This article contains spoilers for Way of X #1
The X-Men's Nightcrawler is unwittingly investigating Charles Xavier's deepest, darkest secrets. When Jonathan Hickman relaunched the X-Men franchise back in 2019, he revealed that Xavier and Magneto had secretly been working together for decades to lay the groundwork for a new mutant community. This grand conspiracy had secretly been orchestrated by Moira MacTaggert, an old friend of the X-Men who had faked her death years ago - and who possessed mutant powers she had concealed from the world.
House of X #2 revealed Moira was a secret mutant, gifted with the power of reincarnation. Every time Moira dies, her consciousness returns to the moment of her birth, and she is born retaining all the knowledge from her past lives. Furthermore, Moira possesses a natural defense mechanism that makes her invisible to other mutants. There is only one type of mutant who can perceive her; a precog like Destiny. Moira is intensely wary of such precogs, meaning Xavier is secretly avoiding resurrecting any mutant who possesses that particular powerset.
Si Spurrier and Bob Quinn's Way of X #1 sees Nightcrawler set upon a course that could potentially see him uncover all these secrets. Xavier senses his son Legion is present on Krakoa, apparently using his powers to manipulate younger mutants, and he asks Kurt Wagner - naturally a man of compassion - to track Legion down. Nightcrawler heads to the grave of Legion's beloved Blindfold, a teenage precog who committed suicide shortly before the founding of Krakoa and predicted she would never be brought back in words that now seem even more disturbing.
Legion appears to have been able to even penetrate his father's mind while he slept, and as a result, he seems to know all of mutantkind's greatest secrets. During a brief confrontation with Nightcrawler, he taunts the teleporter that there is a reason no precog has been resurrected. What's more, he suggests there is a darkness to Krakoa that the X-Men are unaware of; "the real question is, what would scare a precog enough that she topped herself," he asks. Legion's question hints that Xavier's mutant paradise is destined to go badly wrong and that by avoiding resurrecting any precogs Xavier has unwittingly ensured the mutants are blind to the threats they face.
Kurt Wagner is naturally one of the most inquisitive of the X-Men. Way of X is ostensibly about Nightcrawler's decision to shape mutant culture and society, but it now looks as though the series will dig even deeper than that; it has the potential to see Nightcrawler learn the dark secrets at the heart of the mutant community. It will be fascinating to see the repercussions as the truth of Xavier's manipulation is revealed to the world.
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April 27, 2021 at 05:16AM
