Chronological X-Men - Nightcrawler Review

Nightcrawler!

The Uncanny X-Men #194 – Juggernaut’s Back In Town

This issue we have the first appearance of Fernis A.K.A. Andrea and Andreas von Strucker however only Andreas is named. They’re off in Africa apparently hunting and causing random trouble which Ororo stops. I liked touching bases with Ororo to see what she’s doing now that she’s powerless and trying to find herself. We also touch bases with why Charles and certain characters aren’t present because they’re off on Muir Island (off in the Legion plot) and we get a little bit more info with the whole Nimrod plot. I think I’ve said it before but I’ve always thought Nimrod was overhyped and an issue like this where he has many powers and can seemingly deal with everyone doesn’t really help with the overrated feeling. If anything makes the character more Mary Sue like. I like the idea of Rogue taking on more than one ability at a time and the type of struggle she would have to deal with because of that but I don’t really get why random parts of her body mutated. Sure it was for shock value, but I kind of wish they explained why which part took on a particular appearance. This was a good little filler issue and surprisingly I can see myself reading this one again.

Nightcrawler #1 – How much is that Boogie in the window?

Nightcrawler #2 – A Boggie Day in L’un D’un-T’wn

Nightcrawler #3 – To BAMF or not to BAMF!

Nightcrawler #4 – The Wizard of OOPs!

This particular story takes place right after Uncanny X-Men #194 but before Charles and the New Mutants return from Muir Island. At first Kurt, Kitty and Illyana are all alone in the mansion and Kurt is training himself in the danger room and forces himself not to use his teleporting abilities because there could be situations where he won’t be able to use them at all. Or course this causes Kurt to tell Kitty and Illyana all about his adventure when he was teleported to an alternate dimension with Vanisher and neither of them were able to use their powers. He tells the girls all about the Well at the Center of Time which leads Kitty to programming it into the danger room, only some how she actually manages to conjure up the real well. Kurt and Lockheed get sucked in and the two of them begin their own pirate adventure; which is actually perfect for Kurt’s character considering he’s always had a swashbuckler aspect to his character. Kurt and Lockheed stop the pirates from kidnapping a princess and the duo end up being sold to a shark creature who plans to use Kurt to learn how to teleport. The series is fun but it’s so out there in it’s comedy and sight gags that it goes past the obvious and into the ‘oh dear lord this is annoying when will it stop.’ We know that time moves differently in other dimensions which allows for this adventure to be larger than it is, but what wrecks it for me is one little blurb when we check back in with Kitty and Illyana and it says that Kurt has been missing for a few days yet the girls never once change their clothes. I don’t really understand why Illyana couldn’t use a locater spell and then just teleport to Kurt… I get that they included her because the whole story is a nod to magic and teleportation but here we have a character that can do both and she really doesn’t do anything in the story. The jokes aren’t really so much jokes as they are generic non copyright infringement based jokes off of other properties, places and people. I know that the BAMFS are supposed to be personifications from the story she told Illyana when she was a little girl – but to me they seem like sexually frustrated Smurfs. I do like the tie in to Kurt’s story from Bizarre Adventures and the referencing of Kitty’s Fairytale – it helps to sort of tie this story in with the real ones. And you could almost argue that this whole series was done for Kurt to prove to himself that he can lead the X-Men since he led an entire race of BAMFS. My only problem with the story was the ending. Did we really need to know that Illyana who is 15-17 (with all the aging and de-aging of Kitty I can’t keep track of Illyana’s age anymore) but like two years ago was only 7 has a collection of Playgirls?

The Uncanny X-Men #194 – Juggernaut’s Back In Town: A

Nightcrawler #1 – How much is that Boogie in the window?: B

Nightcrawler #2 – A Boggie Day in L’un D’un-T’wn: A

Nightcrawler #3 – To BAMF or not to BAMF!: A

Nightcrawler #4 – The Wizard of OOPs!: B

Chronological X-Men - Firestar Review

Firestar!

Firestar #1 – Mark of the Mutant!

Firestar #2 – The Players and the Pawn!

This is a bit odd because this miniseries sort of takes place over the course of at least two years, given the fact that when we first see Kitty in this she has long hair it means that the first issue takes place before Kitty Pryde & Wolverine but then over the course of the first two issues the main character ages two years. Speaking of the main character – in this issue we meet Angelica Jones – Firestar. Now this miniseries isn’t technically her first appearance – it’s actually Uncanny X-Men #193 but certain events in this story lead up to those events. We also meet Angelica’s father Bartholomew and Angelica’s Nana. I actually liked the idea of introducing Angelica since she originally was created for the cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and she was so popular she was later introduced into the mainstream continuity (much like how Harley Quinn was treated in the DC universe years later.) Another high point for me is just how evil Emma is acting in this series, hurting her minions, manipulating Angelica, mindwiping random people, creating a whole series of events that would bring the New Mutants to her school just as Emma is about to push Angelica over the edge by killing her horse and then allowing Angelica to believe tht she did it.  There were a few errors – mostly Emma being colored with white hair and Tarot being shown to have black hair instead of her red/brown color that she’s been shown with so far. It’s easy for me to get over a mistake like that because as a whole the art itself I really good (there are a few weird depth perception problems I found with the first issue but they had moved past that on the second.

The Uncanny X-Men #192 – Fun ‘n’ Games

The Uncanny X-Men #193 – Warhunt 2

Kitty and Logan return from Japan to find that things have changed a bit – Ororo has lost her powers and there’s a new team member in the form of Rachel. Kitty remembers meeting Rachel when she unwillingly visited the future which sets Rachel off onto her own series of flashbacks (which are technically flash forwards) and we learn that Kitty created a plan to fight Nimrod and she had implanted a mental trigger in Rachel that would force her to go into the past so she couldn’t stop Kitty from going off on a suicide mission. Magus, Warlock’s father finally reaches Earth and attacks the X-Men in an attempt to get them to flush out his son. I like the idea behind Warlock and Magus but it’s hard to take Magus seriously with how he’s drawn. There are a few big things here – the first being that Kurt is now the leader of the X-Men. The next big event is the fact that Charles is assaulted at a school he’s lecturing in and beaten and left for dead because his students believe him to be a mutant. We learn that someone murdered the Morlock Annalee’s two children and find out that Nimrod is staying at the home of Jaime Rodriguez (the man he saved recently. There are a few major things happening here the first being Nimrod deciding to kill all mutants to protect humanity, like I said before the murder of the two Morlock children, Thunderbird (II) seeking his revenge for his brother, Thunderbird (II) and Firestar learning that the Hellions aren’t all that they thought they were but both of them decide to stay in order to set things right and finally thanks to Empath’s actions caused a riot that initiated the media coverage that now has left the X-Men branded as criminals. It is a good story and I know that they wanted to act on the anniversary of the new team of X-Men but it felt a bit rushed, the story would have been better served if there was more of a buildup.

Firestar #3 – This Lady Kills

Firestar #4 – Now Strikes the Assassin!

The Firestar limited series ends directly after the events of The Uncanny X-Men #192-193 – Angelica makes references to meeting the X-Men as well as recounts the events of those issues. We learn that the reason why Emma was so desperate to recruit Angelica into the Hellions was because she and Sebastian had decided to train her as the Inner Circle’s personal assassin – the first target Selene. First Emma sets up a meeting with Angelica and her father, which she knows won’t go well and then stages an attack at an airport after Angelica is outted as a mutant to prove that she has instinct enough to defend herself if her life is at stake. The plan originally was for Emma to take Angelica to a party at the Hellfire Club and have her kill Selene, in order to make this happen Emma had to fake an assassination attempt on her own life and then once Angelica’s bodyguard Randall found out about Emma’s plan she then staged his death to make it look like Selene did that as well. Ultimately Angelica learns the truth and turns on Emma and destroys the underground training center below the Massachusetts Academy leaving Emma and Sebastian to start over and Angelica leaves to reunite with her father. My only real complaint here was I don’t understand why Emma didn’t simply kill Randall instead of holding him hostage.

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #8 – The Adventures of Lockheed the Space Dragon and his Pet Girl Kitty

For this annual we take a break from the traditional baseball game interrupted by a major event and instead we are treated to a camp out where Illyana tells a story to the X-Men and the New Mutants that is very similar to the story Kitty once told Illyana before she had been taken to Limbo. The story Illyana tells is a skewed reimagining of how Kitty was introduced and a series of events that followed. Kitty and her parents are part of a crew for the space ship Chicago and are soon attacked by the White Queen and her crew. The White Queen ends up killing Kitty’s parents as well as the entire crew of the Chicago in an attempt to force Kitty to work for her. Kurt and Logan arrive and are led by Lockheed and after temporarily defeating the White Queen they decide to take Kitty in. Eventually Kitty meets Peter, Charles and Lilandra at Charles’ birthday. She quickly falls for Peter and that upsets Lockheed so he storms off. The White Queen attacks the party and kidnaps Logan and another dragon. Kitty meets Ororo in a bar and convinces her to pilot their ship to track down the White Queen and get revenge on her (she believes Lockheed is dead) – but it turns out that Lockheed has actually been teleported to his homeworld because he is the last male dragon left and the females of his planet need him to help repopulate their race. Ultimately they defeat the White Queen but it costs Lockheed his life but Kitty is able to resurrect him through the power of her love for him. It’s a fun story that I really liked and I’m glad that it was used because hopefully now we can move past the whole Kitty/Piotr thing and it shows Ororo exactly how broody she’s been.

Firestar #1 – Mark of the Mutant!: B

Firestar #2 – The Players and the Pawn!: A

The Uncanny X-Men #192 – Fun ‘n’ Games: B

The Uncanny X-Men #193 – Warhunt 2: B

Firestar #3 – This Lady Kills: A

Firestar #4 – Now Strikes the Assassin!: A

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #8 – The Adventures of Lockheed the Space Dragon and his Pet Girl Kitty: A