X-Force #26 *****"Our Father who are in heaven," oh I'm sorry, I must have been channeling the late Kurt Wagner. You heard that right, our resident religious funny man himself, Nightcrawler has passed into the land of the dead. Let that soak in for a while as I take you on this journey. So much happened in this issue and everything happened so well. First, Bastion is tracking all the mutants in the world, except for Hope (who's still able to avoid detection, much like when she was a teenie tiny babie.) Cable, after having split up from Hope, is creating a diversion with the help of Angel, Psylocke, Logan, Colossus, and X-23. Suffice to say, Bastion was not fooled. And just to add, while I understand Colossus' pain and desire to help his sister, annoying much? Back to the good stuff. Meanwhile, Rogue and Hope have been traveling cross-country via that Nightcrawler "Bamf" express. Having briefly stopped to allow Nightcrawler to rest, the gang was attacked by Bastion himself. Rogue quickly utilizing near every power she had recently absorbed (see review for X-Men Legacy #235,) however the quickly repairing, non-human, Bastion kept barraging her with more attacks. Finally having beat down Rogue, Bastion turns his attention to the weakened Nightcrawler and the unprotected Hope. Now, I'm not usually one for spoiling, but you must forgive me this one time. With his last burst of energy, Nightcrawler "Bamf"-ed for the last time, transporting himself and Hope to Utopia, uttering his final words "I...I believe in you." (Much like I said you all should believe in Cyclops back in our 50th post special.)
I don't even know where to start really. The writing and the artwork in this book was superb. Fantastic. Beautiful. Craig Kyle and Chris Yost weaved the words like they were thread in a Navajo blanket. And there were often times when the silence was even more powerful. enter Mike Choi and Sonia Oback. These four people weaved together a brilliant chapter to this awesome event. The battle scene between Rogue and Bastion was awesome. The final moments of Nightcrawler's death was touching. And the moment that Colossus and Wolverine find out he died was heartbreaking. I've had an inkling that it would be Kurt that would be a major death in this event. His interaction with Scott in the one-shot, his transporting Rogue and Hope across the U.S., his vocal opposition to X-Force, just little things. And I was all for it, mostly because his faith in his religion makes me feel awkward, because it's something that I can't relate to him about. But at the end of the day, he is a part of the second generation of X-Men, best friend to Colossus and Wolverine, good friend to many, and he will be missed by thousands of fans across the world. He deserved an honorable death, and Kyle, Yost, Choi, and Oback gave him just that.
I met up with Chris Yost on Free Comic Book Day, and he's just a great guy. I got my issue signed by him, of course, as well as a couple Necrosha issues, and my Red Robin series. We talked about Nightcrawler's death a little, and you could just tell that there was a level of respect he had for this character and the character's history, especially with the fans. He said that their main intent was to make sure his death wasn't pointless and meaningless.
And they did just that.
And they did just that.
