Nightcrawler and Mephisto

[cyberghostface]

We all know what happened when Mephisto made a bargain with Spider-Man...but what happens when he tries his luck with a certain furry blue elf?

This comes from the final issue of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Nightcrawler series, #12. Art is by Darick Robertson. I posted some pages from this selection a year ago in the InsaneJournal comm, but nothing that's not here, so it still fits in the 1/3 legality.

So basically, Kurt is celebrated with a surprise birthday party from the rest of the X-Men. Suddenly, everyone freezes except for Kurt. At first Kurt thinks that Professor X is pulling a joke, but then he recognizes something far more sinister is afoot.

"Mephistopheles."







Mephisto basically outlines a number of encounters Nightcrawler has had with other demons (presumably earlier in the series) and how it's all leading up to the final war.





Wait, let's see that again...



Oh, snap! He just punched out Mephisto! No pussyfooting around for "one more day", no giving into the devil...just POW!



So Kurt is transplanted back to where he was earlier--with the birthday party--and wonders if the whole thing was fake. But he knows otherwise, and prays that his faith will remain strong once the trumpets sound and the war finally begins.

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm you know... i kinda forgot that Kurt was at least part Supernatural....

maybe his "death" has a loop hole... wonder if that was ever mentioned in the comics before he died.....

[shadowpsykie]

also, is Peter the ONLY HERO who ever actually made a deal with Mephisto? almost everyone told him to suck it...

new idea for an event "Suck it Satan Week"

[bjornwilde]

That was awesome. I did half way expect Kurt to say something like, "Everyone one of my love ones? But Mephisto, I love all of man."

[hybrid2]

This is what peter should have done.

[icon_uk]

That is a particularly cute Kurt (Well, apart from when he's making faces at Mephisto, but that makes sense).

I confess I never got the "Let's make Kurt a supernatural investigator" notion, it's taking him a direction he really didn't have much reason to investigate (He has his mother and stepsister/girlfriend for that).

Perhaps the only thing that's marginally disappointing, is that this is so clear cut from the outset, there is absolutely nothing about Kurt, past or present, which would lead anyone to think he might consider Mephisto's offer even for as long as it takes to blink

the fact he looks like a demon is technically irrelevant (

[jlroberson]

I believe Kurt has always been a devout Catholic, so how did Mephisto ever think this would work anyway?

[icon_uk]

The devil is an optimist? (Which sort of makes sense, since he starts every day in Hell, how much worse can things get)

[icon_uk]

And when she finds out what he did, Aunt May will do to Peter what Kurt does to Mephisto here.

[lencannon]

I suppose you have to believe in God to believe that the Devil can do all these things.

Besides, some stories (not Marvel, sepcifically) make it a point to mention that taking the soul of a believer is a bigger triumph.

[crinos]

Is that... an Octopus Shark?

Man, the apocalypse is gonna kick so much ASS!

[crinos]

Also, is it just me but does Mephisto look kinda like the Grinch on that last page.

[terrykun]

Thanos has done so, and gotten the better of him. Might have to post that...

[icon_uk]

Catholicism does very much accept the reality of the Devil.

[stig]

He isn't specifically saying 'SERVE ME!', just 'don't serve anyone'. It reminds me of the British Prime Ministerial candidate who campaigned with the slogan "Don't Vote", allegedly on the hopes that if democracy collapsed a better system would rise from the ashes. Sod's Law dictated, of course, that he won.

[stig]

After seeing that first panel...the day after my 20th birthday is an odd day to find out I could play Nightcrawler in the movie.

[arilou_skiff]

I think Norrin of all people did it once.

Then Mephisto was like "AAAHHH!!! PURITY PURENESS BURNS! TAKE IT AWAY!"

[arilou_skiff]

I actually rather like that Nightcrawler series. It was good.

[okkult3000]

I believe the scientific term is Sharktopus: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1619880/

[falseaesop]

Johnny Blaze... of course that's kinda his whole backstory. Made a deal, got screwed, devil came to take his soul, girlfriend interfered with the soul taking... so he ended up the Ghost Rider.

[falseaesop]

Did you just coin that or is that an old saying.... because man that's one I have to remember.

[espanolbot]

Huh, what's with Mephisto's hair? Him and Neron have terrible haircuts.

And where does Mephisto stand in relation to Satan from the Ghost Rider comics?

[outlawpoet]

Orthodox Catholicism does not, however, accept the existence of a powerful, independent Satan. He's a broken angel, and still fulfilling part of God's plan and entirely under his control.

It's actually a heresy, the notion that the Devil is free and striving against God, but a popular one, if only because it's much more interesting to have a Satananic Evil Empire below, at war with the Heavenly Host above. Blame Milton.

[falseaesop]

The satan that Johnny Blaze summoned was in fact Mephesto according to wikipedia. Both the Johnny Blaze article and the Mephesto article.

[cyberghostface]

I was under the impression Marvel retconned the Satan characcter into Mephisto because they didn't want to offend people by having an actual religious deity. So Mephisto went from being the actual Devil to a proxy of him.

[espanolbot]

But he showed up during and just before the Jason Aaron run, where they called him only called him Satan, and he had horns and stuff? It also gave the impression that he was trapped in Hell until the storyline where he used Johnny Blaze to escape, whereas Mephisto seems to wander about as he likes.

[thanekos]

Mephisto was Lamberto Bava.

[fifthie]

Ghostrider took the bullet for everyone, now every hero with any sense goes "OH LOOK HE P. MUCH GOT BONED, DON'T WANNA BE THAT GUY I GUESS"

[halloweenjack]

The history of devils in Marvel Comics is kind of complicated; for example, both Son of Satan and Satana were originally children of Satan, but then that got retconned away for some reason.

[halloweenjack]

That splash page of Mephisto reminds me that no one draws a leer quite like Darick Robertson; he looks like he's about to lift his loincloth and give Kurt a look at "Little M". Also, I like the splash of Leviathan, with Ben Grimm tucked into one corner for scale.

[dejadrew]

If you deal with the devil, NICK CAGE PLAYS YOU IN THE MOVIE.

[zechs80]

I got a Thor moment lined up!!!

[goggle_kid]

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Nightcrawler book was criminally underrated.

Also I believe this is the first Marvel canonical appearance of SHARKTOPUS!

[sinisterlink]

I remember when I first heard about this movie and how Syfy was doing it. And then I learned it was produced by Roger Corman. And it is starring Eric Roberts. And this is the trailer: http://www.getthebigpicture.net/blog/2010/7/17/trailer-syfys-glorious-sharktopus.html where we learn that Sharktopus has a theme song. He has a THEME SONG.

Conclusion: This movie looks horribly ridiculous and bad and I will watch it a hundred times when it comes out.

[sinisterlink]

Honestly, I said this right when Kurt was killed. If/when they want to bring him back, it would be super easy to have Mephisto involved somehow. In that Nightcrrawler one shot that came out awhile ago, Mephisto popped up in that again and he seemed to enjoy messing with Kurt and doing the whole, "You're part demon, so you better just accept who you are and how you're gonna end up with me someday" thing. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a storyline where Mephisto was doing something so that Kurt's soul couldn't move on or something like that.

[cainofdreaming]

And then she will drag Mephisto out of Hell by the ear and make him put things back in order.

[cainofdreaming]

I think after the Witches we're back in the old (and, imho, best) Marduk Kurios version of Satan. Didn't follow the new GR that much though, so dunno if it changed it again.

[yaseen101]

Looks more like a shark/octopus/dinosaur,/bird dragon hybrid to me.

[blackruzsa]

Wait
brother
what?
Also, I notice Mephisto ties together the freakishly large family of Lensherr/Maximoff to Summers to EVERYONE ELSE in the MU.

[magus_69]

Kurt has two adopted sibs via Margali: Amanda, and Stefan. Stefan always worried about his dark side taking over, and made Kurt promise to kill him if it ever did. Kurt went along to humour him, thinking he'd never have to.

Fast forward a few years. Kurt pays his brother a visit, and finds out that Stefan has indeed given into the darkness and has been abducting and murdering children. They fight (with swords, because that's how Kurt rolls). Kurt the X-Man could have taken Stefan without killing him, but this was before then. He kills Stefan by accident, just in time to be caught by an angry mob searching for the child murderer. They find a demon standing over the body of one of their own, and come to the obvious conclusion. They give chase, and that leads into the first scene of GSXM #1. This all comes out in UXM Annual #4, which is a very cool story and also takes place on Nightcrawler's birthday.

[jlbarnett]

so that idea that something evil is doing God's will is heresy while the idea that God wants a being doing evil towards humanity their actual belief?

[endis_ni]

Dear me, that sounds rubbish.

If you'll excuse me, off to stock up on popcorn.

[equinox216]

There was a minor guy in Ghost Rider once, who made a deal with whichever devil was on hand (whoever Rider's antagonist is?) for the courage to finally off himself.

Said devil gave him that courage, as well as supernatural-level regeneration so that he COULDN'T succeed at dying, and said the only way he could die was if Ghost Rider killed him. Which, at the time at least, was the line GR wasn't crossing. After resolving the suicidal urges, and chasing GR around for a while trying to convince him to commit murder, Kid Reconstructo (I think he actually TOOK the 'hero name' of Suicide, which is all sorts of ridiculous) rode off into the sunset as a hero.

That's probably backwards to what you meant, though.

[outlawpoet]

You have to understand that in Catholic mythology, humans are unique. Angels are merely extensions of God's will. So the existence of Satan is coequal with say, the existence of cholera, in terms of Godly morality. It's just something that God knows is necessary for the proper functioning of the world.

Everything is part of God's plan, save the actions of beings with free will. And the only beings with free will are humans, (sometimes even just Christians).

Chalk it up to mysterious ways.

[icon_uk]

Nope, just me extemporising, so not an old saying, but it certainly sounds like one.

[icon_uk]

The devil has all the best music, but hasn't had a decent barber down there since Sweeney Todd.