Nightcrawler waited almost a decade for another crack at an ongoing series, though he spent at least a few years of that being dead, courtesy of the "shocking death" roulette wheel landing on him for the Second Coming (Cable bringing a now-teenage Hope Summers back to the present to do. . .stuff) event. Jason Aaron brought Nightcrawler back in Amazing X-Men, through something involving Kurt's (then) father Azazel. I don't know the details, I didn't read it or care to look it up.
The book, part of Marvel's All-New Marvel Now!, handed Nightcrawler back to Chris Claremont, with Todd Nauck and Rachelle Rosenberg as the art team. Like Aguirre-Sacasa, Claremont threw Nightcrawler into stories involving magic, at least initially. Where Aguirre-Sacasa's revolved around a possible brewing war in hell dimensions, where the Soulsword might be very useful, Claremont leaned into the fact Nightcrawler had left Heaven to return to Earth, and a possible link to that realm would be of great interest to certain parties. Much as it was with GrimJack, leaving Heaven was probably a bad idea on Kurt's part.
Also, where Sacasa and Darick Robertson's stories leaned into a horror vibe with deep shadows and threats that were difficult to confront physically, Claremont leans into the mystery threat sending out big, robot-looking guys who shoot energy blasts. Which does let Nauck show off Nightcrawler's skill combining teleporting with martial arts and swordplay.
To be clear, the book looks good; this is the best I think Nauck's work has ever looked, with less of some of the odd proportions in necks and shoulders I usually notice, and some of the angularity of the faces smoothed out. And Rosenberg colors it beautifully, especially the more ethereal or otherwordly elements. But it does result in a much different feel for the book. 4-color high fantasy, rather than supernatural horror.
Foster-sister/girlfriend Amanda Sefton is again a major part of the supporting cast, though Claremont leans harder into their past romantic history than Aguirre-Sacasa did. He also writes Amanda's mother, Margali, as much less of a concerned parent, and more of a ruthless sorceress, chasing great magical power with little regard for others. Which at least is a parental trait Kurt should be familiar with, given Mystique's general shitbaggery.
Amanda makes a great sacrifice in issue 4, which Kurt can't make with her, despite his best efforts. After that, Claremont brought in some outer space pirates he'd created during one of his later stints on the X-Books, none of whom I knew or particularly cared about. I recall him trying to at least start a flirtation between Kurt and one of them, a Bloody Bess or something like that. I could have stuck with the book for generally lighthearted and swashbuckling Nightcrawler, but then Claremont brought in Shadow King. So I cut bait at issue 10, the same month I dropped Captain Marvel volume 8. The book was canceled two issues later.
There was room to do some stuff with Nightcrawler adjusting to all the changes around him. When he died, there were only a couple hundred mutants, pretty much all living on what was left of Magneto's old asteroid base, now floating off the coast of San Francisco. Now there were thousands or millions of mutants again, but the X-Men were fractured. Cyclops with underground squad off somewhere, Wolverine running a school.
But maybe Nightcrawler had already seen too much change for that to really faze it, so Claremont addresses it during a brief conversation between Kurt and Rachel Summers, and that's it. Much as he briefly acknowledges that Wolverine's current status quo was his healing factor was gone and moves on. He seemed a little more interested in Nightcrawler coming to grips with the fact he left Heaven, which would be a pretty big deal for a religious guy, but I don't remember it getting much play after the first 4 issues. Maybe because there was nothing to be done for it, short of trying to make sure he'd get let back in the next time he died. Of course, I think the next time that happened was the Krakoa era. So much for that!
I assume it wasn't selling well, but even if it was, it would have been canceled for Secret Wars later that year. Still, it was one of the books that briefly got me back up to 10 ongoings series for Marvel, for the first time in 7 years, and the last time as of this post. Marvel was handing books to specific creative teams, and at least giving the appearance of letting them do their thing. Their thing didn't always work for me, but it got me to buy more stuff from Marvel than I had in a few years, and they haven't come close to getting me to buy that many comics in any year since.
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