There have been a lot of emotional deaths in the history of the X-men. Hell, some of the biggest events in X-men history have been all about characters dying. Just ask Jean Grey. But when Nightcrawler died during the Second Coming event a few years ago, it was more emotional than others. Nightcrawler wasn’t host to a cosmic fucking bird, he didn’t have an insane healing factor, and he didn’t have a history of being cloned. He was the soul of the X-men, the one who never lost faith no matter how fucked up things got. Considering how fucked up things got after he died, I imagine his soul would be strained more than a Catholic priest at the little league world series.
But like so many other major characters, some of which don’t have red hair and green eyes, he’s coming back. Earlier this year, Marvel announced that Nightcrawler would be coming back to the world of the living in the pages of Amazing X-men, a new series by Jason Aaron that I imagine will help repair the reputation of the word “Amazing” after the ending of Amazing Spider-Man gave it some pretty shitty connotations. It forms a new team with members of the Jean Grey Institute staff and Nightcrawler is supposed to be part of that team. Given how he died and what he meant to the X-men, this brought a tear to my eye almost on the level of tequila. Next week, the first issue comes out and in anticipation of this release, Comic Book Resources released a preview.
I’m tied laying off the tequila before reading this preview, but I might as well store my liver to a bank vault because that’s not going to do jack shit. No matter how drunk or sober I am when I read this comic, I imagine it’ll be pretty emotional.
Excuse me, I just teared up a little. And maybe it is because of the tequila, but I prefer to think that even drunks are touched when a character is so fucking awesome that he’s willing to skip a blissful afterlife to finish unfinished business. How many other heroes in this day and age of grim and gritty bullshit can say that? Kurt fucking Wagner can say that and now he’s returning to a world where there’s a teenage Jean Grey running around, Cyclops is a wanted fugitive, mutants are no longer going extinct, and Wolverine is headmaster of a school. For something this awesome, I’ll need more than just tequila. Nuff said!
I'll probably pick this up, as I'm excited for a return of Nightcrawler. I'm just not sure how long I'll stick to it since the rest of the characters irk me these days.
ReplyDeleteExcept for Firestar. I can't remember the last time I read anything with her in it.
Well the first issue doesn't always set the tone for the series. I was underwhelmed by the first issue of Uncanny Avengers. But it was only after a half-dozen issues or so that the awesome kicked into overdrive. So my advice is take some more Ritalin and give it a chance. Even drunks have a measurable attention span.
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