Thoughts

We’re staying in the world of horror with this issue, but this doesn’t mean that the run of single issues radically different to the one before is over. Because while the last issue was a surprisingly bloodless and one-dimensional tale of Dracula, this is a much, much darker affair.

It begins with the abduction of a small child by a demon and ends with her having effectively lost her childhood. It feels like a genuine shock when a much older Illyana Rasputin emerges from Limbo, and is played as both a tragedy (Brent Anderson on guest art duties draws a truly haunted Colossus in the final panels) but also that the darkness is not yet over.

Claremont was to build on this tale of lost childhood a larger narrative that is full of implied subtext – with details that make the tale even darker – but even at this stage he’s not shy of the disturbing ideas and imagery.

One aspect that remains shocking is the corrupted Nightcrawler. As limbo plays with time, the X-men sent to rescue Illyana come across themselves many years after failing to rescue her. Wolverine and Colossus are dead but Nightcrawler was nearly killed in limbo. Then healed by Belasco, who now owns his soul.

This is presented in the comic as a truly evil character. He attempts to sexually assault Kitty, and delights in suffering. Is this meant to be some reflection of the true Nightcrawler?

Across his run Claremont asks questions about what such corruption and loss of soul actually amounts to. And sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what his answer is. At times the corruption reflects only on elements that were already there twisted and magnified. At other times the act of corruption itself is the erasure of the “good” self to be replaced by an Evil version. We don’t get enough of the story here to know what happened to Nightcrawler here, but it’s definitely easier to see it as the latter.

But it’s all part of what makes this issue work. It captures a uniquely dark, disturbing and genuinely unsettling tone. In Limbo it presents a Hell that avoids much of the cliche – Sym does not easily fit into the tried and tested presentations of Demonic realms. And it is a feeling that lingers after the final panel in a way that has lost none of its power.

Fun Panel

Brent Anderson has tremendous fun with the setting here. Hell is a great excuse to play with some truly dark and striking imagery.