Review by Frank Plowright

Over the course of X-Men’s 2019 reboot whenever Nightcrawler has taken centre stage it’s been Si Spurrier writing, and so it is for the final outing before Fall of the House of X. The world has changed. Mutants are outlawed, so Kurt Wagner is now masquerading as Spider-Man, while the Orchis organisation hunts down any mutants.

Spurrier has plotted a convoluted psychological stew for Nightcrawler over previous experiences, and it seems the toxic combination of religion, complex mother issues and the deaths of so many friends are taking their toll. Nightcrawler is carrying on conversations with a provocative entity in his head, yet because the torment is internal Nightcrawler still transmits as normal.

A clever aspect of the plot is Spurrier amusing himself by having Kurt in his Spider-Man costume primarily dealing with the type of people Spider-Man would, yet working them viably into Kurt’s life. Look for a few anomalies, but note how by the end Spurrier’s explained them all away with a brilliant simple reveal, although as there’s little further explanation, it’s not going to make much sense unless you’ve followed Spurrier and Nightcrawler from Legion of X.

Everything is efficiently drawn by Lee Garbett. There’s power when it’s needed for a massively upgraded version of the Rhino, yet there’s grace and athleticism in Nightcrawler’s movement. In places Garbett can be no-nonsense, yet he’s also capable of some impressive page designs.

While Spider-Man’s vast extended world supplies most of the cast, a couple of others will be better known to X-Men readers, which is reassuring in a Nightcrawler story. By the end there’s been shocks and surprises, but the entertainment has been had, and Nightcrawler’s next seen in Fall of the House of X/Rise of the Powers of X.