Almost 30 years after his debut, Nightcrawler finally gets his own series.  Because god knows, if there's one thing the X-books need right now, it's more solo titles.  Following on the heels of Gambit, Jubilee and Rogue, this is the last of the bunch for now. 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that sales on the solo books have been sluggish, which shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to anyone who understands the concept of "flooding the market."  To be fair, none of them have been bad books, despite the evident cynicism behind their launch.  But the line as a whole is getting far, far too bloated.  It needs an axe taken to it.  You can only stretch the X-brand so far before it becomes worthless, and Marvel long since passed that point - only the core X-Men titles are still guaranteed high sales, while most of the satellite books languish in the lower reaches of the chart.

But let's leave aside the implications for the line as a whole, and take Nightcrawler on its own terms.  The creative team's not bad - writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has wrenched some reasonably decent stories out of the lamentably implausible premise of Marvel Knights 4 (which wasn't his idea, to be fair to him), while Darick Robertson is always an artist you can rely on.

Also, bucking the recent trend, the plot gets off to a reasonably quick start.  It's a mystery - how did all the kids in a hospital get slaughtered, and why weren't there any witnesses?  And, unexpectedly, Kurt makes some decent headway in the first issue.  It's a delightful throwback to the days when things actually happened in the first issue.

Aguirre-Sacasa seems to have a reasonably solid grasp on the character.  It's nice to see that, in contrast to the usual angst-ridden characters who populate the X-books, Kurt is being presented as the relatively well adjusted one.  Darick Robertson captures the charm and grace of the character.  It's not a bad start at all.

The book falters with a slightly pedestrian plot that doesn't seem entirely suited to the character - as Kurt points out, he's not a detective and doesn't seem a natural choice for this story.  I'm also not convinced that Nightcrawler is a character who can carry a solo title.  He's the sort of character whose core role has been bonding teams together, and the fact that he's appearing in a somewhat generic plot straight off the bat isn't encouraging.

Still, it's a decent read, nicely paced and with a good grasp of the character.  We don't need it, but it could have been an awful lot worse than this.

Rating: B+

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