.
