Welcome to a whole new adventure with... some X-tra big sized bonanza! Nightcrawler returns back to the mansion after Krakoa opens a portal there and an investigation ensues as the team take on a haunted mansion. Let's dive in!
The story and the plot is well put together but it does feel kind of on the short side and rather that it explored more in the creepy side in the mansion itself. I mean it feels like forever since I've been in the X-Mansion and forevermore now that's everyone's in Krakoa. It would feel synonymous with great horror tropes to play with rather than going all alien up in this house halfway through the issue.
Ironically, I remember there was a X-mas X-Story involving Illyana who haunts Colossus and now someone else is doing the haunting on Illyana. Anyway, I'm super excited as Nightcrawler is my fave X-Men (Marvel NC was my username on Runescape!) and it's always a great joy to see him go on an adventure.
I love the art style to which is actually the same artist I grew up with when I was reading them in the UK Collectors' Edition of Essential X-Men which is always nice to make that connection. The art does feel nostalgic and makes a nice return for me in the X-Men universe.
There's so much fun getting scared which I felt they built up using atmospheric tropes of bringing some familiar dead characters back into the fray (I can only assume everyone is back from the dead following the House of X event). The build-up to the horrifying mid-issue reveal is quite the one to stay around for. Despite being a giant-size issue, the issue itself felt short though but that could just be the testament of wanting more of the good from it (I guess it is hard to fill in so much in so short of pages available on hand).
It's actually quite nice to see the team come together and use their suited abilities to the changing situations instead of being relegated to the background. It's also the introduction of two characters for me with Cypher and Eye-Boy being two of them with their weird and wonderful abilities on display.
Subscribe? Yes
Haunted X-Mansion - yes, yes, yes!
Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler #1Joanthan Hickman - story and words
Alan Davis - story and art
Carlos Lopez - colour artist
VC's Clayton Cowles - Letterer
Tom Muller - Design
Publisher - Marvel
