Legion of X #4

[Frobisher]

This is one of those books (like Sabretooth) that I like in theory but it's absolutely impossible to remember what happened last time, or sometimes even what's going on from scene to scene. Would probably massively benefit from reading as a trade.

[Master of Sound]

Did not get this issue.

Did we not see the mysterious purple guy?

So Ora is the missing God, did I get that right?

[king of hybrids]

The Spark is a pretty hollow concept as it is to have generated a celestial being as its avatar

[Habis]

Kurt's idea of the law and the Spark boils down to 'whatever we need it to be in the moment', which is really not how a nation can function. And his conversation with the god gestalt thing doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. "You need to believe in yourself!" except he's literally made of belief. Like, literally. And if Mother righteous is the Spark given form, then it further makes this whole thing make no sense.

Kurt used to be one of my favorite mutants, but his recent run has been pretty hard on him. Way of X Kurt was downright offensive at points, and this Kurt is such a nothing cypher character. And I really don't need these messiah complex competitions between Kurt and Xavier.

What disappoints me about Kurt, he is basically deluding himself and avoiding the answers to his own questions, taking solace in wishful thinking and shallow philosophies...

Kurt knows about Cosmic Entities like Eternity and the Living Tribunal, Galactus, the Phoenix and Mistress Death. He knows about Principalities like the Vishanti and the Seraphim. He knows about gods like Odin and Thor.

He knows about the afterlife: He should remember being there, and anyways, mutants are mining the Realm of the Dead for mysterium...

He knows how the universes start and ends. He knows about how human (and mutant) evolution was influenced by beings like the Celestials.

He should be seeking answers to the real questions: "What is the God I have been worshiping all this time?","Does it even exist?","How does the multiverse really work, what is everything really about?", "Do we really need faith at all, when we can visit the afterlife or meet our gods?", "Does worship makes sense at all, when the only creatures who demand it are pretty much at a level at which we heroes can defeat them, and the real rulers of reality don't care about it?".

What he does instead is to bury all the important questions and pull out of his ass some shallow doctrine to try to believe in... even if he has to make that doctrine up as he goes...

[Weather]

Did not get this issue.

Did we not see the mysterious purple guy?

So Ora is the missing God, did I get that right?

The issue didn't make clear who was the purple hands guy. Maybe next issue.

Ora is not the god. She was the former worshipper of the mischief god, who brought him to Arakko in the first place. He was running from her, that's why he went to Krakoa and got to Switch. And Ora is after him.

[Triniking1234]

I fell asleep reading this. Jesus Christ.

[Reiko]

This is one of those books (like Sabretooth) that I like in theory but it's absolutely impossible to remember what happened last time, or sometimes even what's going on from scene to scene. Would probably massively benefit from reading as a trade.

yeah the constant body jumping and astral plane shenanigans can be a pain to follow when its not concise. And Chuck is written more douchely than Beast in X Force by a factor of ten... errr X*

[Proxy]

Kurt's idea of the law and the Spark boils down to 'whatever we need it to be in the moment', which is really not how a nation can function. And his conversation with the god gestalt thing doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. "You need to believe in yourself!" except he's literally made of belief. Like, literally. And if Mother righteous is the Spark given form, then it further makes this whole thing make no sense.

Kurt used to be one of my favorite mutants, but his recent run has been pretty hard on him. Way of X Kurt was downright offensive at points, and this Kurt is such a nothing cypher character. And I really don't need these messiah complex competitions between Kurt and Xavier.

This review sums up my feelings about Nightcrawler in Wox and Lox quite nicely:

‘This nervous, faith-obsessed and lost Nightcrawler is not the Nightcrawler I’ve come to know and love, not even if you account for him having gone through some personal crisis in the background before Way of X began.’

https://www.comicsxf.com/2022/08/04/...onfrontations/

[Grunty]

What disappoints me about Kurt, he is basically deluding himself and avoiding the answers to his own questions, taking solace in wishful thinking and shallow philosophies...

Kurt knows about Cosmic Entities like Eternity and the Living Tribunal, Galactus, the Phoenix and Mistress Death. He knows about Principalities like the Vishanti and the Seraphim. He knows about gods like Odin and Thor.

He knows about the afterlife: He should remember being there, and anyways, mutants are mining the Realm of the Dead for mysterium...

He knows how the universes start and ends. He knows about how human (and mutant) evolution was influenced by beings like the Celestials.

He should be seeking answers to the real questions: "What is the God I have been worshiping all this time?","Does it even exist?","How does the multiverse really work, what is everything really about?", "Do we really need faith at all, when we can visit the afterlife or meet our gods?", "Does worship makes sense at all, when the only creatures who demand it are pretty much at a level at which we heroes can defeat them, and the real rulers of reality don't care about it?".

What he does instead is to bury all the important questions and pull out of his ass some shallow doctrine to try to believe in... even if he has to make that doctrine up as he goes...

Sounds like it would make more sense for him to go on a great physical and spiritual journey across the world(s) to seek such answers, than to be stuck on Krakoa.

But it also seems like the status quo forced him to be stuck there and be a "yes men" to the whole messy underdeveloped/half baked society and culture of Krakoa, so this is all he is allowed to do.

Under better circumstances he should have a series about going from fun dramatic adventure to adventure on Earth, Space or Otherworld, while seeking such answers. But the climate the big two have produced for their comics would have likely doomed that too.

[Thievery]

What disappoints me about Kurt, he is basically deluding himself and avoiding the answers to his own questions, taking solace in wishful thinking and shallow philosophies...

Kurt knows about Cosmic Entities like Eternity and the Living Tribunal, Galactus, the Phoenix and Mistress Death. He knows about Principalities like the Vishanti and the Seraphim. He knows about gods like Odin and Thor.

He knows about the afterlife: He should remember being there, and anyways, mutants are mining the Realm of the Dead for mysterium...

He knows how the universes start and ends. He knows about how human (and mutant) evolution was influenced by beings like the Celestials.

He should be seeking answers to the real questions: "What is the God I have been worshiping all this time?","Does it even exist?","How does the multiverse really work, what is everything really about?", "Do we really need faith at all, when we can visit the afterlife or meet our gods?", "Does worship makes sense at all, when the only creatures who demand it are pretty much at a level at which we heroes can defeat them, and the real rulers of reality don't care about it?".

What he does instead is to bury all the important questions and pull out of his ass some shallow doctrine to try to believe in... even if he has to make that doctrine up as he goes...

I'll have to reread all of the Legion of X comics at once I guess, but the way that I interpret the series, the comic is deliberately going for some of the things that you mentioned in your post. I believe that Weaponless Zen even comments that Nightcrawler is deliberately avoiding the parts of his religion that he is unhappy with and is more than happy to bend or break rules as he sees fit to s he goes along.

Now I do agree that the comic could do a better job of taking advantage of some of its premise. Like Kurt does get killed and resurrected, and that should have a bigger impact in him and his faith. But that might have been mentioned in this series and I need to reread it to make sure. Actually, this could have been brought up in a different comic and I have simply forgotten about it.

I like the comic but it does have some problems. It reminds me a little bit of the trouble that both X-Factor and X-Corp had. X-Factor in my opinion didn't do enough to entirely take advantage of its premise. I know some readers thought that it did, but I'm one of the readers who thought that X-Factor missed it's mark a little. It reminds me a little bit of X-Corp in that its ideas aren't as clever as the comic seems to think that they are. X-Corp thought that a flying headquarters and highspeed broadband were radical and exciting ideas. Yet those ideas already existed in the Marvel Universe and both the readers and the regular people who make up the MU had already seen these things in other comics. Kurt should be taking the presence of these other gods as a little more regular. But that could have already been commented on and I have forgotten it. Like I said, I should probably reread all of the issues again at once.
And there are still future issues to come that may address some of the comic's perceived shortcomings.

I still enjoy the comic and find it to be well written.

[Habis]

Magik is right there, she knows about Principalities, Demons and Elder Gods... Kurt could ask her.

Syrin was a goddess not so long ago. Kurt could ask her.

Kurt could go ask Thor and Hercules about gods, ask Reed Richards, Silver Surfer and Quasar about Cosmic Entities, ask Dr. Strange and Brother Voodoo about souls and gods and demons and Principalities, ask Phastos, Ajax, Makkari and Sersi about the Celestials, ask Adam Warlock about... well, about everything. Thor could probably even arrange a meeting with Gaia, and Quasar may be able to arrange a meeting with Chronos.

Blue Marvel, Spectrum, Miss America and T'Challa have witnessed the greatest mysteries of the Multiverses (yes, in plural) and have fought in the war between the First Cosmos and Eighth Cosmos.

Hell, Howard the Duck has met the Judeo-Christian God, and Frank Castle, Johnny Blaze and Daimon Hellstrom have fought Judeo-Christian Angels.

Not to mention mutants visit and explore the Afterlife to mine mysterium...

Or that the current Multiverse was created by Franklin Richards and Molecule Man...

Kurt has access to all that information. He could try to to gather all that knowledge, assemble the puzzle and learn the truth... but he probably doesn't want to know the truth, because he probably suspects that his own god is not so different from Zeus or Odin, and that the real big players of the Multiverse care about mortals about as much as a human being cares for bacteria... So he covers his ears, closes his eyes and yells "IhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaith IhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaith IhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaith Ihavefaith!!!".

[Proxy]

It would have been so interesting to watch Kurt go on a spiritual journey, that’s what I expected before Wox came out, philosophizing with other mutants of faith and speaking with gods who walk among them.

[Nicoclaws]

Magik is right there, she knows about Principalities, Demons and Elder Gods... Kurt could ask her.

Banshee was a goddess not so long ago. Kurt could ask her.

Kurt could go ask Thor and Hercules about gods, ask Reed Richards, Silver Surfer and Quasar about Cosmic Entities, ask Dr. Strange and Brother Voodoo about souls and gods and demons and Principalities, ask Phastos, Ajax, Makkari and Sersi about the Celestials, ask Adam Warlock about... well, about everything. Thor could probably even arrange a meeting with Gaia, and Quasar may be able to arrange a meeting with Chronos.

Blue Marvel, Spectrum, Miss America and T'Challa have witnessed the greatest mysteries of the Multiverses (yes, in plural) and have fought in the war between the First Cosmos and Seventh Cosmos.

Hell, Howard the Duck has met the Judeo-Christian God, and Frank Castle, Johnny Blaze and Daimon Hellstrom have fought Judeo-Christian Angels.

Not to mention mutants visit and explore the Afterlife to mine mysterium...

Or that the current Multiverse was created by Franklin Richards and Molecule Man...

Kurt has access to all that information. He could try to to gather all that knowledge, assemble the puzzle and learn the truth... but he probably doesn't want to know the truth, because he probably suspects that his own god is not so different from Zeus or Odin, and that the real big players of the Multiverse care about mortals about as much as a human being cares for bacteria... So he covers his ears, closes his eyes and yells "IhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaith IhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaith IhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaithIhavefaith Ihavefaith!!!".

I read your last phrase and i thought
"I have faith I totally have faith" on the tune of Crazy ExGiirlfriend.

[pkingdom]

The topic of religion in Marvel was always a weird one. Because, in Marvel, souls absolutely exist. The Afterlife absolutely exists, in various flavors. Gods are real, you can talk to them. You can probably friend Loki on Instagram. So Kurt doesn't really need faith. No one does. Kurt has worked with actual Judeo Christian angels before!

So the all the talk about the power of faith rings kind of hollow. Like, all Tumalt has to do is appear before other people, and BAM! More followers. Unless faith only counts if people DON'T have confirmation they exist? And if only a couple people is enough to create reality warping, super empowering beings, why isn't Marvel overrun with gods and super powered believers? These are the kinds of questions this brings up, and I never expect them to be answered.

Then there's also that they always have these conversations about pagan gods and random elemental gods, and never get anywhere close to capital-G God and his Angels. Despite, again, Kurt having met and worked for them. I'd be far more interested in one of those Angels calling Kurt up and being all "dude, what the fuck? We were partners, and now you're just swimming in blasphemy and spreading a false religion."

[KylunFan]

I've been enjoying Knights of X & Excalibur, but now I'm really starting to understand why the Gambit fans dislike those book so much. I feel much the same way about Spurrier's Nightcrawler in Way/Legion of X as they do about Howard's Gambit.

This isn't the same character I love from the Claremont X-Men/ Davis Excalibur runs and that's ok I guess. I really wanted to like this book but it's just not for me in the same way Way of X wasn't. I usually pick up anything with Kurt in but probably won't bother until he's being written by another writer at this point.

I've also just lost any interest in Legion. Sure X-Men Legacy was a good book, but nobody has done anything the slightest bit interesting with him since then (it's a shame that the neverending nature of Big 2 superhero comics brought him back) .