Quote Originally Posted by cinnaminion View Post
Yup I've read both of those. Spurrier definitely knows how to catch my attention. The first time I read the top one, when I got to Nightcrawler "has an endless capacity to be conflicted" I was rolling with laughter. Bahaha. Sometimes the way they talk about Way of X makes it seem like a mystery novel - which is kinda par for the course with Nightcrawler books, he is good at being stealthy. But then there's the addition of taking stock of things at home and honestly I'm seduced the most by the idea of Crawler looking around and taking a step back and making his own decisions.

He's the kind of character who is always SAID to be someone who can lead as well as follow, but he often follows. And when they decide to let him be a rebel - we get something like in Civil War II where he surprises us by siding with someone other than his friends, but his reasoning is vague/hard to get on board with. Or it's like way back in Second Coming where he was all "I'm not into this" to Cyclops and was just told "Suck it up" and then died before he could do anything about what he didn't like. Then he's resurrected and, I'll admit, I didn't really want to see a new tiff over an old subject, but at the same time, "Nightcrawler's angry = nothing happens" pretty much just leads to his convictions looking petty, like he doesn't really fight for them. To be clear, I'm not REALLY trying to complain here, it's just something I've often felt whenever we're told "Nightcrawler's relevant in this story" and he just like, gets a sense of foreboding and then is shot and goes MIA or something...

So I feel seduced by Way of X, but I do need results from it Of any sort.
I think it depends on the story the writer wants to tell. I think Nightcrawler is often there to be the conscience or moral guide (and more often than not he’s right) but that can trap writers into a corner if he actually followed through and did anything about it. If Nightcrawler voices that something is wrong and then takes action to prevent it, then the X-men can’t get themselves into worst scrapes and the plot comes to a stand still. So the team has to note his opinion and then ignore it.