Back in X-Men #7, Nightcrawler watched the ritualistic death/resurrection of Melody Guthrie and said he wanted to start a mutant religion. Wonder what he’s been up to since? Probably not experiencing any doubt or angst whatsoever… Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn, Java Tartaglia, and Clayton Cowles chart a new path in The Way of X #1.
Anna Peppard: Hi there! I’m soooooo excited to be here, recapping and rehashing the angsty adventures of my favorite fuzzy elf and his latest ragtag group of misfits/teammates/friends! This is a banger first issue that – as the title of this column suggests – asks a lot of difficult questions, of Mr. Wagner, Krakoan culture, and the superhero genre itself. There is *so much to talk about.*
But before we break down this ultra-dense debut, the subject matter of this series inspires me to confess: while I consider myself a devoted Kurt Wagner fan, like Dave Cockrum before me, I’ve never been in love with the idea of Kurt being Catholic. I’m sure my personal lack of religiosity and less-than-stellar familial experiences with Catholicism are a factor here. But there are also storytelling reasons. To me, Nightcrawler’s Catholicism is an odd fit with his backstory. It took 35 years for anyone to try and explain how he discovered Catholicism while being raised by a Romani witch in tents and caravans on the outskirts of the Black Forest. Plus, stories that heavily emphasize Nightcrawler’s Catholicism have, in the past, been at odds with my preferred version of the character, as a sex positive beacon of self-acceptance. In particular, Kurt choosing to become a celibate priest back in the early aughts, a choice that required him to go back to using his image inducer was a hard sell for me. And it continues to be; despite the fact Kurt’s priesthood was retconned less than two years later, many subsequent comics, including Way of X #1, refer to Kurt as a priest.
All of that said – I’m deeply respectful of the fact that mutants and humans alike have a multitude of important, positive relationships with religion and faith, and I hope that comes across when (or if) I comment on depictions of religion in this column. I’m not here to argue against Nightcrawler being Catholic. But I am hoping for a version of Kurt’s relationship with religion that makes sense with his history and context.
On a substantially lighter note: I am here to proselytize about Nightcrawler’s sexiness, which is my version of a mutant religion. (I’m joking, and yet—what’s all my X-Men fanfic and my ongoing Excalibur podcast if not a series of sermons on this Very Important topic?)
Jude Jones: So a confession, from all of us on this side of the screen to you, the reader: there’s no such thing as unbiased journalism. No such thing as “just the facts.” All of us bring ourselves into everything we write, no matter how banal, how intellectual, how seemingly agnostic (remember that word.)
I say this because if we’re going to review a book about faith, I think it’s important to acknowledge where I stand on faith.
I’m a Black New Orleans Catholic, a peculiar breed of Roman Catholic that’s both ritualistically devout and culturally liberal. I make the sign of the cross when I pass a Catholic church. I give up meat during lent. I carry around a rosary. I’m also an unabashed advocate of queer rights; I love the nuns that taught me to read, and strongly, emphatically believe women should be priests; I’m disgusted with a church heiararchy that relegates non-European men to the sidelines in all discussions and decisions.
I believe in God, and I believe in Christ, but I struggle to understand what belief means. I struggle with seeing good people suffer and die. I struggle with seeing people, my people, endure generations of trauma while their exploiters enjoy wealth and comfort. There is so much I do not understand – so much I question – and I often struggle to believe in an actively loving God in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.
And yet, I still believe.
And it’s with this context – with a belief as strong as my cynicism – that I approach this work. I’m nowhere near as familiar with Kurt as my partner in crime, but I do have a strong affinity for him; for his compassion, for his self-awareness, for his desire to do better. I’ve stated my thoughts about Krakoan culture before, and I’m curious what faith looks like among those who’ve seemingly conquered death and regularly commune with literal gods.
All to say I’m much more of a blank canvas when it comes to the characters, but I have a full range of thoughts about what it means to embody and espouse belief.
But enough about us. Let’s get to it!
House of Hate
JJ: If there was one theme I’d use to describe this X-Men run, it would be “duality.” Every action of the mutants – every power, every means of organization, and as we see here, every belief – has an equal and opposite reaction in their opponents. The Arakko to Krakoa; the resurrection of the Children of the Vault compared to resurrection by the Five; the economics of man and the mutant take on capitalism (as outlined by Magneto in X-Men #4). So as disturbing as it is to see the Nightcrawler and his team dive into a literal church of hate, it’s not surprising. It’s expected.
I think one of the revelations of this book via Kurt is that the mutants already have a faith – one based on hatred (of Wanda Maximoff as her name is used as a literal slur) and, as Doctor Nemesis duly notes, on prioritizing strength. A nameless “faith” so wantonly violent that it leads Pixie to needlessly throw her life away. Kurt is frustrated – though he can’t find the words for why – because this, all of this, just feels wrong.
AP: Duality has always been a core feature of superheroes, and Marvel superheroes in particular, who struggle mightily to balance power with self-doubt, responsibility, and the fickle desires of an often-bigoted public. Marvel’s monstrous superheroes, the Thing, the Hulk, Nightcrawler, for whom the combined curse and freedom of superpowers is written into the flesh – tend to have an especially hard time reconciling their dualities.
Which is my roundabout way of saying – I totally agree with you, with added emphasis on the usefulness of Kurt – the first visibly different, unable-to-pass X-Man to be born with his graphic mutations – mobilizing these themes in this book. Kurt’s well-positioned to step back and reflect on this new world order supposedly founded in radical inclusivity given his long history of being an outsider among outsiders, who hasn’t always been treated well by other mutants, let alone humans. Kurt’s also, of course, ideally positioned to reflect on the harmful exclusivity of certain types of organized religion.
JJ: I love how the Orchis humans are explicitly politicising religion here, because religion is almost always political. And I love how Kurt explicitly recognizes that creating a religion – in the formal sense – was “not his path.” I know a lot of people (myself included) strike a delineation between spiritual belief and the structural hierarchy of religion, and I’m (selfishly) glad this note was struck here. Kurt isn’t trying to create a religion; he’s trying to define a faith. Those two things are vastly, vastly different, and I’m glad that difference was spoken early in these proceedings.
AP: I am very much on your wavelength in being glad Kurt seems to have rejected the idea of becoming a religious leader. Granted, it’s too early to know precisely how he’ll be advocating for “a better way,” but at present, it looks like it won’t involve writing a book of rules and sermonizing from a pulpit. More than the backstory problems, that’s my main issue with the idea of priest-Kurt—while he’s always been a deeply moral character, he’s never been “preachy.” He leads through empathy and example, but aside from the occasional violent expression of moral outrage, as when he interrupts Crucible in this issue, he’s never been the type to tell other people what to think or believe. Spurrier seems to get that and I’m so grateful.
While we’re on the subject of that opening sequence with Orchis: how heartbreaking was Blink telling Kurt he “used to be fun?” That may have been my favorite line in a book full of great lines. Kurt and Hank McCoy have more than their blue fur in common – they also seem to have more fun away from the X-Men. Here, and throughout this issue – I was so moved by Kurt’s loneliness in a world where he should, in theory, be happy.
Because I’m a terrible Kurt stan who can’t help reading every X-Men thing through the lens of how it will affect him, when I first read HoXPoX, my immediate, primary thought was: this is going to be a bad era for Kurt. While I think he would definitely be ecstatically happy for all the mutants who’ve found safety and belonging in Krakoa, I knew the moral compromises would weigh heavily on him. Plus, Kurt’s always fought for reconciliation and integration with humans. Not saying that’s right or wrong – it’s just how he is. He likes human culture – idolizes it, even. He’s also one of those X-Men who never really wanted to be a soldier; in X-Men: The End and Age of X-Man, he prefers being an actor in corny blockbusters. He was lonely on Utopia, and I feared he’d be lonely here. Please, somebody, hug him.
Crucible Crisis
AP: I was also very glad to see Kurt giving a hard “hell no” to Crucible. Like – so glad. While he did express hesitation about the ceremony back in X-Men #7, him calmly watching Apocalypse kill Melody Guthrie struck me as one of the most out-of-character moments in his entire history. There’s an antecedent to his actions interrupting Crucible. In Uncanny X-Men: First Class, Kurt interrupts the Inhumans’ terrigen ceremony for somewhat similar reasons – because he perceives it as a form of eugenics, which of course it is. I had sympathy for him there, but am even more sympathetic here because he’s not interfering with someone else’s cultural traditions – these are, ostensibly, Kurt’s own cultural traditions, as a resident of Krakoa. Admittedly, you can read Kurt interrupting the ceremony as him imposing his beliefs on others. I’m not saying he behaved appropriately, necessarily. But this is 100% something he’d do, if only because he wouldn’t be able to tolerate watching a young woman suffer, especially like that, in a ritualistic way, glorifying violence.
The fact the woman wanted Kurt to kill her makes the whole thing even more wrenching and shocking. I felt Kurt’s pain, realizing he’d let her down, while knowing he had to, because he could never do what she asked. Not sure if Spurrier meant to reference this, but the specific reason Kurt has always sworn off lethal force seems relevant here. In Kurt’s backstory, his foster brother, Stefan, made him promise to kill him if he ever “lost control” and began hurting people. When a probably-demonically-possessed Stefan began killing maybe-also-demonically-possessed children, Kurt did kill him, maybe by accident, maybe not (there’s a bunch of different versions). In any case, this is what got Kurt chased by the mob that nearly killed him the night Xavier recruited him for the X-Men. And he’s never killed anyone since.
JJ: I did not see Doctor Nemesis, someone currently growing fungus out of his head, someone named “Doctor Nemesis” for god’s sake, being the voice of reason, but here we are.
His data-page explanation of the Crucible is, well, many things. First, it honestly feels less like the character talking and more like Spurrier articulating what many people found troubling about the Crucible – that it’s militaristic, that it values bloodshed and violence, that it’s biased towards warriors, that it’s eugenics by a somewhat kinder name. To your point, that Kurt was ever ok with this was completely out of character to begin with, and while this kind of heel turn is jarring, I argue it’s necessary to keep the character consistent with who he’s been for decades.
I also want to note a brief exchange between Nemesis and Kurt. Nemesis asks (and I’m paraphrasing) “You fight gods, why believe in the one you can’t see?” Kurt responds that it’s because he can’t see that God he believes in that God. Yes, this is noteworthy in the context of the text, and as a descriptor/rationale of how Kurt kept his Catholic faith in the face of meeting, say, Thor. But it was also personally profound for me. I struggle with how to rationalize what experience with what I’m supposed to believe, and it was gratifying to see a character on page struggle similarly. Moments like that are why I read comics.
I’m also 100% sure Nemesis is manipulating Kurt to start a faith so he can try to find some means of controlling that faith, but of course he is – his name is “Doctor Nemesis.” [Ed. note: He’s a good boy and I’ll hear none of this.]
AP: Love that prediction on Nemesis – I really hope you’re right, because it would be a fun angle. I think with Nemesis – it’s hard to know what he’ll do, because he’s one of those characters where his seeming obviousness either is obvious, or it’s not. To put a finer point on it – we don’t yet know whose nemesis he is. [Ed. note: Crime and/or ignorance.]
JJ: Seeing a young woman blown away by shotgun, and seeing a meek Black woman cut down by knives is particularly disturbing. I don’t necessarily think those things needed to change – they both serve narrative purposes, and visceral discomfort *should* exist. But those kinds of deaths feel especially visceral today, and I’m sure I am not alone in feeling so.
I also think it’s noteworthy that the mutants who’ve shown the most antipathy to death are Storm, my dawg Synch, and Apocalypse – the Black mutants (yes, I’m claiming Apoc as Black.)
I don’t know if it’s intentional, but it is absolutely noteworthy.
AP: I won’t presume to speak to whether it’s intentional, either, but it makes sense, to me, for those mutants who’d already experienced double consciousness, systemic oppression, and/or a strong sense of community before realizing they also had an X-gene to be less all-in on mutant culture. Regarding the violence: if there’s a saving grace to these difficult images, it’s the fact they’re at least being used to do something critical. Despite their deep Jewish roots, superheroes have always had plenty of facist potential. There’s a way to read the Crucible scene in this issue as a meta-commentary on the superhero genre, and it’s almost inescapable glorification of violence. Is there a place in the superhero genre for someone who loves adventure, romance, and making the world a better place, but is less keen on “cool kills?” If so – that would be Kurt’s sweet spot.
JJ: A side note on our nameless, gravity-manipulating mutant: why was she prioritized, as meek as she was, when this issue made such a big fuss about the violent warriors getting priority for resurrection? Maybe something else is afoot? Or maybe it was just needed for narrative juxtaposition of a non-violent mutant being murdered? In any case, her, and to a lesser degree, Pixie’s resurrections are reminders that while lives and powers lost can be regained, there’s still a cost, be it physical (her gravity manipulation causing others discomfort) or emotional (Pixie’s inconsistent food preferences).
If in a resurrection there is a cost, if some things are lost in translation, is it truly a resurrection?
One other note about resurrection. Remember our boy The White Sword? Remember how he kept fighting and kept resurrecting his dead army? Remember how it seemingly drove him, if not insane, into an entity that was less tethered to his people? Again, the foreshadowing that “eternal life” has an incalculable cost seems apt, and it feels like Kurt’s nancent mutant faith, a faith that values life even if it can be replaced, is the stalwart against this eventuality.
Or maybe I’m just reading too deep. Either or.
Resurrection Revelation
AP: I’m still salty that Kurt’s previous death and resurrection seems to be a dropped continuity, since that was his central internal conflict for years before the Krakoa era. It was never handled particularly well, but still – Kurt being rendered painfully immortal because he sacrificed his soul to both save every other soul in heaven and secure his own resurrection had a lot of storytelling potential. The thing I always wanted to see explored was the selfishness of Kurt’s sacrifice; the fact he wasn’t happy in heaven until some pirates showed up to toss him a sword raised a lot of questions about what he really wants and believes. And yet, the questions he’s at the center of here, related to the consequences of death and resurrection, are very similar.
The more I think about it, the more excited I am about the ways this book is already tackling so many of the practical/moral/psychological questions I’ve had about Krakoa. Other books have already touched on these issues, of course. But what, exactly, mutant culture *is* deserves substantially more focus than it’s received so far. Way of X #1 is very deliberate in bringing us into the texture of Krakoa – showing the younger characters using mutant-specific slurs and slang (“don’t be such a Wanda,” “totally sapiens”), and showing Kurt mostly just… wandering around, having the kinds of strange conversations you’d have in a place like this, where all the one-time heroes and villains are holed up together without enough to do.
JJ: The Patchwork Man. A name that comes straight out of a horror movie. And why shouldn’t it? He’s the undercurrent of this book, flashing up like a jump scare, lingering in the shadows, an entity with a reputation (“he makes you do hurty things”) but without a face. It feels convenient – all too easy and simple – for this prototypical monster to be Legion (or, more appropriately, one of Legion’s personalities.) I’m willing to bet he’s something different. What better challenge to a forming faith than an invisible devil?
What good is it to live forever in paradise if that forever is spent in torment, afraid of dreams?
AP: The fact mutants have been having trouble sleeping has been referenced before. Spurrier certainly has a fondness for the surreal, so here’s hoping for some wild dream sequences in this series’ future! I was also curious about whether this is actually Legion, or another entity using the presence/idea of Legion to torment Xavier. Guess we’ll see.
This is another non-prediction, because I’m 90% sure it’s not going to happen, but – how great would it be if Wanda showed up in this book? I’d love that in general, since I love Wanda, and she deserves better. But the soap opera-loving side of me has also been waiting years and years to see Kurt and Wanda interact in the wake of Kurt learning they have a daughter (Nocturne) in another reality.
JJ: I absolutely want Wanda to show up in this book, and if we got Legion and Magneto, we might as well get “The Pretender.” But I won’t hold my breath. (Fun fact: Decimation left one mutant precog empowered: Blindfold, aka Ruth Aldine aka Legion’s beloved. I’m sure that means nothing. Right.)
“Why pay for what you can take?” Kurt’s conversations with Professor X constantly reference consent – Kurt, maybe teasingly, maybe seriously, repeatedly asks Professor X why ask questions when he can just as easily just read his mind and find the answer for himself. And while Professor X is absolutely not the world’s leading authority on consent, I think the idea here is “you’ve got to ask the question outloud to find the answer.” And really, that’s what Kurt is doing for most of this issue – asking the questions out loud, and hoping he can find the answers, even if the answers are already within him.
Also, note how Legion used “kindly” to refer to Kurt, echoing (and maybe patronizing) its earlier usage by Nemesis. Was Legion reading Kurt’s mind involuntarily (like father, like son)? I’m going to assume this was the case since he also seems to know Kurt was sent by Xavier, but maybe Legion was actually present, in the background, when all this was said?
He was probably just reading his mind.
AP: If it is Legion – yeah, he’d just go ahead and take what he wanted ? Man, do I love Kurt being sassy with Xavier, who has always been a jerk, but, as I suggested above, has often been an especially big jerk to visibly different mutants, as well as mutants with hybrid identities like how Dani Moonstar had to fight to personalize her costume back in the day. The possibility of there being some type of mental manipulation going on in Krakoa has been suggested before, including in X-Men #7, when Kurt notes he has trouble thinking clearly within the tower Krakoa built (grew?) for him. I wonder if Kurt’s suspicious of Xavier; I wouldn’t want to go that far quite yet, based on this one little comment, but it’s interesting, nonetheless.
Speaking of Kurt’s tower: it looks like he’s living in it? This seems significant, for Krakoa to build him such an isolated and isolating home. This cold, cavernous space doesn’t feel anything like the type of place Kurt would choose for himself; he’s always lived in close-quarters with others, and his past bedrooms were filled with movie posters. But maybe Krakoa chose for him? If so – why?
Seems appropriate to end a column about a comic about questions with a question, so I think we’ll leave it here! Except I’m also struck with a desperate urge to say: as a Nightcrawler fan who’s been worried (and, if I’m being honest, a bit grumpy) about his place in Krakoa since the first gates opened, this comic made my heart grow three sizes. Kurt is so sad and yet I’m so happy.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Krakoan Reads: CHANGE MY MIND
- Does the title “Way of X” portend the involvement of Kurt’s foster family? His mostly-evil foster mother, Margali, followed a magic doctrine called “The Winding Way.” Probably not, but then again – the last we saw Amanda Sefton (in the 2014 Nightcrawler series), she was getting sucked into a mysterious portal, leaving behind a teary-eyed Kurt. That means she’s still, theoretically, out there somewhere, along with Margali.
- The excerpts from the nancent, unnamed text sprinkled throughout the book as data pages suggest to me (Jude) the entire Way of X may end up being one big parable (which would be kind of cool, but like all biblical parables, would then throw into question the reliability of the narrator.) Also, Florelegium is Latin for “gathering of thoughts/flowers,” which is very apt for a text in the age of Krakoa.
- I (Anna) completely support Pixie’s decision not to eat food Kurt had been holding with his tail. I wouldn’t do this, either… unless it was Valentine’s Day, and it was some type of fruit dipped in chocolate, and I was sure it was (reasonably) clean. If you’re going to use your tail like a hand, you need to wash it like a hand, and I have never seen Kurt do this.
- Ruth Aldine is a deceased, blind, mutant precog love interest. Tell me if you’ve heard that one before. [Ed. note: She’s actually Destiny’s great-granddaughter]
- I’m almost certain Orchis is making a COINTELPRO for mutants, but those blanked out lines could also refer to creating posthumans. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Also, Henry P. Gyrich? He ran SWORD with Abigail Brand. I’m sure that’s totally inconsequential. Right. (From Anna: Gyrich is a capital-a asshole from waaaayyyyy back and is never up to anything good.)
- Magneto’s “museum of hate” statue’s pose is almost exactly the same pose he gives in X-Men #11 as he beats the breaks of the plants, which is almost exactly the same pose he gives off as he looks at his statue from the museum of hate. Very meta; Megalomaniacs love to pose, clearly. (That said, he’s still my boy, Team Magneto, Magneto was right.)
- There was so much plot to cover in this issue, we didn’t even talk about the art! We’ll get to it in future columns, we promise. As an opening salvo: I (Anna) find Quinn’s Nightcrawler more cute than sexy, but think he gives Kurt a nicely kinetic physicality, and man is he good at drawing this blue boy looking sad. (Which is it’s own kind of sexy, so I’ll take it.) Also: the scenes of Kurt in bed are the first time he’s been pictured out of uniform since his resurrection in HoXPoX. More of this, please! Meanwhile, Jude thought the art was convincing and captivating, with Quinn able to telegraph and juxtapose bombastic power (Magneto) just as well as meek frailty (our unnamed, resurrected mutant).
- We are absolutely going to Mars.
A proud New Orleanian living in the District of Columbia, Jude Jones is a professional thinker, amateur photographer, burgeoning runner and lover of Black culture, love and life. Magneto and Cyclops (and Killmonger) were right. Learn more about Jude at SaintJudeJones.com.
Anna Peppard
Anna is a PhD-haver who writes and talks a lot about representations of gender and sexuality in pop culture, for academic books and journals and places like Shelfdust, The Middle Spaces, and The Walrus. She’s the editor of the award-winning anthology Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero and co-hosts the podcasts Three Panel Contrast and Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow!
