Reviewer: James Hatton
Story Title: The Devil Inside (Part 1): The Locked Room
Writer: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Peniler: Darick Robertson
Inker: Wayne Faucher
Colors: Avalon’s Matt Milla
Letterer: Cory Petit
Publisher: Marvel Comics
I guess I’m slowly but surely turning into Inside Pulse/Comic’s Nexus official X-Guy. I’ve reviewed more ‘X’ #1 titles than I could possibly dream of. District X, Gambit, Jubilee, Rogue, and countless issues of Emma Frost, Alpha Flight, Excalibur, and a few Ultimate books tossed in for the fun of it. Sadly, most of those aforementioned books are crap (with the exception of District X, Emma, and Ultimate). Now team X has decided we need to know what’s going on with Nightcrawler when he’s not helping out Xavier’s dream.
Does it transport itself to the top of the list? Get it? Transport.. he’s a telepor.. oh nevermind.
Story!
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa didn’t start off with a strong opinion of himself with the fans. He’s the guy that almost took over Waid’s Fantastic Four and in turn recieved bashing a plenty. He then started doing Marvel Knight’s ‘FOUR’ and it’s pretty damned good.
So now he’s moved on to the fuzzy blue elf, and has gone on to say that he’s not going to try, at first at least, to clear up all of the contiunity that the teleporting Kraut has seen. A lover, a fighter, a swashbuckler, a poet, and a man of faith, Nightcrawler has seen more retcons over the last twenty years than most. What he IS going for is what he called ‘The Essence’ of the character.
This story starts off with the Children’s Psychiatric Ward of Metro-General Hospital, where a whole room full of children have suddenly up and died. No trace of who or why it happened, just one quiet boy. Crawler gets sent in under the suspicion that a teleporter might have had something to do with it.
After extensive interviews, Kurt starts to notice that things might not be all that it seems when it comes to Metro-General. A guard takes a mysterious break, and the head doctor is seemingly leaving hoofprints on rooves and showing up at classy parties. It’s sorted, and honestly doesn’t make a whole helluva lot of sense yet how this is going to tie all together, but I’m willing to let it ride.
Aguirre-Sacasa is writing a decent Nightcrawler, and the voice sounds legit. My problem with this book is the circumstantial problems. Nightcrawler isn’t ashamed who he is, but doesn’t go just flagrantly walking about in his blue & fuzzy form. Add to this that I’m fairly certain Nightcrawler doesn’t have the ability to crawl up and down walls and there are a few glitches that have to be worked through.
Art!
Issue #1 covers are typical. They show your character in a dramatic pose. Done. Nothing creative about it, but I will say that the bi-line of “NOW IN HIS OWN SERIES” reaaaalllly makes me remember some bad crap from the 90’s. Let’s hope that doesn’t appear on any more books.. ever.
Internally, Darick Robertson has a great look for Nightcrawler. Each time you see him it has a fluidity and consistancy that I appreciate. You have to figure, Nightcrawler is an acrobatic type of guy – and Robertson’s depiction seems to work with that.
Overall!
So, another issue one for another underused X-Character out of the way, and I will say that the writing is better than quite a few of the ones I mentioned earlier, but it’s going to need some time to work it’s way into my heart. It’s far from there yet and it doesn’t stack up to a book like Madrox. It’s leaps and bounds above Rogue or Jubilee, so it gets a firm thumbs in the middle.
