Mr. Sinister has taken over the world and has new assassins called Legion of the Night. Find out if Mother Righteous and Banshee stop these nightcrawler hybrids in Nightcrawlers #1 by Marvel Comics!

NIGHTCRAWLERS #1 (OF 3)

Writer: Si Spurrier
Artist: Paco Medina
Colorist: Jay David Ramos
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan D. White
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 15th, 2023 

Previously in Nightcrawlers: Sinister managed to infiltrate the Krakoa resurrection process. This allowed him to take control of mutantkind and, in turn, the rest of the world. Recently, Storm, Mystique, and Destiny have prohibited Mister Sinister’s trump card, Moira MacTaggert. Without Moira’s mutant ability, he can no longer reset the world as he deems fit.

Nightcrawlers #1 starts with Banshee, combined with the Spirit of Variance, looking for relics that could help him. He is instead attacked by the Legion of the Night, a group of people who have Nightcrawler’s teleportation. Banshee uses his Scream of Change and frees Wolverine, Domino, and Spider-Man from Sinister’s control. This version has fun names like Wangerine, Wallcrawler, and Auntie Fortune. The group returns to Mother Righteous, who in turn attacks Orbis Stellaris and Doctor Stasis, killing the latter with her new allies. With knowledge from Orbis Stellaris, Mother Righteous decides to target the World Farm.

After recruiting, Wallcrawler feels Mister Sinister’s influence on his psyche, and he sacrifices himself so the rest of the team can access the World Farm. Mother Righteous then reveals her plan to steal the Instrument of the Gods!

Nightcrawlers #1 asks us a lot of questions. Primarily, who is Mother Righteous, and how to stop Sinister? But I am more interested in the religious undertones that have prevailed in recent NIghtcrawler storylines. These chimeras asked the question this issue, “What is my higher purpose.” While we have always seen this question asked in media and entertainment, I am engaged with how this question will be answered here. The negative con of asking these questions is that Nightcrawlers #1 is incredibly wordy. I don’t mind a lot of text, but Banshee and his Ghost Rider Spirit thing kept talking to each other. But the purpose of this conversation seemed to be to inform the audience of different tidbits. It worked; I learned more context, but the pacing felt slow because of it.

Mother Righteous has the best character design in this issue. Many other mutants are colored blue and have different costumes, but Mother Righteous commanded my attention. Great work by the artist and colorist on designing this character and making her dynamic.

There are a ton of complex topics presented in Nightcrawlers #1 that tell a good story. But the complexity slows down the narrative structure. It requires you to reread to fully understand what is going on. I enjoy reads like this, and Si Spurrier executes this comic well. But I don’t think it is as accessible as other Marvel Comics. With all that in mind, NIghtcrawler #1 is a 4 out of 5 stars.

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Nightcrawlers #1

80%

80%

Interesting Premise

Nightcrawlers #1 takes the philosophical questions of current Nightcrawler comics and tries to jam-pack them into a short event to decent success.

• Writing

  8
• Art

  8
• Coloring

  8
• User Ratings (0 Votes)
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