Back in more mundane territory, the failed Nightcrawler series lurches towards cancellation.  This week's issue is the penultimate one, finishing off the "Winding Way" storyline.

Marvel's strategy for this book has been slightly baffling.  It launched at the same time as Rogue and Gambit, and bombed just like they did.  Instead of just ploughing on with it, Marvel pulled it from the schedules after six issues for re-tooling.  Then, after several months' absence, the book resumed with "The Winding Way"... and no publicity whatsoever.  Remarkably, putting the book on hiatus for months and then doing nothing to publicise it did not turn things around, so the axe falls next issue.

"The Winding Way" is a storyline that pretty much sums up the problem with this book: it has completely missed the point of the character.  There are really only two things you need to grasp about Nightcrawler's appeal.  First, although he looks like a demon, he isn't one.  Second, he's the happy-go-lucky swashbuckling adventurer type.

Instead, we've had a series where Nightcrawler is all very serious about everything, and battles magical opponents.  You can justify Nightcrawler having magic-oriented adventures from time to time through his connection with Amanda Sefton, but to position him as a magic-related character is simply bizarre.  And here, again, we have an issue of Nightcrawler fighting demonic flies by waving the Soulsword around, as Sefton and (of all people) Nightmare hang around in the background.  Worse, Aguirre-Sacasa seems to be gearing up for a major storyline based on magical vendettas against Kurt's adoptive family - one that we presumably won't see anywhere.

All of this might make tolerable sense if Aguirre-Sacasa were writing a Magik comic, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Nightcrawler character.  Darick Robertson's art is enough to keep it readable, to be sure.  And having decided to pursue this odd direction, Aguirre-Sacasa executes it adequately.  But at the end of the day, it's a storyline that offers none of the things that made Kurt popular in the first place, and replaces them with a baffling array of mystic elements that don't belong in the book at all.  It's fair enough to look for a new take on the character, but that means bringing out something that was already present and underused, not just nailing on a totally unrelated concept.

Entirely misconceived.

Rating: C

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