Coming Soon To A Spinner Rack Near You: Nightcrawler

When I started reading X-Men comics, I was twelve years old. Nightcrawler was my favorite character-- it must have been because of X2, which had come out pretty recently. Chuck Austen's story, running in Uncanny back then, was very heavy on the blue elf; he was busy becoming a Catholic priest. If that sounds terrible, well, I don't know, it probably was. Those Austen books, read now, seem to be too much drama, too much yada yada. Those were the heady days when Juggernaut was on the X-Men. But, I'll tell you, I certainly loved it. Nightcrawler was leading his own team. How could that possibly be bad? 

As time went on, as I became (I hope) a slightly more sophisticated reader of comics, my favorite character leading his own team just didn't seem like enough anymore. Nightcrawler sort of faded into the background, anyway; his presence in the books steadily declined for five or six years. But it's not that I had stopped paying attention when Nightcrawler died a couple of years ago, during the Messiah War crossover, its just that I wasn't going to buy sixteen something books to read a story I wasn't that interested in. Plus, you know, comic book death. He'd back, right? 

Sure enough, he's back. From Marvel's X-Men panel, courtesy of CBR, emphases mine:

The room bursts into applause again as Singh asked who in the audience wants Nightcrawler back in the Marvel Universe. The room cheered again as the panel announced Nightcrawler will be in the brand new series “Amazing X-Men” by Jason Aaron and artist Ed McGuinness... 

“We’ve been having to keep this a secret pretty much since Jason was writing ‘Wolverine And The X-Men,’” Lowe said, adding that this book will answer where the little blue and red Bamfs have been coming from. “Nightcrawler is dead, but that’s not the end of his story,” Lowe continued, explaining Azazel is a pirate that is stealing something the X-Men need and Nightcrawler needs to stop him. The team on the book will also include Northstar, Wolverine, Beast, Iceman and Storm.

Now, all of this is in the language of Con announcement speak; much said, little meant. There's simply no good way to untangle "Nightcrawler is dead, but that's not the end of the story," since, typically, that's what being dead means. Still, I'm excited; my favorite X-Man is back. What could be bad?