Review: Way of X #1

Way of X #1
W: Si Spurrier
A: Bob Quinn/Java Tartaglia
Published: 04/21/2021
Marvel Unlimited Date: 07/26/2021

One of the things that the Krakoa Era of X-Men books has done poorly is look at the impact of resurrections on mutants. We’ve seen the resurrections celebrated and hints at what Nightcrawler, the theologian of the mutants, feels about them cheating death. The Way of X is dealing with this topic while focusing on Nightcrawler.

The issue starts with Nightcrawler leading a team of Blink, Pixie, DJ, and Loa into a church of mutant hate that is being funded by Orchis; there are statues of some of the evil mutants like Magneto and Apocalypse. The younger mutants discuss death and resurrections and how being brought back is almost a badge of honor. While talking about it, they talk about the Patchwork Man, which peaks Nightcrawlers interest. Before they can tell him about Krakoa’s boogeyman, they are discovered and have to fight their way out; Pixie decides to “sacrifice” herself by voluntarily taking a shotgun to the face, which her younger teammates celebrate.

To lighten the mood, Kurt steals a statue of Magneto and brings it to the Lagoon. It leads Erik to monologuing about how the statue is a testament to mutants and how they are able to bypass death, which makes them superior to humans. Kurt and Erik discuss the lack of faith and fear of death on the island, which leads to the moral issue of the Crucible, where depowered mutants fight to the death against a powered mutants to earn their powers back.

We then meet a recent addition to the island (a new mutant I believe) who Kurt kind of blows off to watch Exodus prepare young mutants for what they’ll see in the Crucible. The topic shifts to the Patchwork Man, but Kurt bamfs off before learning too much more about him. Kurt talks with Dr. Nemesis about the change to Nemesis’ appearance and the potential of a mutant religion.

They arrive at the Crucible, where the new mutant from earlier is reluctantly fighting Magneto. Kurt intervenes, but it’s too late and Magneto kills the mutant. At Arbor Magna, Kurt is there for the resurrection of the new mutant and Pixie.

This leads Xavier to give Kurt a new task – tracking down Xavier’s son Legion. It’s revealed that Legion is the Patchwork Man and also has issues with the resurrection process.

This is a composition heavy book so far, but one that has a much deeper look at the mutants then many of the other books. If it continues to follow Kurt, we’re going to get a much more philosophical look at this mutant utopia and resurrections. For that, it’s pretty intriguing to me.

The art is solid; it’s nothing groundbreaking, but you can recognize the characters and there is a good amount of detail in background.

Ranking: 3 out of 5. It’s setting up an interesting idea and I’ll be sticking it out, like I have with all of the other X-books. This is probably right in the middle of all of their titles right now, with room to move up.