Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler
Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler - “The Haunted Mansion”
It is approaching a year since our favourite heroes decided that enough was enough and they planted their flag in the ground forming their island nation of Krakoa. It has been a revolution in terms of quality and direction for the entire X-Men publishing line, which even a massive fan like me had to admit, was somewhat rudderless in 2018/19.
However, even with all these fantastic new tales and strides in character development we’re seeing come out of Hickman’s (literal) Brave New World, there is one massive character, so important to the whole X-family, that hasn’t joined our mutant heroes in pastures new: the X-Mansion.
I don’t think I had realised it until I began to read Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler but I’d been missing the mansion, and in particular, the idea of the team as teachers and students, in addition to superpowered heroes and villains. It’s not just the brick and mortar, I mean, even the Avengers have had a stuffy old mansion headquarters for a long period of their history, but it was what was within the walls of that building in Westchester, New York.
I’m not ashamed to admit, as a 37-year-old man, that I’m a massive fan of teen dramas. From classics like Dawson’s Creek and The OC, to more recent hits like Riverdale and even superhero ones like Smallville, I like my dramas dripping with teen angst. And X-Men stories pretty much always had this element to them as my favourite superteam were also responsible for running a school and giving the next-generation of mutants a helping hand in learning who they are. Other superhero titles have tried to have their teen team book spin-offs: from Avengers Academy, Future Foundation or even the much more successful Young Avengers. However, they’ve all felt, for me anyway, a bit like they’re trying too hard to bring all those characters together, where the X-Men have had that prep school thing locked down for decades serving us effortless freaks and geeks realness.
Learning the the second issue of Giant-Size X-Men was going to see Nightcrawler, a character with decades of links to Westchester, travel back to the mansion meant that this issue was a must-read for me. I’d really enjoyed the previous issue in the mini-series so far, too, and had appreciated the place that the title was carving out in the Dawn of X re-focusing of the line. Essentially, Giant-Size X-Men was kind of fulfilling the role that annuals used to have - the regular writer of a title teams up with a big-name artist and you get an additional, bumper issue of your regular scheduled X-Book.
Specifically, I’m enjoying how Giant-Size X-Men is almost elevating the artist, with Head of X, Jonathan Hickman, seemingly getting his pick of superstar writers and asking them, “Hey, who do you like to draw?” before crafting a story around the character in their answer.
February’s Jean Grey and Emma Frost issue of this book had featured Russell Dauterman’s first real return to the X-Books since his brief tenure setting up the fantastic, but overlooked, Cyclops series in 2014 and with Excalibur and Captain Britain’s Alan Davis holding the pencil for this issue, it was a sure bet that the issue would have a character Davis is known for drawing on the cover of the book...enter Kurt Wagner!
So, what happens in the issue then:
A (fantastic!) team of Nightcrawler, Eye-Boy, Magik, Cypher and Lockheed return, through a planted Krakoan gate to the mansion’s decaying ruins in Westchester (let’s forget that last time we saw the mansion it was in Central Park - maybe they picked it up and moved it as they did not want to continue to pay the ground rent)
They’re investigating a mutant presence in the grounds which Cerebro has registered
However, they quickly realise they’re not alone with ghosts of former X-Men present which cause the team to split-up to investigate where the usual hijinks occur
It’s revealed that the mansion has been overrun by the classic alien-beetle race, the Sidri, who, recognising that the X-Men have abandoned the mansion, have taken it as their new home
The team are able to talk the aliens down due to the expertise of Doug Ramsey - who is able to chat to them agreeing that they can keep the mansion as their new home, as long as they let any mutant who is seeking passage to Krakoa through the gates installed there
Speaking of which, the team discovered that the ghosts they were seeing were created by the powers of Regan Wyngarde, aka Lady Mastermind, who had been cocooned by the Sidri, whilst trying to make her way to the X-Men’s new island paradise.
Reading that re-cap, you’ll be well within your right to think, “wait, isn’t this a Nightcrawler issue?” and yes, well - that’s what the title says, although, apart from the artist link to Kurt from the years of Davis drawing him in Excalibur this Nightcrawler really doesn’t get all that much to do.
If anything, the star of the show is Douglas Ramsey. He talks the Sidri down and lets the creepy but kooky alien race keep the mansion, utilising, what must be, his status as a member of the ruling party of Krakoa - The Quiet Council. And not just that, but a major piece of subtext from Hickman’s X-Men book is shown to be text as Doug confides to his New Mutants teammate and Krakoan Captain, Illyana Rasputin, that he has a “Self-friend On Board” with Warlock revealing himself to be alive and living on Cypher’s arm. For me, Doug was the star of this show, but Giant-Size X-Men: Cypher was probably seen as being less marketable, maybe?
In reality, I know it’s pretty much the artist here who calls the shots, and Alan Davis’s work is damn incredible. The design for the Sidri is really something special - creepy like a bug, yes, but there’s this weird sci-fi angle to their design too, which, clearly, is crafted from years of pencilling ‘off-the-wall’ antagonists in Excalibur, in that they also look like space-ships or at least very futuristic stealth craft.
There’s some very subtle, but brilliant, artistic choices made by Davis throughout the issue. As we know, pretty much as soon as our team arrive in Westchester, they start having Lady Mastermind’s powers used against them by the Sidri hive burrowed deep in the mansion. We get a visual cue to this in that from the moment Nightcrawler sees the first ‘ghost’ the panels forgo traditional oblong layouts and become different angles, shapes and sizes with our characters even popping out of the confines of the boxes they normally find themselves trapped within.
Speaking of Alan Davis’s brilliance, he also deserves kudos for making me like Eye-Boy as a character! Well, let’s perhaps not go that far - but the team which Magik pulls together for this adventure looks absolutely fantastic under Davis’s hand and I’d be so excited to see them pop-up again in another outing where Captain Illyana remembers how great they all worked together. I was really excited by the addition of Lady Mastermind in this line-up as I was always a fan of the chaos which was Regan Wyngarde following her starring role in the fantastic run on Mike Carey’s Adjectiveless X-Men.
That’s the thing, though, Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler leaves me wanting more. From wanting there to be more panel time from Kurt in the issue, to wanting to see the team again and also wanting to know if Illyana will keep her promise about keeping Douglas’s secret. But more than anything though, I’m wanting to see the mansion again, or perhaps more accurately, the school. The issue made me realise that as much as I love the X-Men for being a family first and a superhero team second, I’m also wanting them to get their lesson plans out, book the Danger Room for a gym session and start teaching these newbies about what it means, not only to be a mutant, but to be Krakoan.
