Warning! Spoilers ahead for Legion of X #2!
Conflict is brewing between X-Men. The two men have come a long way from the gifted youngsters Charles Xavier once recruited to his Westchester academy. Between Legion of X and X-Force, both Kurt and Hank are headlining their own Krakoan era X-books. However, an ideological divide between the two is growing, and that may turn them from former friends into fuzzy blue foes.
Hank McCoy's descent from morally gray to lawful evil has been expertly captured throughout Benjamin Percy and Joshua Cassara's ongoing run of X-Force. Willing to sacrifice team for intel, topple a foreign government, and even torture his fellow Krakoans in the name of national security, Beast is well on his way to becoming the X-Men's Henry Kissinger. His efforts to manufacture a Krakoan surveillance state have set Hank on a collision course with his old pal Kurt Wagner.
Among the myriad of plot threads happening throughout Legion of X #2 by Si Spurrier, Jan Bazaldua, Federico Blee, and VC's Clayton Cowles, the Legionaries' hunt for the Skinjacker leads Nightcrawler and Weaponless Zsen to X-Force's headquarters at the Pointe. Before meeting there with Beast and Sage, a data page from Hank explains he does not deem the Skinjacker panic worthy of his time. He is immediately proven wrong when Skinjacker breaks in while piloting Banshee. However special attention should be paid to Beast's patronizing conclusion to the data page: "Leave it to Kurt and his Emocops." Nightcrawler and Zsen's visit to the Pointe leaves Kurt with a rude awakening of his own. Nightcrawler’s earlier dismissal "we [Krakoa] are not a police state," is proven false after coming face to face with X-Force's extensive surveillance apparatus.
In their own way both Kurt and Hank are dismissive of each other's teams. Beast sees little efficacy or merit in Nightcrawler's band of Legionaries, and Kurt is unaware of how steeped in black ops X-Force has become. This misunderstanding highlights the gap between the men's philosophies towards Krakoa. Hank McCoy was raised as an educated, white, American man, and he benefited in a system of social privilege until he became both a mutant and visually abnormal. Part of his mindset is stuck in the belief that he can and/or must continue to participate in the ways of the human world. This motivation explains his attraction to Xavier's original dream, his willingness to be an Avenger, and his capacity for darker acts that he sees through the lens of human nation-building. In contrast, Kurt was born a visible mutant, and he has been rejected from human society since his infancy. Perhaps this is why he is so attached to cultivating a prosperous culture for Krakoa, one that rejects the limitations of human systems and embraces all mutants for healing and wholeness.
Ultimately, Kurt and Hank's squads are born out of their divergent perspectives. This sets not only Nightcrawler and Beast but the Legionaries and X-Force as teams in a diametric opposition. So far, Krakoan era crossovers for the X-Men books have seen the Krakoans unite to defend themselves from international, interplanetary, and inter-temporal threats. But if the tension between Nightcrawler and Beast continues to build in the X-Men books, Marvel may find itself with a Legionaries vs. X-Force event story ripe for the telling.
