Does it get any more amazing that the X-Men fighting pirates in the middle of Hell?
Ever thought that X-Men, the Marvel franchise with strange mutants with weird powers, complete with Fantastic Racism and Love Dodecahedrons, with of a touch of both Space Opera and Soap Opera could stand to be a little more epic?
Amazing X-Men, launched in 2013, is an X-Men series that focuses on grandiose, larger-than-life storylines with the teachers of the Jean Grey School. To touch on how big the series' storylines are, the opening arc brought a mutant into the X-Men family who has never been before, and brought old fan favorite Nightcrawler Back from the Dead from Heaven and the X-Men descended into Hell to fight Nightcrawler's father and he was in command of a pirate ship full of demons.
Amazing X-Men was first started by Jason Aaron in 2013, then after the first arc, Christoper Yost took over writing duties. The team is also notable for featuring Firestar as a first-time X-Man.
No relation to the The Amazing Spider-Man, though he does drop in to visit his amazing friends.
Amazing X-Men provides examples of:
- An Ice Person: Iceman, natch
- The Atoner: Colossus, who after having spent time as the Juggernaut and as one of the Phoenix Five, is only technically welcome in the house because he's a long term X-Man. Team leader Storm tells him flat out that between his lack of anger management skills and his poor decisions, he has proven himself untrustworthy.
- Back from the Dead: Nightcrawler, at the end of the first story arc.
- Big Damn Heroes: The X-Men's plane has crashed. Northstar is on his back, bloody, with a frightened child in his arms. There is a viral spread of Wendigo overtaking Canada and closing in on the X-Men. The only two major spellworkers on the North American continent are out of commission or out of reach. And then Alpha Flight shows up.
- Bilingual Backfire: Alpha Flight has showed up to help the Amazing X-Men and Avengers with the exponentially worsening Wendigo problem. Aurora flings a number of insults in French at Captain America, stopping only when he replies in French that he can understand and speak French.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Cytorrak loves humanity and wants to show and earn that love for all humans. Unfortunately, as a God Of Destruction, it showed this love by rampaging and demanding worship until it was banished to the Crimson Cosmos.
- Bullying a Dragon: Crossbones notices Firestar, in costume, and takes her hostage at knifepoint.Storm: I do not have time for this. Firestar, deal with Crossbones.
Crossbones: Hey, come back here, or I'll...
Firestar:... Burn? - Butt-Monkey: Rockslide, who is treated with casual contempt by the rest of the team. They also treat him like he's disposable.
- Brother–Sister Team: The above mutant duo, when working together — which is rare, as Northstar is mostly an undocumented immigrant into the United States these days.
- Brought Down to Normal: Storm: in Hell, her powers don't work.
- Cannibalism Superpower: The Wendigo curse as it works in Marvel 616: consume human flesh, become rampaging giant super-strong magical monster who can't be stopped except by magic.
- Clothing Damage: Except for Iceman (shorts), Northstar (too fast to touch), Beast (superhero undies), and Nightcrawler (the hero and a teleporter), the team's outfits suffer varying amounts of sexy damage.
- Dishing Out Dirt:
- Rockslide, who is pretty much made of rock.
- Krakoa, the campus of the school.
- Escape Artist: Storm. In issue #2, Azazel's pirate crew complains that they can't keep her tied up because she just keeps getting loose.
- Fiery Redhead: Firestar, a redhead with fire powers.
- Fire and Brimstone Hell: Played with. There are points in the first arc where it burns and where it freezes over courtesy of the fire and ice X-Men present.
- Flash Back: Each X-Man who knew Kurt back at the time of their original introduction gets to recall a previously unseen fond memory of their friendship with him.
- Storm recalls Kurt, because of his crush on her, setting up her attic jungle so she won't leave and go back to Africa.
- Beast recalls playing Danger Room Obstacle Chess with Kurt on a night the human-looking X-Men have gone out.
- Wolverine remembers discussing how he expects to die with Kurt.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Played with. There weren't any specific fluffy cloud examples, but the idea of paradise being a calm and peaceful place was represented.
- I Am a Humanitarian: The Wendigo curse as it works in Marvel 616. Consume human flesh — even by accident — and turn into a Wendigo.
- I Kiss Your Hand: Gloved hand, even. Kurt introduces himself to Firestar in this manner.
- "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Kurt to Beast who is having a rough time remembering he's a civilized man after having been stabbed in the back and dunked in the icy waters of what may be the river Lethe (which steals memories).
- Intelligible Unintelligible: Kurt seems to have no problem understanding what the blue Bamfs are saying.
- Love Triangle: As of issue 4, no direct indication. But presumable as Kurt's romantic feelings toward Storm have already been confessed. As of the beginning of the series, Storm was romantically entangled with Logan, who considers Kurt his best friend. This was eventually resolved by the death of Wolverine.
- Magnetic Plot Device: The Crimson Gem of Cyttorak. It calls to people who have known it before and/or who hunger for power.
- Mythology Gag:
- Nightcrawler finds Mystique in a blonde human form posing as a waitress. In the First Class movie her regular human form was blonde and she was studying to be a waitress.
- Thor thought by their appearance and smug demeanor that the Beaubier twins were elves. In the Alpha Flight comic, an arc showed they had elf heritage before it that was revealed as a trick by Loki.
- Naïve Newcomer: Firestar, who despite her previous heroics with The New Warriors and The Avengers, isn't prepared for the X-Men's patented brand of weirdness.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Mutant-Demon Pirates are in this story.
- Oh, Crap!:
- "World War Wendigo" Part 2: Talisman is in the middle of casting a spell that will solve the viral Wendigo outbreak. She gets attacked from behind by the newest Wendigo — Wolverine, who was unable to fight off the magical infection without his Healing Factor. Cue the reaction from the rest of the team.
- Only Sane Woman: Firestar perceives herself as this, considering the X-Men can't even go grocery shopping without weirdness finding them.
- Pirate: Azazel and Nightcrawler literally captaining pirate-type vessels that fly through the afterlife. Also examples of A Pirate 400 Years Too Late.
- Playing with Fire: Played with. Firestar's costume has a flame motif, and then there's her codename. But her mutant power is actually control of microwaves.
- Jinn, one of the villains they face.
- Pokémon Speak:
- The blue Bamfs seem only capable of saying Bamf as an all purpose word. But they have learned the English word "whiskey" courtesy of Wolverine.
- The Wendigo can only growl and say their own name.
- Psychic Block Defense: The ubiquitous presence of this trope is Lampshaded by Bobby who says so many enemies have this Rachel might as well consider telepathy useless.
- Recognition Failure:
- Justified in Firestar's case that Crossbones just called her 'Red', as she kept a low profile on her other super teams.
- The X-Men, however, are world famous, frequently considered outlaws and terrorists. Crossbones doesn't recognize Storm, referring to her as 'Mohawk'.
- The Reveal: The first arc elaborates what the Bamfs on campus really are after an alien xenobiologist said they're not the same as the ones before. They're actually lowly demon hybrids resembling toothed maggots, abandoned to fend for themselves in Hell before being found by Azazel, who used his Blood Magic to bond with them, shaping them into his image. Kurt later found one of these red ones, tamed it and sold his soul to make a new bond with them (turning them blue in the process), so they could serve him in stopping his father and also be resurrected. He sent some to the campus to build a device to bring some X-Men over for assistance.
- Sanity Slippage: Dr. Walter Langkowski is normally an extremely calm and intelligent person who happens to be able to turn into a golden Sasquatch. But the magical Wendigo infestation interferes with his usually seamless transformation and begins dragging him slowly, inexorably, toward cannibalistic madness and animalism.
- Shout-Out:
- Peter Pan: Northstar is an elfin-pointy-eared flying young man fighting a pirate with an ancient man. Northstar admits he's always dreamed of doing something like this.
- Issue #7 was a whole issue Shout-Out/Affectionate Parody of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, implying the trio are fairly close knit even in the 616 universe. (Give or take a Superior Spider Man messing with the dynamic).
- Talk Like a Pirate: Nightcrawler, but less the modern version and more the old 1950s Errol Flynn style.
- Toilet Humor: Mostly brought up by Iceman.
- The Virus: In this case, a magical contagion of Wendigo.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The "World War Wendigo" arc is pretty much textbook Zombie uprising, except with cursed Canadian cannibal monsters.
