With Nightcrawler given a second chance of living from the events of ‘The Amazing X-Men: The Quest For Nightcrawler,’ he has been spending just as much time out on his own as he has with the X-Men that he was willing to give up Heaven for. So far during the ‘Nightcrawler‘ books, the entire plot has revolved around his reuniting with Amanda right as she gets attacked by a strange creature.
The last issue was a bit of a mix of magic and action where Margali made an appearance, who I’m pretty sure has been out of the picture for quite some time. An attack happens there and Kurt decides that they have to leave as to not put his old friends in any further danger. Coming out against our favorite swashbuckler, he decides to return home to the X-Men to try and keep Amanda safe. When he goes though, Margali comes along as she claims that she wants to help. Who does she want to help though?
From the get go, none of the mutants trust Margali. She hasn’t exactly played well with others… ever. Nightcrawler is able to diffuse the situation all in the name of trying to protect Amanda from the Trimega robot creatures trying to kill her. While the X-Men stand down, they don’t lower their trust and bring Margali into a room for debriefing. At this moment we get a great scene of Kurt in the Danger Room missing Heaven once more and Wolverine coming to chill him up with a cold one. Bonding at its best with these two.
Back in the debriefing with Margali, things go south quick though as first the Trimega robots appear to attack the school and at the same time Margali busts loose attacking Storm and Beast. Thanks to the events of the ‘Battle of the Atom,’ we know that the two are safe for the time being as Storm has a daughter to give birth to and Beast has to go stark raving mad and be forced to join the future Brotherhood that Xavier’s son creates. So, the threat not too threatening. Still it proves all along that the mutants were in the right to not trust her.
While all of this is going on Amanda decides that she’s had enough and is going to put an end to all of this. From the conversation, it wasn’t clear if she is putting an end to Margali’s madness, which it doesn’t appear that she knows about, or the robots attacking her. Are we getting the overused self sacrifice play or are we about to get an epic fight of magic? While it looks as if unsurprisingly has her own angle its still too soon to tell if she’s behind all of this or not.
While I did enjoy the first issue, I’ve felt the quality has slipped in each of the following ones and while I am overly thrilled to see Claremont working with the X-Men again, the standout moments of this title were when they were on the page. When the focus was just on the villains, the writing seemed sluggish and dull. The build up just hasn’t been here for this one and if there is any saving grace i’ts that when the X-Men are talking it just feels right and Todd Nauck’s art is able to keep the pages and fight scenes moving quickly. I’m hoping there a better story arc planned after this one comes to a close and I hate to say it but I hope that happens sooner than later.
NIGHTCRAWLER #3
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Todd Nauck
