Warning: spoilers for Way of X #2 by Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn, Java Tartaglia, VC's Clayton Cowles, and Tom Muller are ahead.
The X-Men's Nightcrawler is one of the most religiously devout characters in Marvel Comics. Born with an unusual, devil-like appearance, Nightcrawler turned to Catholicism as a way to guide his actions even as he was taunted as a child. But as recent developments on the X-Men's island of Krakoa have shown, Nightcrawler's faith is now being tested in ways neither reader nor hero have seen before.
Nightcrawler's Catholic beliefs make him averse to killing, but with death becoming an existential gateway instead of a permanent condition on Krakoa, with rituals like the Crucible, Nightcrawler has amended his beliefs. In Way of X #2, Nightcrawler voluntarily kills Legion so that he may be properly resurrected on Krakoa (written by Si Spurrier, art by Bob Quinn, colors by Java Tartaglia, letters by VC's Clayton Cowles, design by Tom Muller). Though he acknowledges that killing Legion would be a sin, he states that, "Perhaps there are sins worth sinning."
For Nightcrawler, the act of killing Legion has proven how his Catholic beliefs have essentially become obsolete in Krakoa's post-mortal society. That is, because death is no longer an obstacle to mutants thanks to the island's resurrection capabilities, the actual moral significance of life has been thrown into flux. With his religious beliefs based in the finality of death, Nightcrawler is now faced with the challenge of devising a new religion that accommodates the realities of Krakoan life and culture.
Religion in human history has often evolved as a response to the finality of death, which makes its application on Krakoa all the messier. Without his Catholic faith, Nightcrawler loses a core component of his identity, and as Way of X #2 shows, this loss is a troubling symptom of Krakoan society at large. Shown through Nightcrawler's eyes, the obsolescence of death on Krakoa is also an obsolescence of many heroes' moral codes.
Exploring issues surrounding resurrection through Nightcrawler's relationship with religion highlights the bigger, existential questions that have defined this era of X-Men comics. Thus far, X-Men stories have not shied away from showing the pitfalls of resurrection, but Way of X has facilitated a closer look into what these changes mean to the X-Men as people. From Nightcrawler's point of view, they are getting more and more disconcerting, as they are actually causing heroes like himself to compromise their beliefs. With no moral backbone to rely on, how can the X-Men depend on maintaining an ethical standard for life on Krakoa?
There is nowhere in the Marvel Universe quite like Krakoa, both in the land's capabilities as well as the unique culture it has created. The novelty of Krakoa has presented an opportunity for mutants to carve out their culture however they want to, and this freedom has come at certain costs. As Nightcrawler's diminishing relationship to Catholicism shows, the X-Men may have to lose a significant part of themselves in order to fully commit to the Krakoan dream.