Status Updates From X-Men Icons: Nightcrawler #1

And the hundred dollars that Kurt gave the hooker and that she did not want because she suspected something weird (proving she has morals, which Kurt apparently ignores) flies to a homeless person who uses it to get a room for the night. How sweet... this story cannot save itself with anything now.

Oh great, the old "it will never stop" routine from Oleg regarding prostitution, drugs and all and Kurt says that he will never give up... Maybe I would buy that if Kurt had actually done or tried anything productive, with his circle of buddies he could have laid Oleg's entire human-trafficking ring bare at the very least. Plus, by the time of this comic human trafficking was illegal in the USA.

I don't know what is dumber here. Kurt's statement that English is not his first language as if that ever meant anything in these comics, that Mrs. Emsoon just told him were Oleg is because "it is right" or Oleg's and Kurt's in-battle conversation about Oleg doing the wrong thing and Oleg "defending" himself.

Nightcrawler's talk about how he will never give up, has faith and knows how unrealistic it is to fight for Xavier's dream of mutant acceptance would be much stronger and not feel so hollow to me, if not every comic I have seen so far with him hadn't made it abundantly clear that the writers wouldn't essentially ignore his "German/gypsy" background. Albeit this is not the most horrendous example.

Sure this story has some saving graces, like Beatta's conflict or the priest's cynic attitude, and it surely is a good idea to address the fact that superheroes cannot fight prostitution the way they fight supervillains, but it is way too obvious that this story only works when you ignore Nightcrawler's complete background.

I so don't care for this stupid drama. Even Kurt's "everyone apparently has other priorities" makes no sense, as he could have just contacted Daredevil as this slave treading Business would fall under his "juristriction.

So nice to see that the writers still haven't managed to figure out the correct usage of the word "ach".
Plus, so far this story is completely pointless, basically just Nightcrawler being kind of emo and "I want to help you" and based on the short recap of his meeting with Prof. X it seems as if the author had read some Wikipedia recap of that particular story.

Oh, the prostitute from Russia with a tragic backstory lied to Nightcrawler, so that is why he did not contact any of his friends for help, since some of them would have known her lie for what it is and so we would have no story.... yeah.... reeeeaaaaalllllllyyyyyy great writing, the best stories are made of such BS concepts.

I just can't get into the conflict and drama here because it is so easily solveable. Nightcrawler wants to find this Oleg guy to stop his slave trade? Get one of his telepathic or magical friends!!
And yet there is no explanation for why he doesn't call them at all. Which really would not be difficult to solve as the X-Men & Co. are usually in some disaster anyway.

Ok, I am all for superheroes tackling some real world issues, but this here is so forced (after all Kurt at this point was never a slave of any kind [that was retconned years later]) so why should seeing it make him "snap" now? And of course we still have the problem that he could have solved it all by just calling on some X-Men backup.

Always interesting how quickly Kurt's appearance changes from being a major issue to something that people apparently barely react to. It is almost as if the writers have no idea where fear for Kurt's form comes from.

Apart from the fact that the artwork in this or last issue is clearly not so dark that you could not see the slaves' faces, quite the opposite in fact, but how could Kurt have seen their eyes if it was so dark that their faces were indistinguishable? That doesn't make sense writers. Sometimes I wonder where Marvel gets these people from.

I can see what they are trying to do but not only are the "Christian" references dumb but quoting Dante does not help either, it makes the whole slavery thing look pretty melodramatic. Furthermore the story suffers because it is so obvious that plenty of Nightcrawler's friends could have easily helped him with this slave trade business.

The comic has Wagner himself state that he has powers father Whitney has not, so what was it about all the "should we do something" and "Jesus would have done something" talk? Kurt knows several telepaths, telekinetics, magicians and people with all sorts of superpowers, so him trying to break up a slave-ring should be a peace of cake.

Surprised that there is slavery in 21st century USA? Back in the day I might have been too but no anymore. I just hope this comic handles this topic better than what I am used to with the X-Men titles.