X-Force #26 pg 19 (Kyle/Yost story, Choi art) - Death of Nightcrawler

DEATH OF NIGHTCRAWLER (Kurt Wagner)

From the pages of the 5th chapter of SECOND COMING, in X-Force #26, comes this page featuring the death of Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler). This page fits very well with my collection of deaths of X characters and a fun piece of Nightcrawler history. I was fortunate to get his return DPS page directly from Ed McGuinness in Amazing X-Men #1 a few years ago, so when this one came up on CAF Live Spring ‘24 I definitely wanted to add to the collection. This was actually a gift my partner got for me for my recent birthday, he definitely knows what kind of presents to get me. He knew I would like it and we took action on it right away.

It may not be the splashy page of Bastion’s arm going through Nightcrawler which ultimately caused his death, but this is his dying page. It’s his last ‘bamf’ to get Hope safely to Utopia for protection, as she is her namesake for the rebirth of Mutantkind (post “No More Mutants” from Scarlet Witch). They sadly make it to this crazy finish line but not without consequences. This major consequence took out Nightcrawler from comics for over 3 years, til he returned in the aforementioned Amazing X-Men #1 (still dead but back in comics as he appears in the afterlife of Heaven).

This page is filled with big emotion after a very fast paced issue with lots going for this final moment of death on the quiet aftermath of an amazing chase across America. Choi’s art and the team-up of Kyle and Yost writing pairs well for this epic storyline in an era when the X books were finally starting to come back into grandeur of comics. The Second Coming storyline was across a few of the X books and was the X event of the year (if not past few years). This event being one of the major consequences of this fantastic story. With Kurt dying as he says to Hope “I believe in you”, then colors fade and bright white appears as if we follow Kurt’s perspective on Hope as he also fades away and goes towards the white light. The art is fantastic and the final color work and art from Sonia Oback is phenomenal. Assuming it’s all digital, the final work on each page over the beautiful Choi pencils is gorgeous (see the issue for the final art work and look at published page I included). It was a reason to get the art so I can see what was done for the process by Choi and what Oback did to final the page.