#belasco!kurt

[illyanarasputinfan]

Magik #1 (1983) Marvel Comics

Penciller: John Buscema

Inker: Michael Maikowsky

[d-criss-news]

From Hedwig to Helperbot: Darren Criss Looks Back on His Stage Journey

It’s nap time for Darren Criss’s newborn son, Brother, when the Glee star hops on our video chat. The camera’s off, but he quickly turns it on to say hello face-to-face dressed in workout clothes — a green sleeveless top and a ball cap — as he tries to do some chores at the same time.

Criss has a limited window at home as he prepares to star in the new musical Maybe Happy Ending, now playing at Broadway’s Belasco Theatre. The story, with book, music, and lyrics by Will Aronson and Hue Park, takes place 100 years in the future in Seoul, South Korea. Criss plays Oliver, an obsolete Belperbot along the lines of Siri or Google, “except more human-like, who is definitely past his prime and has been just waiting [in a Helperbot retirement facility] for his owner to pick him up,” Criss describes to Broadway Direct of the role. He stars opposite rising star Helen J Shen, who plays Oliver’s retired Helperbot neighbor. “It almost feels like two people in an old-folks’ home trying to connect with a family member.”

The plot sounds dramatic, but “make no mistake: This is a musical. It’s a musical comedy,” says Criss. “It has a lot of heart and a lot of joy and a lot of humor and amazing music, and it’s a hell of a spectacle.”

His friend Michael Arden, who won a Tony Award for his direction of Parade, was a big reason for Criss to sign on to the project — and serve as an executive producer as well. Arden brought the show to Criss’s attention many years ago, and again recently when Criss was starring in Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway.

“This had been kind of percolating for a while, and between the pandemic and strikes and just a lot of other things, that really comes down to timing. So the stars just kind of aligned,” Criss says.

Criss, a figure on Broadway for well over a decade, started to gather a following while at University of Michigan as a founding member of Team StarKid, the student-run theater company behind the viral Harry Potter musical parody A Very Potter Musical. His big break came on the hit Fox TV show Glee back in 2010. The show had already aired for a full season before he was cast as Warbler Blaine Anderson and future love interest to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel. If not for Glee, he believes his career would not have had the same trajectory.

“I felt like this was my master’s in performance of music on camera,” Criss says, admitting that, until Glee, he didn’t consider himself a singer — rather, a musician who acted. “I have that show to thank for giving me any headway in the musical-theater space.”

In the middle of filming Glee in 2012, his Broadway debut called. Criss was asked to succeed Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for three weeks during a winter break from filming Glee. “I left on, like, a Friday night from my last day of shooting. I started rehearsal on a Saturday. Within 10 days, I was on a Broadway stage. I left my Sunday matinee, got on the plane, and went to work [at Glee] Monday morning as if nothing had happened. So it was a bit of a fever dream. It goes by as quickly as it came, like all other moments in life.”

Three years later, Criss stepped into his next Broadway role. This time, he played Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch for about two and half months, succeeding John Cameron Mitchell. “People always ask me, ‘What’s your dream role?’ I’m like, ‘I kind of did it,’” he says of the opportunity. “Hedwig was a role I always loved so much when I was a teenager, and getting to jump into it was so special to me and my wife. We both love Hedwig so much. It’s a big part of our relationship.”

More recently on Broadway, Criss starred in the play American Buffalo with Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell in 2022 for a three-month limited run. “I completely idolized them,” he says of his scene partners. “I mean, if you see a pattern here, I recommend this to everybody, to just chase their heroes. I’ve just been chasing my heroes my whole life, and I’m not being bashful about it at all.”

Getting Rachel Evan Wood to play Audrey opposite Criss’s Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre earlier this year was something that he says was his idea.

“I pitched her pretty hard,” he said of getting casting directors to choose the Westworld actress as his costar. “When they heard her sing, I think it was very clear that this wasn’t like a favor to anybody. She was doing us a favor. The fact that she said yes just blew my mind.” The role of the nerdy floral shop worker wasn’t something Criss thought he’d get the opportunity to add to his résumé “because it just was never something that I thought anybody would let me do. … I wasn’t sprinting to that in the way that I was the other things in my life.”

Criss welcomed Brother, his second baby, this past June with his wife Mia. The timing couldn’t be more coincidental, since their first, Bluesy, was born during his run of American Buffalo.

As our conversation comes to a close, Criss says he kind of got all of his chores done and haphazardly put things away and folded laundry. The next project he wants to pursue is his writing, something he hasn’t tackled much in five years. Until then, he’s reveling in Maybe Happy Ending.

“I do find myself at a loss for words, trying to truly put into words how special this experience has been,” he adds. “I think it really is a thing of beauty that can really add quite a bit of ornamentation in perhaps a grim world.”

[spongebobafettywap]

i gave up on most old claremont fans from reddit and x after i heard they'd rather have belasco or nightmare be nightcrawler's father than for it to be azazel

look we can all have different opinions that's totally fine but for whatever reason whenever they explain why they'd pick those two over the latter they start sounding borderline schizophrenic from how at odds with themselves their arguments get

i saw a "azazel is too on the nose" on reddit but just putting that next to belasco (who is a demon and looks the way he does down to having horns) and nightmare (who rules over his own nightmarish realm and is classified as a demon) shows that you can't win with these people

Yeah that's my problem with Claremont fans they just say one thing then say another and it comes off as so inconsistent and hypocritical.

Azazel was only ever implied to be a demon by some writers but in the original story the Neyaphem and the Cheyarafim were implied to be the inspiration behind devils and angels.

I don't see how that's more demonic than Belasco the Demon from Dante's Inferno. Or Nightmare the Demon that Dr Strange has fought for like ever.

Like if the problem they have is that Kurt shouldn't be a demon then they need to keep that energy for Belasco and Nightmare not just shrug it off because they're more nostalgic for those characters.

I also don't get why they act like Claremont is the authority on characters that he did NOT create. Nightcrawler is Cockrum's creation and he WAS conceived as a Demon and he was NOT fond of making Kurt overly religious. These two things that are apparently so important for Nightcrawler were not even things that Dave Cockrum wanted to be a part of the character at all.

With Claremont's own characters they have more of a right to claim his authority and intent behind them should be respected but other people's characters? Nah that's lame. I've never heard of any other time that a character that wasn't even invented by a certain author needs to be molded and stay solid to the idea that this some other guy came up with.

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #42: Magik: Storm and Illyana issues 1-4

A lot of reading orders put this miniseries right after the first Limbo story, but it was published around this point, and I prefer it here as a flashback once we know Illyana better. It’s a great exploration of Illyana's history, with art by John Buscema and Tom Palmer. We open with Illyana watching the sunrise on her fifteenth birthday, flashing back to the moment she was separated from her brother. Belasco pulls her back into his domain and casts a spell to remove part of her soul and transform it into the first stone for her Bloodstone Pendant. For his plan, he must take a purely innocent soul and set it on the path of corruption. When the pendant is full, the Elder Gods of Limbo will be released onto Earth. Ororo is about to be killed by Belasco when the future Kitty makes her first appearance, now a sword wielding ninja called Cat. She and Ororo rescue Illyana and reflect on how they've changed time. In their reality, Illyana was freed while the X-Men stayed to be destroyed, but here, the opposite has happened, and they may have doomed Earth. Illyana, still a child, doesn't understand. She loves Ororo and Kitty, but she also loves Belasco, who from her perspective has been kind and taken care of her. Ororo tries to sever Belasco's link to her, but there's already an evil in Illyana's soul, taken the form of her older, more powerful self. Ororo has a new plan- train her in good magic so she can save herself. Cat, who we now learn has been transformed into a cat-like creature by Belasco, says it could corrupt Illyana the way Belasco wants, and that she'll kill them both before Ororo takes that risk. Cat flees and Ororo takes Illyana on a tour of her little paradise in the middle of hell. It's a garden, similar to her attic at the mansion. She shows Illyana the power of healing magic and tells her that humans possess both the potential for life and death, good and evil. Belasco seeks to bring out the evil in her and make her his slave, but Ororo believes they can avoid that. Late in the night, Cat returns to sneak Illyana out, saying Ororo is corrupted by Belasco in ways she doesn't yet realize, and she can get Illyana home to Peter.

Over the years, Cat has turned into something resembling Wolverine. She's a predator, killing demons and monsters and always on the move. Whereas Ororo wants to train Illyana in magic, Cat thinks that'll turn her into what Belasco wants, and decides to either get Illyana home or kill them both trying. She and Illyana make their way across the wastelands of Limbo, and Cat does her best to harden Illyana into a fighter like her, threatening to leave her behind or kill her if she falters. Illyana grows to fear both Cat and Ororo as much as Belasco, as the wonky time in Limbo begins to age her. It's been the equivalent of three years for her, one in Ororo's garden, and now two in the desert with Cat. They finally make it to Belasco's citadel, where they're confronted by the demonic Kurt. Taking Cat's lessons to heart, Illyana fights to kill, distracting him long enough for Cat to phase him into the floor and stab him through the heart. They almost make it to the portal, which Cat can phase them through, but Belasco stops them. He removes the last traces of Cat's humanity, making her his new slave to replace Nightcrawler, and invites Illyana to join him. She knows he's evil, but she's drawn to him, the corrupt part of her soul drawn to the power he could provide. He gives her a knife, and she cuts herself, filling the second bloodstone.

Under Belasco's tutelage, the now 11 year old Illyana masters a spell to shape souls. She tests it on a gentle demon called Squidge, her pet that she's raised from birth, transforming it into an evil beast. It attacks her, giving her a cut on her cheek, and Cat eats it. Illyana and Squidge are a reflection of Belasco and Illyana. Belasco is corrupting her by giving her a semblance of the power he has over her, but she and Squidge are both his pawns in the end. Cat is drawn to Illyana's open wound, and wants to eat her too. At the last second, she regains a little control of herself, and says Illyana's name, the first human word she's spoken in two years. But in fear of and grief for her friend, Illyana lashes out, blasting Cat through the door and out of her life. Along with the guilt from this act, Illyana is scared of the new revelation that power now lies within her. Belasco thinks her a tool, but his Elder Gods have "blessed" Illyana as well. She's now being pulled between the two parties, both of whom think they're the mastermind using the other. Illyana decides she won't be a pawn, and draws a spell circle. She's been taught by two instructors- Belasco, who's spells circles are red, and signify destruction, and Ororo, who initially learned from Belasco, but broke away and began drawing silver circles, the color of creation. Illyana's circles are still silver, and she casts the hardest spell she's ever attempted- the creation of an acorn. It's a symbol of hope for herself, but it's shortlived as it explodes into blood. She's discouraged until an astral projection of Ororo appears to comfort her. Illyana says she has a plan to sneak to the library and learn a spell of destruction to use on Belasco, but Ororo forbids it, fearing it'll complete her corruption. She leaves Illyana alone, and the young girl feels like all hope is lost again until her mutant power activates- she can control the stepping disks that bring people through time and space in Limbo. It's never really been explored whether being in Limbo influenced her powers, or if it was part of the reason Belasco chose her, or if it's just a crazy coincidence. Personally, I'd love to see a story where it's revealed that a future Illyana is the one who put the discs into Limbo in the first place so her younger self could use them. Anyway, she teleports through Limbo and briefly runs into the New Mutants, who are having their own stepping disk adventure in the future. When Illyana makes it to Belasco's library, she's gone back in time far enough to witness the downfall of Ororo. She was once Belasco's apprentice as well, and had the same plan Illyana did, but her destruction spell failed and corrupted her into Belasco's image. This is the first of many times in her life that Illyana is forced to confront her own hubris; if she tried to kill Belasco, she would meet the same fate as her mentor. She's pulled into the present, where Ororo is battling Belasco until Cat cuts her from behind. Illyana goes after Cat not with magic, but with the predatory hand to hand fighting that she taught her. Cat, who tormented her for years, was also in Illyana's words her best friend. But Illyana snaps her neck anyway. Ororo says it was what Cat would have wanted, and this is what she wants too- to join her family in whatever afterlife awaits. But Belasco has one final punishment for the only slave who ever broke from his control. He will use Ororo's death to conjure Illyana's third bloodstone before sacrificing Ororo's soul to the Elder Gods.

Illyana's corruption is still incomplete. In her narration (from the perspective of her older self) she goes from wishing she'd killed Belasco in one sentence to seeking his praise in the next. But she finally breaks free by killing Ororo before Belasco can steal her soul again, before teleporting herself to Ororo's garden sanctuary. But just like in the real world, the oasis represents Ororo's soul, only this time literally. It collapses around Illyana as Belasco takes back control and sends Illyana horrible hallucinations- first of Ororo condemning her, then of Peter saying it's her fault he died, and finally of her parents rejecting her for not being their little girl. Belasco himself arrives with the reanimated corpses of the X-Men and casts a spell over Illyana, creating the third bloodstone out of her pain. He then turns off her mutant power and casts her into the wilderness, placing another spell on her to ensure her survival in the most painful way possible. She makes it to the first tree Ororo ever created, and spends months on end drawing power from it, attempting to recreate Ororo's spell of creation. But there's too much Belasco in her, and in the end the tree dies and Illyana has accomplished nothing. But then she has an epiphany- the creation of an acorn was Ororo's master spell, because pure life was what was most important to her. But Illyana's deepest desire is for vengeance. She casts the creation spell again, but this time with that in mind, and conjures a sword- the same one she attacked Kitty with in Uncanny 171. Her circle is still silver, but her aura is tinged red. She cuts through Belasco's enchantments and summons a stepping circle that takes her to Belasco. She strikes down S'ym in vengeance for Peter and then begins her assault on her slaver. As she begins winning, the Elder Gods' favor shifts to her, and she begins to take on demonic aspects as Belasco reverts to his original human form. She beats him, but when she realizes what's happened, she rejects her place as the Elder Gods' champion and sets him free, reverting to human form. She looks at her pendant, now with three of the five stones filled. The Belasco part of her power now outweighs the Ororo part, but hope isn't lost. In the present, she turns away from the horizon to look at the New Mutants having a snowball fight, and walks towards them and her new life.

Illyana is another of my favorite characters, and this series is where her arc and decades of Limbo stories begin. She begins the series as the young, innocent Illyana, and Belasco hopes to corrupt her into Darkchylde. But by the end of this series, she’s somewhere in between as Magik. She chose creation magic over destruction, but her creation was a weapon used to destroy. She could be pulled in either direction, and soon will be pulled in both. A lot of the contents of this book won’t pay off until years from now in Inferno, and it’s crazy how far in advance they were foreshadowing years of New Mutants stories. Illyana’s story is about the question of whether she’ll be a pawn of evil, a pawn of good, or her own person for good or evil. This miniseries did a great job setting up those questions, and when she joins the cast of New Mutants we’ll start looking for answers.

[blueberrybamf]

Mine were classic Excalibur, found while helping mom clean a coworkers (nasty) house. Her son let me have his giant long box of them. I saw this charming blue guy with a tail and pointy ears and I needed to know more.

I also found Ka-zar comic with Belasco on the cover at the same time, odd coincidence :P (if you know you know)

Shortly after, the clip from X2: Xmen United with Kurt at the Whitehouse came out. I spent so long waiting for it to load and watch each day at school in the computer lab XD

I also found Nightscrawlers around this time but just missed being able to interact with the creator himself, Dave Cockrum. R.I.P.

every time I think, "hm, am I a LITTLE TOO thirsty for Kurt Wagner?" something like this pops up in the comics

and I'm like, oh. no. they want us to STAY THIRSTY, and honestly? respect. nothing but love for my babe

[djinmer4]

In All My Dreams I Drown (Evil Belasco AU)

NSFW

“You haven’t slept,” said Belasco, pulling his chiton down over his head.  “In quite some time.  Weeks, I think.”

“How can you tell?”  Kitty looked out the window.  The sky was dark and turbulent but that meant nothing.  Sometimes it seemed she didn’t see the sun for months or a gigantic moon would hang in the sky until she almost forgot that it looked any different.  Other times it seemed to change too quickly, light to dark and back again every time she blinked.

He ignored the question.  “You need to sleep.  Eternal wakefulness is not good for human minds.”

She placed her hand over his belt, then slid upwards, tracing the outlines of his abs beneath the blood-red fabric.  “Oh, I’ll rest soon enough.  Don’t worry about it.”

“Hush, love.” He wasn’t quite able to ignore her distraction though.  His hand went down, unbuttoning the gown he had just dressed her in.  “There’s the bed.  Lanterns down.”  The hellish red light dimmed and flickered, almost like fire but a more lurid, unearthly shade.

“But I-”

He pressed her down against the bed again.  “There’s a storm brewing.  It’s time to go to sleep.” he breathed into her neck, teeth skimming her pulse.  Belasco’s lone hand reached up and entangled her wrists into the sheets.  His tail did the same with her ankles at the foot of the bed.  Settling in between her legs, he rocked back and forth, grinding against her sensitive parts and drawing unwilling gasps from her throat.

Swallowing a moan, she tried one more time to get him to relent.  “Please, my Lord,” she knew how much he loved it when she called him that.  “I’ll do anything.  Any minor chores you want done.  Mop the floors, warm your bed, whatever you like.  You can do whatever you want to me.  Scold me, turn me into a cat again.  I’ll be yours completely.  The only thing I beg of you, don’t make me go to sleep.”

The sky flashed overhead, matching the temper in gold eyes.  “If you won’t obey by going to sleep like a good child, I’ll simply give you no choice.”  He slid down her body, trailing kisses over her breasts and stomach, the silky material of the chiton flowing over her skin like water.  His tail lashes out, stroking over her left ankle, then switching to wrap around her right calf.  When she tried to go within herself, he nips sharply at her right hip, pulling her back into the present.  Then he kissed her softly, soothingly, once over the bite, then on the crease between her thigh and pelvis, another over her clit and a final one on her slit itself.

His head between her legs, his tongue darted between her lower lips, focused on her clit.  It was longer than any human’s, hotter too.  He traced spirals on her nub and as she arched into the sensation, his finger slipped inside her.  He was, as always, curiously careful not to damage her with his talons, gently pressing against her walls with the flat, calloused pads of his fingers and not cutting her.

Kitty writhed and struggled but without her phasing powers she couldn’t slip away and the lack of leverage meant she couldn’t tear the sheets holding her down either.  Despite her resistance, she felt herself edging towards the brink, her core feeling like an inferno.  Her thighs tightened around his head and her cunt gushed freely.  As she quivered with the aftershocks, Belasco continued to lap at her spilled juices, drawing more tremors.

It was the last straw for her body.  Her muscles loosened and the edges of her vision were turning grey and hazy.  Kitty tried to keep her eyes open but they fell shut.  “I’m begging you, please wake me up.  In all my dreams I-”

_______

“The human mind is such a strange thing, isn’t it Lockheed?”

Belasco kept his sole hand over Kitty’s forehead, covering her eyes as well.  The little (not quite so little anymore) dragon was perched on the headboard, gaze fastened to the woman sleeping below.  With the curtains drawn, the only light came from two pairs of eyes, one bright gold, the other blood red.

“There’s no way for dear Katzchen to know that I’m modifying her memory while she sleeps, and yet she clearly fears the call of Morpheus.”  The dragon hissed at the Demon Lord.  “I’m not changing her mind, I’m just  . . . removing her incentives to leave Limbo.”

[kurtty-drabbles]

She was his favorite sin. She was not a habit for him anymore, she was an obsession. (Evil Belasco AU)

She was his favourite sin. She was not a habit for him anymore, she was an obsession. (Evil Belasco AU)

N/A: Yes, evil Belasco. I´ll try to use one of those prompts.

Sin is something Belasco can understand, oh, sin comes in many shapes and forms, and Belasco can toy with such emotions and see how humanity always fall through their own sin.

However, love and lust are something Belasco never engage before. A woman from Excalibur is making the Demon Lord desire something more …carnal…for himself?

Kitty Pryde is her name. A woman with wits and beauty and a strong personality. A flawed human and Belasco feel, deep down, some things never change.

Kitty Pryde is hardly 14 years old anymore, instead, is a woman. So beautiful as her own soul. A woman that often search for this person, a fuzzy blue elf.

A person Belasco knows too well. And smirks as Kitty often ask for many magical users about this person(all the magic users are under his control, in a sense) and the answer is always the same. Kurt Wagner does not exist.

Belasco, at first, genuinely believed(how funny for a Demon Lord to think) it was a joke or a mere nostalgia. He´s wrong and his boss takes pleasure in showing how wrong he truly is.

She was his favourite sin. She was not a habit for him anymore, she was an obsession.

(Belasco did kill a mortal for daring to court Kitty, IT grant amenity to be as powerful in limbo as in earth)

And soon the Demon Lord decides to not play fair. If he wants something…he´ll get it.

Kitty Pryde meets Belasco out of her free will(of course, that´s what preferable, that´s more heroic) and speaks fearlessly. “ where is Kurt Wagner?”

“What do you miss the most about this Kurt Wagner?”

“Everything, especially his soul, his noble soul and good heart” Kitty answers and Belasco smiles sadly as he gives the whole story as to how Kurt Wagner is himself.

Poor Kurt, sacrificed by his once friends and left to rot here. A tale that moved Kitty and swayed her alliance to Belasco as she hugs him, promising with all her heart, how she never forget him, never. Her eyes are closed and full of tears and didn´t saw his smirk.

If Belasco wants something, he´ll get it.

[tales-of-the-dense]

see? kurt knows just how reading this issue feels

[bamfoftheundead]

@kurtty-drabbles my pen is charged and ready to go 😁

Kurt tries to show kitty a basic pose and man is it harder than it looks

Belasco dancing with kitty, the waltz! Bet having one arm makes it hard tho

[justdealingwithsomeissues]

Oh shit? Is this happening already? I didn’t know this happened so soon!

[comicnerdwill]

Silly teaser for upcoming video Saturday

[illyanarasputinfan]

Happy 40th anniversary to Magik #1, released on December 1, 1983!

[ao3feed-johnnylawrence]

Random Oneshots

by SnowDove1991

AU- Random Oneshots from my Crazy Fandom mind, aka oneshots I want to see more of since some or most of the pairings have practically no stories and some have none at all.....I'm looking at you Stay Alive and Scary Stories to tell in the dark.

Words: 1155, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: An American Werewolf in Paris (1997), Back to the Future (Movies), Better Watch Out (2016), Fear Street Trilogy (TV), Halloween (Movies - Green), Jeepers Creepers (Movies), My Bloody Valentine (2009), Pretty In Pink (1986), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), Stay Alive (2006), Summer of 84 (2018), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Movies), The Boy Next Door (2015), The Cleansing Hour (2019), The Forsaken (2001), The Hitcher (2007), Karate Kid (Movies), The Notebook (2004), The Stepfather (2009), Titanic (1997), Underworld (Movies)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage

Categories: M/M

Relationships: Kevin Peterson/Noah Sandborn, Andy McDermott/Chris, Andy McDermott/Claude, Marty McFly/Biff Tannen, Luke Lerner/Ricky, Luke Lerner/Jeremy, Kurt/Tommy Slater, Nicholas "Nick Good/Simon Kalivoda, Corey Cunningham/Cameron Elam, Corey Cunningham/Terry, Andy "Bucky" Buck/Dante Belasco, Darry Jenner/Scott "Scotty" Braddock, Tom Hanniger/Axel Palmer, Duckie Dale/Blane McDonnagh, Duckie Dale/Steff McKee, Tommy Milner/Ramón Morales, Swink Sylvania/Phineus Bantum, Hutch O'Neill/Swink Sylvania, Davey Armstrong/Tommy "Eats" Eaton, Andy/Kemper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Darryl/Ryan (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Carl Hartman/Kenny (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Richter/Dante Spivey (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Drew/Max (The Cleansing Hour), Kit/Sean (The Forsaken), Jim Halsey/John Ryder, Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Noah Calhoun/Lon Hammond Jr., Michael Harding/The Stepfather, Jack Dawson/Caledon Hockley, David/Lucian (Underworld), Varga/Gregor (Underworld)

Additional Tags: Consensual Underage Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Mates, Time Travel, Older Man/Younger Man, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe, Dark, Punishment, Sexual Content, Disney References, Crossover, Love Confessions, Falling In Love, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Obsession, Claiming, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Love/Hate, Enemies to Lovers, Moral Dilemmas, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/43174059

[spongebobafettywap]

I'm gonna be 100% honest with you on this one : I think those who want Belasco to be Nightcrawler's father are just Claremont fans in denial

Azazel and Belasco are near identical as characters except Azazel is higher on the morality scale than Belasco for most things and isn't a demon

I don't know why they force the issue with Belasco when he wasn't even a character created by Claremont : He's a character he recycled from another writer

To be honest these fans seem to think that if Claremont uses a character in a story it's his character. It's why they seem to think he is the one that's allowed to create the origin for Nightcrawler when Kurt is Dave Cockrum's creation.

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #34: UXM issue 171

This isn't a special issue that I was gonna give its own post, but it's in between two two parters so I don't wanna lump it in with one of those just for formatting. We begin with a brief conclusion to the events of the last two issues, where Ororo decrees to the Morlocks that they can no longer prey on the surface world lest they feel her wrath. She's exchanged her cape for Callisto's vest, and she speaks arrogantly and cruelly to Callisto as she leaves. Kurt watches, worried about what's happening to his friend and more worried that she doesn't seem to care about it. In Alaska, Madelyne wakes up from a nightmare and finds comfort in Scott. She was dreaming about the day the plane she was piloting crashed and she was the only survivor of the burning wreckage. To Scott's shock, it happened on the same day Jean died. Outside Boston, Carol- who kinda disappeared the last few issues- is visiting her parents. Thanks to Anna's identity theft, she feels no emotional connection to them, which hurts both her and them. At the school, Kitty is throwing a tantrum about the New Mutants stealing her floppy disks until Illyana points them out under her keyboard, at which point Kitty calls herself a jerk. It's a nice moment of self awareness about how she treats the other students, and she definitely needed a reality check after what happened a few issues ago. Peter is in the kitchen trying to cook, but his efforts are interrupted by the arrival of Anna (just a reminder, I'm calling her Anna, but everyone in universe calls her only Rogue until like 2004). She's come begging for Xavier's help, because having two psyches in her brain is causing her incredible mental pain and anguish. The X-Men are unsympathetic to the woman who destroyed Carol's mind, but Xavier decides to help her and sends his students away to the Danger Room. They ask Illyana to set a training sequence, and she conjures holograms of Belasco's chambers, complete with an evil Kurt and dead Peter. When Kitty asks her why, she goes into a trance and draws a glowing sword from nowhere. She attacks Kitty, who to her shock isn't able to phase through the swords blade and gets a cut on the cheek. She knocks the sword away, and Illyana is herself again, now with memories of Belasco that she had repressed. Ororo goes up to the attic, and we finally get a glimpse into her thoughts. She feels like she's at a crossroads. The person she's becoming, the person who struck to kill against Callisto, is the person that life as an X-Man has made her and the person best suited to lead the team. But it's at odds with everything Ororo used to value. She can't bring herself to leave her family or responsibility to the world, but when Xavier calls her downstairs, she screams at him that it was his fault she joined. Also in this scene, Ororo's plants have been wilting without her, and as she faces her inner turmoil, she accidentally summons a storm that destroys them. When she does go downstairs to meet everyone, it's to learn that Xavier is taking Rogue in and putting her on the team to help her, both with her mental problems and with her redemption. Ororo refuses, saying that it's her decision as leader and that she won't fight alongside an enemy. Just then, Carol returns and punches her into the upper atmosphere. Peter manages to calm her down when Anna returns. Although Ororo and Kurt threaten to walk, Xavier reminds them of what Ororo said about Logan back when Warren left the team. She said that while he wasn't the best person, he had the potential, and the point of the X-Men is to help people like him. People like Anna, who without the X-Men's help are condemned. Eventually, the X-Men agree, minus Carol, who flies off into space. Ororo spends some more time in somber reflection, and concludes that no matter what, she can never be the person she was. The only thing left for her is to stick to her duty as an X-Man and find out what she will become. In format, this issue was similar to 168, a downtime issues with special focus on one character, in this case Ororo. Her sense of self has been torn by the Brood and Callisto, and now she has to pick through the pieces to find out who she is. Over the next few years of the book, whenever she's close to finding herself again she'll be ripped apart again. It's some of the best character development I've seen in comics, and I'm so excited to dive into this part of my reread. Before I end, I wanna talk a little about Anna. Up until this point, she's gotten very little character development or depth, which is usually not what you want for a redemption arc but in this case works perfectly. The reader feels the same shock and anger that the characters do, and Claremont gets to build Anna basically from the ground up while still having a fully formed supervillain background for her. She's one of my favorite characters, and yet another thing to look forward to as I continue my reread.

[bamfdaddio]

Uncanny X-Men Abridged: 1982: Fairytales & Nightmares Edition

The X-Men, those fantastical mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. We’ve been untangling that history for a while, but sometimes, you really want a more in-depth look. Interested? Then read the (un)Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 153 & 160) - by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, Josef Rubinstein, Bob Wiacek, Brent Anderson

I love how every character gets hit with a good dose of magical fairy dust except for Wolverine and Nightcrawler, who get turned into the Tasmanian Devil and a horny smurf, respectively

1982 is a pretty arc-based year. Most of it is dedicated to space operas, the Brood and Shi’ar politics (yawn), but there are a few outliers. Most notable of these two exceptions are issue 153 - Kitty’s fairytale - and issue 160, the introduction of Limbo. I’ve chosen to highlight these two issues because they are fun, fascinating and, moreover, they are sort of dark mirrors of one another.

Both feature Illyana as a catalyst for the action; both of them feature someone spinning her a little fairytale..

Both feature alternate takes on X-Men: one high fairytale, the other grimdark.

Both are standalone issues that barely feature into the main Shi’ar-plot of 1982 -- seriously, you can take them out without disrupting any narratives -- while still introducing plot points that would become a part of the X-Men mythos. (The Lockheed dragon; the bamf and, most importantly, the introduction of Illyana as Magik.)

It’s funny how the Brood saga takes up almost 80% of the narrative space this year, whereas the whole Limbo/Belasco/Illyana-thing is almost a throwaway plot that is arguably more iconic for the X-Men currently than the Brood are.

Anyway, context. The mansion is in shambles after the attack on the Hellfire Club. Illyana hasn’t returned home after being kidnapped by Arcade -- perhaps to give Colossus a little relief of his homesickness. Illyana then tempts fate:

Take note of that stuffed Fozzi toy, wocka wocka!

Illyana prefers Kitty to tell the story, and I get it. Colossus is a sweetheart, but the dude’s not exactly light of heart. Piotr would probably tell something dreary and fatalistic about three old sisters in a decaying orchard, while Kitty is a lot more fun.

Claremont shows that he is familiar with the workings of the teenage mind, because when faced with the challenge to tell a story, she does the same thing I did when I was thirteen: she goes for a self insert. And she incidentally writes in the boy she has a crush on as her boyfriend.

Look, all I’m saying, we’ve all been there, right?

Anyway, Kitty’s fairytale. Kitty is a pirate, Peter is her shipmate and they stumble upon a quest when ruffians accost a blind prince -- Scott -- and a wizard on his own personal flying carpet -- Xavier. They help out and get roped into the prince’s quest to save his princess from an evil corrupting influence. Sound familiar?

In true Final Fantasy-fashion, all the other party members are introduced one by one. Kitty calls upon a dragon called Lockheed she befriended while Piotr saves a weather goddess trapped in a bottle by the cursed princess. Best highlights, however, are Kitty’s versions of Kurt and Wolverine.

Way of X, I love you, but take note. Kurt was never meant to be puritan.

One of the best parts of this issue is the reaction shots of the other X-Men who listen in to Kitty’s tale. Most of their alternative versions fit stock fairytale characters, although Bamf is more a Disney sidekick than anything else. Wolverine is straight up a Looney Tune though:

At some point, someone looked at this character design and first thought of Sabretooth, right?

The kicker of all of this Kitty wasn´t actually there for the Phoenix Saga: she only met Jean once, briefly, when Jean saved her and the other X-Men from Emma. Kitty never met Dark Phoenix, she only ever heard the details secondhand. Still, she gets it mostly right: prince Scott and princess Jean are star-crossed lovers until Jean is cursed by a corrupting force. As Dark Phoenix, she is hellbent on stopping wizard Xavier and the prince in their tracks, lest they lift the curse by confronting her with her one weakness.

THE HUMANITY

Xavier uses Jean’s humanity to fight off the dark Phoenix and, in this particular universe, they succeed. Scott and Jean get the happy ending they didn’t get in the actual timeline: Kitty even cures his cursed eyebeams. It’s kind of funny that this is the only happy ending the X-Men will ever get during Claremont’s reign.

Speaking of a lack of happy endings, the dark counterpart of Kitty’s fairytale also starts with someone telling Illyana some sweet little lies:

I’m assuming that the whole Stranger Danger-campaign only got big after the eighties? Illyana has all the self preservation skills of a lemming.

Kitty notices that Illyana has vanished and is curious, following her. She steps on a strange light disk and vanishes.

As a slightly piquant aside, I was pleasantly surprised when reading this one digitally. I own a copy of this comic in Dutch (straight from the eighties) and apparently, they censored the version for the low lands. In a comic with creepy assaultey Nightcrawler and many, many, many naked Storms and Wolverines, this page was a bridge too far:

Look, maybe they weren’t entirely wrong. Last time three guys were bouncing around me and I invited them for a shower, I wasn’t entirely innocent either.

I was “also not welcome in that gym again” but that’s besides the point.

Who knows, maybe they just wanted to cut out the clunky exposition of storylines recent. In any case, the X-Men decide to investigate and they are also whisked away: those disks of light are apparently teleportation circles.

Also, can someone please tell Chris Claremont that German sometimes does have i before e?

They’re pulled into a pocket dimension where time and space are treated as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. While Belasco taunts Kitty (and pulls her skeleton from her body to keep her from escaping), the other X-Men get separated, wandering about this utterly foreign dimension and encountering future/alternative versions of themselves.

I still love how alien this first version of Limbo is. The comic is titled ‘Shoots & Ladders’ and it’s exactly like that, except in creepy, never-ending tunnels and topsy-turvy, shadowy caverns.

Both Wolverine and Colossus are confronted by their dead selves, killed by S’ym, Belasco’s brutish lackey. The alternative Nightcrawler, meanwhile, has been perverted into a freaky little toady who has no qualms about touching Kitty inappropriately. (He's essentially the creepy, disturbing version of a Bamf.) Storm, meanwhile, is aided by an older, jaded version of herself. She’s also the one in charge of teleportation disks, which she uses to aid the X-Men:

Kitty’s casually waving skeleton always sends me

Storm is furious with what Belasco has wrought onto Kitty, her Mother Bear Instincts activating. She wants to give chase, but that’s when older!Storm intervenes. She warns Storm that this is a crossroads. In her variant universe, the X-Men chased after Belasco and it went badly for them: Wolverine and Colossus died, Nightcrawler turned evil and Storm became trapped in Limbo.

There’s no word of what happened to their Kitty or Illyana, but I think that’s because Limbo does not play by any of our regular rules. See, if Belasco wanted Illyana, wouldn't he have one now? But he doesn’t. So maybe Limbo is the Schrödinger’s place, where the X-Men both did and didn’t chase Belasco. Because if they didn’t give chase, they wouldn’t have the older Storm to tell them they shouldn’t give chase, which they end up not doing. But if they don't, there wouldn't be a Storm to warn them from not going, so they would. But they wouldn't.

Got that?

Just when older!Storm prepares to send them home, Belasco returns with an army of demons.

See? I told you that paying attention to that Fozzi-toy would pay off! (Wocka wocka)

And it ends there, with Illyana rescued from her nightmare, but with the promise of more darkness in her future.

I love how Chris Claremont takes a soap opera trope -- aging up a child in the shortest amount of time possible to an age where there’s more to do with them narratively -- and makes it fit into his crazy X-Universe.

And that’s it. Two relatively pared down stories where the normal rules of reality take a backseat: one to lift Illyana’s spirits, one to break her beyond belief. In a year that’s defined by space opera, these two stories have always stuck out to me, simply because of the way they break the mold of the X-Universe. More importantly, they've given us Magik. And Bamf!

Next up: Brood, Brood, Brood, and Shi'ar.