Comic Book / Way of X

"It's true what they say about you, Kurt. You're one of the kindly ones."

In the beginning, Krakoa offered mutantkind a dream of wonder and immortality. I saw only its flaws.

I know now that my anxieties arose from obsolete modes of thought rooted in the outside world. Yet, in their clumsy way, these anxieties led me to the trailhead I sought.

I hoped to learn what we ought to believe.

I learned instead how we ought to live.

— Excerpt: The Book of [REDACTED]

Way of X is a 2021 series from Marvel Comics, written by Simon Spurrier with art by Bob Quinn, and color art by Java Tartaglia. Nominally a team book, it effectively stars Nightcrawler, surrounding him with a loose-knit supporting cast of other Krakoan mutants.

Set in the shared Marvel Universe, the series is part of the wider X-Men line and was launched as part of the Reign of X arc, the second phase of the long-running Krakoan Age saga.

Krakoa, the living island, is now a nation in its own right, a new homeland for all mutants. By combining their powers, Krakoa's mutants have also achieved Resurrective Immortality - any mutant who dies can be reborn with a new body housing a back-up of their mind.

It's close to paradise. Or, at least, it should be. But Nightcrawler's troubled by some aspects of Krakoa, and is trying to analyse his own reaction. Is it just culture shock, a clash when his old cultural values and religious faith run up against Krakoa's bold new way of life? Or is there something else, something horribly real, lurking in the shadows?

The series concludes with a one-shot, X-Men: The Onslaught Revelation, which Spurrier describes as the "season finale" of Way of X. That's then followed by a Sequel Series, Legion of X.

Before the first issue, writer Si Spurrier released a number of teasers: teaser 1, teaser 2, teaser 3, teaser 4, teaser 5, and teaser 6.

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Tropes included in Way Of X:

• All-Loving Hero: Nightcrawler, he forms a genuine friendship with the unstable Physical God Legion, is cordial to Doctor Nemesis and Stacy X in spite how different their outlooks and ways of life are to his and even shows empathy to Fabian Cortez eventually teaching him to do the same.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Mercury's deepest and innermost thoughts are all so dark and disturbing that they give the impression that she is a closeted psychopath, and immediately derail her and Loa's burgeoning relationship due to how much they frighten and disgust Loa (whose own most secretive thoughts are simply all about how desperate she is for love).
  ... when I was 4, I used a magnifying glass to burn a little frog. I knew I should feel guilty, but I actually kinda enj-
  —after Mom called me a freak I spent hours fantasizing about turning to liquid and just filling up her mouth and her nostrils and her lungs and—
  ... sometimes daydream about cutting and cutting—
  —you @$%&#$ meat people with your warm blood and your beautiful senses—you don't even know how lucky you are—
  • Of course, her thoughts could have also been affected by Onslaught, since Legion was using them as bait.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: This preview for Way of X refers to Nightcrawler as "Part Priest. Part Pirate. Part Prankster."
• The Adjectival Man: The Patchwork Man.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Way of X #3 opens up with Nightcrawler getting drunk on gin and tonics at the Hellfire Gala and making an ass of himself, because he's trying really hard not to tell anyone Onslaught is back and incite a panic/aggravate it into attacking. When he wakes up the next morning he's very embarrassed.
  Nightcrawler: Ohhhh, mein Gott I'm such an idiot!
• Appropriated Appellation: When David Haller objects to being called Legion, Kurt tells him why he calls himself "Nightcrawler":
  Nightcrawler: Did you know a Nightcrawler is a type of worm? It's blue and it's disgusting. Not a clever insult—but one I heard many times as a child. So I took it, and I made it my mine.
  • Afterwards, when David is resurrected, he tells Xavier and Magneto to call him "Legion." In his solo book, he said calling a person wih DID "Legion" was equivalent to calling someone with cerebral palsy "Spaz".
• Arc Words: "You're one of the kindly ones." This is what the depowered mutant woman tells Kurt during her Crucible and, later on, Xavier repeats it. Finally, so does Legion. "It's true what they say about you — you are one of the kindly ones. But it's far too late. The bastards are already inheriting the Earth."
• Back from the Dead: Legion points out that he's died many times — even erased himself from existence (in the ending to Si Spurrier's run on X-Men: Legacy) — but has always come back somehow. Even after Xavier refuses to use Cerebro to resurrect his mind, Legion does it himself.
• Badass Preacher: As per this preview, Kurt is "part priest" and "part pirate." He's the closest thing Krakoa has to a religious expert, but he also loves swashbuckling around with a sword. Looks more the part by the end of the Onslaught Revelation, complete with beard and robes, which is fitting due to the creation of The Altar.
• Big Good: Nightcrawler at first fails to be this for Krakoa because he's too busy dealing with his own existential crisis, but as the book goes on he gains the trust of Legion enough for him to give Krakoa a chance, is able to break through to Fabien Cortez of all people and eventually unites the souls of all mutants on the island into something that overwhelms Onslaught, before becoming the nations spiritual leader.
• Bittersweet Ending: Kurt manages to save Planet Arakko from destruction by teleporting Phobos back into its orbit, dying in the process. However, the stress of boosting Kurt's powers to such levels leaves Cortez catatonic. With Xavier dismissing his eutanasia and resurrection, Cortez is unable to deliver Kurt's final message back to him following his resurrection. Plus it is revealed that Onslaught itself is infecting the souls and minds of all resurrected Krakoans
• Body Horror:
  • Lost's mutant power is "gravitational neutrality" — gravity has no effect on her body, making it very tall and thin. However, since M-Day depowered her, her body has suffered gravity while staying the same shape. When Kurt sees her without her cloak during the Crucible, her body is folded in a way that looks very painful.
  • Doctor Nemesis has been growing hallucinogenic fungi out of his own brain. In the first issue, he breaks one off to offer to Kurt.
• Came Back Wrong:
  • Gorgon is back, and he's... not the man he used to be.
  • The last issue reveals this also applies to everyone revived on Krakoa. Onslaught found a way to feed off of the bits of lost life between Cerebro's recordings and the moment of death and leave bits of himself to fill the gaps in the psyche.
• Canon Character All Along: The Patchwork Man is revealed to be longtime X-men foe Onslaught.
• Catapult Nightmare: The first issue begins with Professor Xavier catapulting awake after having a nightmare of the Patchwork Man calling him, "Betrayer."
• Conveniently Interrupted Document: As with other Krakoan Age comics, data pages tend to use the Classified Information variant a lot.
  • Issue #1 includes an excerpt from Kurt's notes, but with the title and some other details redacted. The first issue also includes an overview of the structure of Orchis, but only one name (Gyrich) isn't redacted.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: When learning that Fabian Cortez once killed Lost's parents, but can't enforce the Krakoan law as it occurred before they were made, Kurt uses this trope on him and forces him to have a reasonable conversation with Lost.
• The Corrupter: The Patchwork Man, aka Onslaught, is this on an individual and societal level, drawing out its victims' darkest thoughts and bringing Krakoa closer and closer to collapse. It is described as the serpent in Krakoa's Eden. He has also corrupted the resurrection process, using it to strengthen himself and to infect the minds of the resurrected.
• Death by Irony: After his quest to make his fellow mutants care whether they live or die pretty much fails, Kurt finds himself having to die to save them all.
• Death Seeker: Played with. Dying and being resurrected is practically considered a rite of passage on Krakoa, to the point that Pixie gets teased for not having done it yet. This motivates her to get it over with by walking up to an armed guard and daring him to shoot her. He does.
• Deconstructor Fleet: A reoccurring theme of Way of X is shining a negative light on the morals and philosophies the mutants have developed throughout the Dawn of X initiative. Kurt is horrified seeing firsthand how dismissive of death the mutants have grown, despite the millions of dead mutants still in resurrection queue, their growing casual bigotry towards humans, and even how his "Make More Mutants" proclamation has had disastrous consequences.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Since Krakoa has conquered death, the morals of the people living there have been changing, much to Nightcrawler's displeasure. However, Kurt knows that while he may not like Crucible or people deliberately disregarding their own safety knowing they will be resurrected, there's nothing fundamentally wrong about it he can find, except that it keeps delaying the resurrection of millions of mutants, such as those killed in the Genoshan genocide. It just makes him feel uneasy, as if there are cracks in the society of Krakoa that someone will exploit.
• Demonization: In the first issue, Kurt and a team infiltrate an Orchis-backed museum that exhibits every transgression of mutantkind, indoctrinating recruits with a religiously motivated hatred. Particularly, the statue of Magneto's siege of Cape Citadel exaggerates the features of his helmet into devil horns.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Back in House of X, Kurt clearly came up with the law about making more mutants off the cuff, with his mother goading him. In Way of X, we see the unintended consequences of a baby boom, with practically every parent abandoning their child.
  • In Issue #4, Kurt and Legion see that the terraforming of Mars has made all the volcanoes active, and they've been erupting almost nonstop since. Also, the tidal forces of the moons, while not strong enough to affect the new oceans, kick up deadly sandstorms that Dust has to spend her time keeping under control so that any alien visitors to Sol's new capital don't get shredded to bits.
• The Dreaded: Everyone who knows David is terrified of his return, which Xavier refuses to complete. Xavier evens stutters to speak up to him when he immediately dismisses Magneto as untrustworthy.
• Driving Question: "What is wrong with Krakoa and how do we fix it?" In the second issue, Nightcrawler, Pixie, and Nemesis are shown the inside of Legion's mind, which Orchis has been using to model the future of Krakoa — and using anomie as the societal condition, the breakdown of all moral values, with the fundamental driving force being "me before we." The result is pure chaos. So Nightcrawler realizes he must find a way for Krakoa to not fall into anomie, to make it "we before me."
• Duel to the Death: Lost is willing to go through the Crucible ritual combat to get her power back. She wants to face Nightcrawler because she believes he'll show mercy and make the battle quick. Instead she ends up facing Magneto who goes all-out and makes the fight brutal.
• Fanboy: Fabian Cortez turns out to be a fan of Dazzler. He's really excited when he learns she knows his name.
• Friend to All Children: Lost spends her time helping to take care of the abandoned babies at Stacey X's orphanage. It helps that babies aren't affected by the gravity fluxes caused by Lost's Power Incontinence due to their inner ear bones not being fully formed yet.
• The Fundamentalist: The first issue has Nightcrawler leading a team consisting of Blink, Pixie, Loa, and DJ, into a "museum of hate" in Venice, where it's shown that people are being taught a religion of mutant hatred, sponsored by Orchis.
• Grave-Marking Scene: At the end of the first issue, Nightcrawler visits the grave of Blindfold, who cannot be resurrected on Krakoa due to Moira's secret "no precogs" rule. Her headstone has written on it "Lived in darkness. Sleeps in light." That's where he meets Legion.
• Hangover Sensitivity: As shown on the cover for the third issue, the post-Hellfire Gala hangover hit Kurt particularly hard.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: In issue #5, Kurt actually manages to get through to Fabian Cortez, and it seems like Cortez is set to turn over a new leaf. He later turns up in a catatonic state with Xavier deciding he's too much trouble to kill and resurrect.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In issue #5, Kurt makes one by teleporting the falling moon Phobos back into orbit. The effort costs his life.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After the second encounter with Onslaught in issue #3, everyone involved decide to get drunk.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: Per this preview, the Patchwork Man on Krakoa has a creepy, ironic nursery tune about him:
  There is a man who's made of parts,
  Of grafts and empty spaces.
  He slinks beyond the sight of eyes,
  And hunts in hidden places.
  His dream will be undying!
  The nightmare will not end!
  The Patchwork Man is coming
  And to his will you'll bend.
• Large Ham: Doctor Nemesis. When Legion requests to be mercy killed, he immediately volunteers with a shout of "THE SCIENCE OF HOMICIDE?! I'll do it! Let me do it! I have an oscillating liquefaction revolver I've been itching to try!"
• Loophole Abuse: Cortez comes up with an incredibly snide one when he takes Gorgon to New York City and amplifies his telepathy to overwhelm him with the humans' hatred of mutants, with the intent that he'll rip his blindfold off in despair and inadvertently petrify them all. Now, is Gorgon responsible for killing those humans or Cortez for putting him in that position?
• Loving Bully: Doctor Nemesis's constant derision and criticism of Dazzler turns out to stem from insecurity over him being attracted to her, and he eventually works up the nerve to apologize for his behavior and ask her to dance at the end of #3.
• Mental World: In the beginning of issue two, Legion enters Nightcrawler's mind in order to remove a psychic parasite and finds his mental world looks like a pirate ship crewed with a bunch of Nightcrawlers. Later on, Nightcrawler and Pixie enter Legion's mind and find a world filled with all of Legion's alters, but the world has descended into chaos without David there to keep control.
• Mercy Kill: In the second issue, it's revealed that Orchis somehow got their hands on Legion and removed his brain, kicking out the "main personality" (David Haller) and letting the rest of the personalities run wild. Since there's no way to reverse this, David requests Nightcrawler kill his brain instead, knowing they can resurrect him on Krakoa. Nightcrawler complies, even though killing is against his religion:
  Nightcrawler: Forgive me father for... for... Hhh. You know? Never mind. [shoots]
• Never Live It Down: Kurt's "first law" of Krakoa back in House of X was to "Make More Mutants." This became something of a meme with fans because of how out of character it was for Kurt of all people to proclaim this, and because the X-Books as a whole have gotten a reputation for being Hotter and Sexier since. Way of X dissects this as Kurt is both embarrassed by this, and is uncomfortable that he has played a role in so many mutants losing their inhibitions. Then comes issue #3 where he learns that a number of mutants are abandoning the babies they have because they only care about the sex aspect, not actually starting families.
• Never Sleep Again: The kids on Krakoa all talk about seeing the Patchwork Man in their dreams and how he makes you cut off your own face. One child says that in his dream, the Patchwork Man made him "cut Mommy" and when he woke up, he was going through the drawers in the kitchen.
• Not Now, Kiddo: Kurt is distracted when Lost first approaches him and directs her to the Welcome Center to find someone else that can help her. He's disturbed when he learns the real reason she was trying to get his attention.
• Nursery Rhyme: Per this preview, the people of Krakoa have come up with a nursery rhyme about the Scarlet Witch (sung to the tune of "Sing a Song of Sixpence"):
  Sing a song of Scarlet, by whom we were betrayed.
  Hosts of sobbing sapiens from mutants made.
  But now we can defy her, stand tall through death and pain!
  Crucible gives dignity to mutants born again.
• Parental Abandonment: Issue #3 reveals that this is becoming a growing problem on Krakoa. Mutants embracing the libertine culture of Krakoa are not as keen to actually be responsible for the children that are born from their sexual escapades. Stacey X has created an impromptu orphanage to take in these babies, and she tells Nightcrawler that on average they've been getting a new kid every week. She notes that this is the downside to the "Make more Mutants" law — people are making new Mutants alright, but they're not actually taking care of them.
• Person as Verb: The first issue has DJ tell Pixie, "Ah, don't be such a Wanda."
• Poor Communication Kills: Subverted. Lost was looking to fight to the death anyway, but failed to convey to Nightcrawler that she wanted to fight him, and so died more painfully than she wished.
• Power Incontinence: Lost's gravity neutrality causes gravity fluxes that wreaks havoc on the inner ear balance of anyone near her, inducing vomiting en masse.
• Power of Trust: Legion helps remove a psychic parasite from Nightcrawler, so Nightcrawler Mercy Kills David so he can be resurrected. Afterwards, Legion states that while he doesn't trust Xavier or Magneto, he does trust Nightcrawler, because he's been inside his mind and can see he has many questions and doesn't pretend to know everything.
• Punny Name: Lost. Whenever the poor woman tries to introduce herself, people think she is asking for directions.^note Has she tried Hare Krishna?
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The cast is only nominally a team as they are pulled together purely out of circumstance. First we have Kurt, who is a mess because he’s going through an existential crisis due to the moral questions he has about Krakoa’s laws and new way of life. He’s by joined by his semi-protege Pixie who is acting as the Only Sane Woman of the cast who is busy trying to help with his and everyone else’s issues. Then there’s Dr. Nemesis, the condescending man of science to Kurt’s man of faith and Grumpy Old Man who is currently growing mushrooms from his head. Next up is Legion the mentally ill son of Professor Xavier who’s hunting Onslaught with very questionable tactics. Stacy X brings in another foil to Kurt by showing him the consequences of his laws. In peripheral we have the Xorn brothers, the walking Power Incontinence named Lost, Fabian Cortez a sociopath so arrogant even Doctor Nemesis can't stand him, and Loa.
• Retcanon: Blink makes a brief appearance in the first issue, and is sporting a hairstyle that seems to have been directly lived from what Fan Bingbing wore when portraying her in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
• Sequel Hook: The Onslaught Revelation ends with showing off Nightcrawler's Legionares (actual spelling in context): Nightcrawler, Dr. Nemesis, Blink, Forget-Me-Not, Juggernaut (suggesting he might get a pass in getting into Krakoa) and Blindfold (suggesting the ban on precogs may be dropped).
• Sexophone: As the third issue solicitation shows, Kurt is investigating all three laws of Krakoa, starting with "Make More Mutants." The solicitation then goes "**SEXY SAXOPHONE SOLO**."
• Shout-Out:
  • Nightcrawlers mind is a pirate ship, and the crew is different versions of himself.
  • Legion's inner simulation of a Krakoan collapse has the Arc Words "Me before we".
  • The Florilegium's "Reader, I killed him" is reminiscent of Jane Eyre's iconic line: "Reader, I married him".
• Slapstick: Kurt picks this as his Take a Third Option solution to Gorgon being overwhelmed with the hate of New York's humans after Cortez amps up his telepathy with the intent to push him into petrifying them all. Kurt distracts them from their hate with laughter, which in turn fills Gorgon with utter joy and he put his blindfold back on.
• Speak of the Devil: Onslaught is back and is invisibly fostering negative emotions among Krakoa's population. If anyone speaks its name, it goes berserk and starts directly controlling people to fight each other.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: This book reveals that Kurt's "make more mutants" decree was used by a lot of Krakoans as an excuse to just have casual, unprotected sex, leading to a lot of unwanted babies.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: The Patchwork Man is a new figure that's kind of like the Bogeyman of Krakoa, even supplanting the Scarlet Witch in the minds of child mutants during one of Exodus' lectures. It's eventually revealed to be Onslaught.
• Those Two Guys: The Xorn Twins, alive at the same time for the first time are the Creepy Twins they were always meant to be.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It turns out that when Fabian Cortez murdered Lost's parents, scientists connected to Orchis took her in. They experimented with her until they hit upon implanting a part of Onslaught inside her and sending her to Krakoa.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: When Lost is resurrected with her powers ("gravitational neutrality"), she ends up losing control of them and causing inner ear problems with everyone around her. Which means Xavier, Magneto, and everyone around them (aside from Doctor Nemesis and Nightcrawler) start vomiting.
• Wham Line: At the end of the second issue, we finally learn who the Patchwork Man is:
  Nightcrawler: Do you know who the Patchwork man is?
  Legion: Aye. I do. I can sense him, Kurt, clear as day. And there's a good reason I didn't say so to Dad or Magneto. Parents don't always think straight when it comes to their heirs. Onslaught, Kurt. It's bloody Onslaught.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Played for Drama, Fabian Cortez can't stand the fact that his mutant powers can only make other mutants stronger, meaning he'll never be the hero only the thing that helps others achieve their goals. To the point that he developed an Inferiority Superiority Complex.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Stacey X's base of operation in Issue #3 is effectively a safe space she uses to encourage fledgling couples to work through the start of their relationships. She's unamused when Nightcrawler dismissively accuses her running a brothel and slugs him. She also confronts him with the end result of his "Make More Mutants" decree: babies being abandoned by parents who weren't prepared to raise them.

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