Grasp Way Of X, Vol. 1 Documented By Simon Spurrier Depicted In Electronic Format
The majority of this book revolves around Nightcrawler and his moral, philosophical, and emotional dilemmas surrounding theLaws of Krakoa and his spiritual burdens over the souls of mutants.
With resurrection possible, some of the mutants are living dangerously, knowing they can just be brought back,
There is a few slivers of Onslaught coming into being, specifically tiny pieces at a time when resurrections happen, but with the help of Legion and Pixie, that is taken care of.
The solution to it all is the development of a mutant peacekeeping force, Kurt wants to call Legionaries, . . guess we'll see what happens in the future
Overall, I can see why this title didn't survive, but I have always loved the questioning soul of Nightcrawler.
Pretty good overall . recommend. kurt spends this whole book thinking about philosophy and religion and decides that he needs cops to enforce his new philosophy,
The series started out strong, But the last couple issues killed it, Especially the last issueone of the worst Xbooks I've read in a while, It certainly took a while, but Hickman's Xverse has finally addressed some of the underlying issues with the fact that, uh, mutants can't really die anymore, What does death mean when you can be nearly instantly resurrected
The Marvel universe's only notable Catholic, Nightcrawler, tackles this issue with Si Spurrier's playful verve, Nightcrawler digs into weird corners of Krakoa, ultimately extracting Legion, who is simply a messy, overpowered individual who rarely operates with rhyme or reason, There's also the issue of the Patchwork Man, who is floating around the edges of Krakoa as a mutant boogeyman,
Way of X can be a slow read, more closely resembling one of Hickman's thoughtful Xverse entries like Inferno rather than the actionpacked main Xseries.
Nightcrawler's tendency is to a meet a given character, have a complex discussion about morality and ethics, and then be disappointed by the character's responses, That said, there are moments of high tension, including the absolutely riveting fifth issue .
I couldn't quite make heads of tales of the final issue , but it was nice to see that Nightcrawler's efforts weren't in vain the Patchwork Man's true nature is revealed and the Church of X is created.
Looking forward to where we the Legionaries of X go next, When mutants can respawn after death like a video game, what is the meaning of life That's what Nightcrawler is determined to find out as he examines the three laws of mutantkind.
Along for the ride is Legion, once they discover there's a presence changing attitudes, making mutants more careless and violent, eliminating inhibitions, The story could be more focused, Spurrier often tries to take on too much with his stories and that does happen here, The bloat brought this down to afor me as I started to lose interest halfway through, Bob Quinn's art is solid, Spurrier continues his hot streak for me with Way of X, and shows how much thoughtful creativity can still fit in the constraints of a Bigcomic in an overarching editorial line.
The cast is a great mix of less familiar faces just esoteric enough to feel fresh in the spotlight, but still wellknown enough that seeing them finally foregrounded prompts a nostalgic thrill from the promise of earlier appearances.
The story explores the obviousinhindsight consequences of Krakoas normshattering endless reincarnation, and Spurrier grounds its superhero excesses with interesting ideas like Dunbars number the hypothetical max number of people you can hold in your mind, beyond which abstraction is required and anomie a breakdown of societal morals when norms and social bonds cease to exist.
Spurriers dialogue has his usual wry tone of rebellious mischief and keeps a brisk pace,
I also loved the small quirky details that decorate the storys margins, particularly the repeat mycological visuals seemingly a recurring theme for Spurrier, and Quinns art brings Spurriers ideas to life and is a blast to look at.
“What does a credulous little believer do when all the big questions have been answered”
“Ah, Let me stop you right there, You see, I dont actually care, I just want towhats the wordexploit you, to test experimental psychedelics, I find pathetic people reliably incautious, ”
“Perhaps there are sins worth sinning, ” Daaaamn
This is the first time I actually liked this whole Krakoa mess, Spurrier did wonders with story and character alike, One of the fun things about the Krakoan XMen era is Marvel's willingness to greenlight all manner of weird side series seemingly on the basis that just as Krakoa is home to all mutants, the XOffice should be home to all stories.
Probably only in the earlys, when Marvel were doing shortrun highconcept comics about fight clubs, terror cells, and Aunt May's teenage sex life, would a premise like "Nightcrawler founds a new mutant religion" have got the thumbs up.
And the crucial difference now is that there's a chance of it being actually good,
A lot of that chance comes from Si Spurrier being picked to write it, Spurrier is a great goto writer for the awkward sods, the types of character who wouldn't join any club that would have them as a member, Krakoa as a concept and the mutant nationalism it represents badly needs that perspective, since it's certainly one a lot of the readers have been voicing, Plus, the Krakoan setup is established enough by this point that some of the nagging questions like what does guaranteed resurrection do to people's psyches and sense of morality can and should be addressed without the basic premise crumbling from it.
Nightcrawler is a great lead for the series, not just because he's long been established as a religious guy but because his two defining traits as a character are that he takes joy in adventure and risk for their own sake and that he's a genuinely good, unselfish man with a strong sense of morality.
If Krakoa is the win state for mutants the place where they can come together and finally enjoy life and fulfil themselves Nightcrawler ought to be happier than
anyone.
So the fact he isn't has always been one of the surest tells that all is not well in Eden,
Nightcrawler is such a force for optimism in the XBooks that during eras where the writers want it darker he gets taken off the board, He spent the lates ands over in the 'fun' XBook Excalibur, and when the line got even grittier in the lates he was brutally killed off.
One of the interesting choices in Way Of X is to give Nightcrawler a supporting cast drawn in large part from that era, people like Pixie and Dr Nemesis and thes' take on Legion, most of whom he was too dead to interact with previously.
It means the dynamic of the book is a mix of idealism and cynicism that sparks the story productively,
These are also all characters Spurrier has written, and has more sympathy for than the big guns of the XUniverse, and Legion in particular gives him the chance to bring out the worst in Professor X.
Which brings you to the plot of Way Of X, which is entertaining and surprising but also in some ways the least satisfying thing about it, The parts where Nightcrawler is poking away at the philosophical foundations of Krakoan society work well, and so does the mystery where a malign psychic influence is looking to destabilise Krakoa.
Readers hoping to be surprised by the identity of said influence should under no circumstances look at the list of comics Way Of X contains,
The problem is that these two storylines work against each other at least somewhat, VILLAIN X is able to gain influence by slipping into the cracks and flaws in Krakoa's resurrectionbased society, but resolving the crisis by beating him doesn't actually do much to deal with the flaws.
Maybe that's what Nightcrawler's new notactuallyareligionmoreofaphilosophy is meant to address but it comes down mostly to taking risks, making the most of life, and not being a dick to your fellow mutants.
"Be more like Nightcrawler", in other words, Good advice, if you have the temperament for it, There's a sequel to this entertaining and strange book coming, so perhaps we'll see if anyone takes Kurt up on it, This was a very strong collection though that last issue, The Onslaught Revelation, wasn't quite up to par with the rest that explores some of the moral aspects of the mutants' new resurrection protocols, as Nightcrawler and David Haller "don't call me Legion" team up to try to discover what's been causing each of them a sense of creeping unease and disquiet lately.
Krakoa's a paradise, isn't it So why can't they be happy Along the way, there are mentions of Kurt's plan/thoughts about starting a mutant religion, and lots of other introspective stuff.
If that's not your thing, you might not get as much out of this, but I really enjoyed it, The artwork isn't quite as strong as in some other Xbooks of late, but it is certainly adequate, The interesting and relevant! ponderings of Nightcrawler could/should have been better developed, for a really profound questioning of contemporary society, As it was, the ignorance and the bias of Christianity and what it would mean to be an ordained priest render it moot, The weird relations between professor X and his estranged son once again are made painfully and Freudly centre stage, Im always down for Si Spurrier books and Quinns art is nice but no way am I staying for another Onslaught arc or event, hes literally the worst vilain in XMen history and Spurrier did nothing to make him better here.
"There was once a sacred land where death had been dethroned, . . "
The onevolume Krakoan books don't have the best rep Fallen Angels was the only Dawn of X title I never even attempted, but this This is the good shit, Si Spurrier as ever doing his best work with a conflicted protagonist who can't resist poking at the sore spots of a setup.
True, the lead this time is Nightcrawler, a far nicer character than Spurrier's usual bastards though the precise turn of phrase when he's repeatedly told that he's "one of the kindly ones" can't be an accident.
Especially not when Spurrier is so alert to how language changes as an ingroup marker, among other things, with the younger mutants now referring to 'Krak', or coming out with lines like this: "Ah, don't be such a Wanda he's fine.
And if he's not so what Worrying's totally sapiens, " Because when you combine that teenage sense of immortality with the literal immortality of the mutant resurrection protocols, suddenly dying becomes a rite of passage, Which poor, decent Kurt can't help but feeling uneasy about, and he has always been a man of faith, and didn't he say something back in the Hickman books about starting a new mutant religion Again, in typical Spurrier fashion, that was sort of the pitch for this series, while quite deliberately being a little wide of the mark.
Of course, while Xavier is among the old friends who think Kurt may be on to something in this quest, or at the very least needs something to occupy himself, others are less supportive.
As Magneto says, "Pfft. The world's first postmortal society, and you're worried about sinning against your dusty god, " Or as Spurrier's old favourite and mine, entertainingly mad science genius Dr Nemesis, objects: "You leotardwearing types have locked horns with more actual gods than I've endured disappointing lattes.
Why is it that the only one of whom we've seen no trace is the very one you continue to honor" But even Nemesis has noted that the way those who died in combat get moved up the resurrection queue is bound to have social and ultimately even evolutionary consequences, and notwithstanding the fact that life on Krakoa has sent him even more peculiar than he was to start with, he's clearly on to something.
On the meta level, this reflects the way that a scenario ostensibly built around the birth of a new society is in practice largely defined by superhero action comics at the same time, it avoids the Killing Joke trap by asking the wider question of what happens to a society freed from fear of consequence something we once thought we might have to address for posthuman reasons ourselves, but which has nevertheless already come to apply to certain strata of society.
An inequality the Xbooks mirror in the way the lead characters keep jumping the resurrection queue while the faceless redshirt masses of Genosha patiently wait for a turn which never seems to come.
And on top of all this, besides the new argot, the kids have started coming up with their own folk devils, but in a place of marvels and monsters like Krakoa, might there be something to those stories
Bob Quinn's art is more than up to the task of matching Spurrier's freewheeling from reified thought experiment to astral weirdness to planetary catastrophe to metahuman comedy hell, at one point I had to doublecheck it was just the one guy, when several scenes felt like expertly chosen guests I could have sworn Ryan Ottley drew the awkward conversation between another Spurrier mainstay, Legion, and his less than doting dad.
And there really is so much packed in here, all of which could very easily have come across as taking the piss out of Krakoa but instead serves the ideal role of a friendly critic, just like Nightcrawler does within the story, by helping to identify and correct implicit flaws which could have become gaping ones over time.
All coming back to that huge and necessary question of how societies hold together when their old myths won't cut it anymore, Exactly the sort of mutant story Krakoa should be used to tell exactly the sort of question for which I wish Homo sapiens could find a nonawful answer as Homo superior does here.
Allegedly this is a widespread thing, though gods know I never had it myself,
Not that I altogether buy Moore's complaint in that particular instance, but it certainly holds for a lot of the comics Killing Joke enabled, .