As I continue to look into Kurt Wagner reads, I thought I would take a moment to do a little discussion. An introspective if you will. I have recently read and reviewed The Draco, and thought I would do a tie in introspective.

Why, you might ask, because tangents I had (that didn’t ended up making it into my review), felt like they deserved their own discussion. So while I continue on with book reviews and recommendations, I am working out two other posts that were too off topic for my The Draco: Review along with this introspective. One will look at Nightcrawler’s family, and another, discussing Azazel and why I think he could be a good character outside of The Draco.

Today, however, I bring you an introspective. I’ve broken this down into two parts: Why it’s controversial and my unpopular opinion, and I will conclude with a summary of my thoughts on it and if it “aged well”. For my full review, you can find it here: https://atomic-temporary-197418830.wpcomstaging.com/2021/11/24/uncanny-x-men-the-draco-review/

With that out of the way, let’s get to it.

Why the Controversy?

The Draco would go down in X-Men history, but not for a good reason. If I was talking strictly based on the story itself, a lot of issues come from it. As one of the worst X-Men stories or one of the most contentious Nightcrawler stories.

Now this (along side other issues in the Trial of Juggernaut volume) is the only comic by Chuck Austen I think I’ve read. So I can’t personally say whether or not any of his other works in Marvel (or DC) were better or worse. Though I can say that it was pretty poorly executed (more on that later). What I do know is that this was the story that lead to the end of Chuck Austen’s career with Marvel and DC.

While researching The Draco for thoughts, opinions, and such, I have come across a few different points for not liking this story or elements in it. This was a story that, not only would be what Chuck Austen would go down for, but also lead to a career ending stint with Marvel and DC.

Artistically Unattractive and Poor Storytelling

Getting the technical side of it out of the way, yes the story isn’t great and the art is shaky. If that was the only problem, I don’t think it would have became as infamous, but it’s still worth noting. When I read it, the art kind of reminded me of Dextor Soy, one of my favorite DC artists, who worked on Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016),but not as good. That may sound like a weird comparison, but it was the closest I could think of with the art.

And while bad art can bring down a good story in the case of The Draco, the story is not much better. I may be giving it too much credit when I say that there was a good concept there, but how it was executed was terrible. That much I do agree on, and I also agree that certain characters felt out of character.

I have also seen the case made (and reasonably so) on how certain scenes in this cross the line of harmless fanservice to going too far.

Azazel Being Kurt’s Father

Part of it comes down to what Azazel, the walking, talking demon of a mutant, does for the character he took part in creating. Now, Kurt is already kind of a walking, talking irony being a Catholic “Demon”, but for almost 30 years, it was only a physical irony and not a literal one. Kurt’s whole schtick is that he looks like a monster but has a heart of gold (as opposed to say Wolverine who looks human, but internally would be considered a monster). As well as, or alternatively, an example of not judging a book by it’s cover.

With Azazel being his dad and essentially the mutant equivalent to a demon/devil, fans felt like this gave the mob the right to go after this demon (Kurt) in their town. And it could feel counter intuitive of X-Men’s original message against discrimination. (X-Men was created in ’63 and one of the big things X-Men is symbolic of is the Civil Rights Movement).

My Unpopular Opinion

I may be in the minority when I say that I like Azazel (I’m sure there are others who do as well). That doesn’t mean I will discredit the criticisms with the character, as I respectfully understand why they are there.

I can certainly see how what Azazel is can dent X-Men’s overall moral/symbolism, however, I feel he adds to what Nightcrawler symbolizes. I feel he still proves that looks can be deceiving. And with both parents being considered evil, I feel like it adds an angle of evil not always breeding evil to the mix.

It’s worth noting that I am new to the comics for Marvel and X-Men as a whole. And having only recently gotten into the X-Men comics (thanks to Nightcrawler), I may be viewing Azazel as a character at a slightly different angle. Heck, The Draco wasn’t even my first introduction to the character.

The Draco was on a blog listing Nightcrawler centered stories, when I started looking for recommendations. It did have a disclaimer for how it was bad/poorly received, but it was still focused on him.

As I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t the first Azazel present story I read, Amazing X-Men and First Class were. I could have still hated him, sure, but I don’t.

Maybe I’m optimistic when I say he has potential in the right hands. Or maybe my introduction to him through other (non Chuck Austen) comics gave me the chance to view the character differently. Maybe both. And maybe in an attempt to find one good thing in The Draco, I took his other appearances as a reason as that one positive thing.

Readers have a reason to dislike him and I respect that. I merely see a character with potential and would have been better off not introduced by Chuck Austen.

What do I Think of The Draco? Did it Age Well?

I am in the majority when it comes to this story. It’s terrible. It’s poorly written. Poorly executed. It has bad artwork (which if you’ve noticed, I only used once cover twice in this entire discussion). And while I may defend Azazel to a degree, I can see why people would dislike the character.

As far as aging, it has not. It isn’t like Twilight, were it was a hit back from 2005-2012, but aged horribly. Nor is it like Lord of the Rings or Howl’s Moving Castle, which time has gifted with aging well.

The Draco wasn’t going to age well, but it wasn’t going to age poorly either. Being detested from the get go, the only thing time could do, was make it worse. And even if, someone read this and thought the hate was overblown, I doubt they would say it’s good.

In short, this story took what could have been a good concept, but executed it poorly and didn’t age for the better.