Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) Comic Character Review

Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) Review

Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) is a fictional Character, a comic book superhero in the Marvel Universe. He has been associated with both the X-Men and Excalibur, originally appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum, he debuted in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975). During the "X-Men: Second Coming" storyline, Nightcrawler is killed in an attempt to save Hope Summers in X-Force Vol. 3 #26 (April 2010).

A mutant, Nightcrawler possesses superhuman agility, the ability to teleport across short or long distances, and adhesive hands and feet. His physical mutations include indigo-colored skin which allows him to become nearly invisible in shadows, two-toed feet and three-fingered hands, yellow eyes, pointed ears and a prehensile tail. In Nightcrawler's earlier comic book appearances he is depicted as being a happy-go-lucky practical joker and teaser, and a fan of swashbuckling fiction. Nightcrawler is a Roman Catholic and while this is not emphasized as much in his earlier comic book appearances, in later depictions Nightcrawler is more vocal about his faith. More about Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) Comic Character Review info - keep reading !!

Since his inception, Nightcrawler has had a regular presence in Marvel-related Comic books and video games. He has been featured in a small number of the 1990s X-Men animated series episodes and was a regular on its successors, X-Men: Evolution and Wolverine and the X-Men. In 2003, he was a major character in the film X2, and was portrayed by Alan Cumming.

Nightcrawler is originally stated to be from a small village called Witzeldorf in the German state of Bavaria. In the X-Men animated series, it is said to be Neuherzl, and in the movie X2, he makes repeated references to his time in the Munich circus, though it is never explicitly specified from where he originated.

Fictional Character Biography (Kurt Wagner)

Kurt Wagner was born with certain unusual physical characteristics, but his power of self-teleportation did not emerge until puberty. Margali Szardos, a sorceress and gypsy queen, allegedly found Kurt an hour after his birth, in a small roadside shelter in the Black Forest with his father lying dead on the road outside. However, this claim was later called into question, and it was subsequently proven that Kurt's mother is Mystique, also known as Raven Darkholme, and his father is the demonic warlord Azazel. Mystique revealed that she threw him into a well after a large mob found out about Nightcrawler's existence, and Azazel admitted that he secretly saved his son from the fall, giving him to his lover and crony, Margali Szardos, to raise him. Margali took the baby to the small Bavarian circus where she worked as a fortuneteller, as a cover for her activities as a sorceress. Wagner was never legally adopted by anyone, but was raised by all the members of the circus, who had no prejudices against mutants. Margali acted as Kurt's unofficial foster mother.


Kurt grew up happily in the circus, and his two closest friends were Margali's natural children, Stefan and Jimaine. Long before his teleportation power emerged, Wagner had tremendous natural agility, and by his adolescence he had become the circus' star acrobat and aerial artist. Circus audiences assumed that he was a normal-looking human wearing a devil-like costume.

Years later, the Texas millionaire Arnos Jardine, who ran a large circus based in Florida, hears of the circus for which Wagner works and buys it. Jardine intends to move its best acts into his American circus; however, he demands that Wagner be placed in the circus' freak show. Jardine drugs him to prevent escape but a young mutant child with the ability to sense other mutants helps Kurt escape. Appalled, Wagner leaves and makes his way toward Winzeldorf, Germany, where his foster brother Stefan is. He discovers that Stefan has gone mad and had brutally slain several children. When they were younger, Stefan made Kurt promise to kill him if he ever took an innocent life. Two nights after leaving the circus, Wagner finds Stefan and fights him, hoping to stop his rampage. In the course of the struggle, Stefan is killed.

The villagers of Winzeldorf, who assume from Kurt's appearance that he is the one who killed the children, attack. They are about to kill him when they are all psychically paralyzed by Professor Charles Xavier, who came to recruit Wagner into the X-Men. Before they leave for America, he and Xavier go to the Bavarian circus to explain to Margali about Stefan's death, but Margali is not there. Known as Nightcrawler, Wagner becomes a member of the X-Men. Jimaine holds Wagner responsible for murdering Stefan, and creates a facsimile of the hell from Dante's Inferno in which to punish him years later. Through the use of Doctor Strange's all-seeing Eye of Agamotto, she learns the truth, and she and Wagner are reconciled. Wagner is happily reunited with his foster sister Jimaine, who now lives in the United States and had changed her name to Amanda Sefton, later becoming Kurt's girlfriend.

Some time later, Nightcrawler fights Shagreen the Sorcerer, and becomes lost in various dimensions.


Shortly after this, and once he had rejoined his teammates, a tactic designed to disable the super-Sentinel Nimrod backfires and Kurt finds himself at the mercies of an angry mob without his teleportation ability. He is rescued by Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde), Colossus, and Magik but fears he has lost his ability for good. His power returns but leaves him drained and vulnerable when he uses it, again leading to self-doubt about his worth to the team. During the Marauders' assault on the Morlock tunnels, this exhaustion leaves him vulnerable to an attack from Riptide which puts him in a coma.

Nightcrawler Characteristics

Nightcrawler is a mutant born with fine blue-black fur covering his body, two fingers with an opposable thumb on each hand and only two toes, each longer than a normal human being's, on each foot and a third toe-like projection on his heel, as well as pronounced, fang-like canine teeth, yellow eyes, pointed ears, and a 3 1⁄2-foot-long (1.1 m) prehensile pointed tail which can support his weight.


Among his more ironic character traits, Wagner is an extremely religious man. A devout Catholic, his demonic appearance obviously makes it very difficult to attend Mass. Despite this, as mutants in the Marvel Universe become more accepted, he even managed to almost become a Catholic priest; unfortunately his studies were interrupted by a villainous group known as "The Neo".

In contrast, Nightcrawler also has a knack for the spontaneous and exciting. He sees himself as a swashbuckler, usually comparing himself to Errol Flynn. He is, despite his looks, always charming and gallant, and several storylines contain Kurt's love life as a conflict to his religious nature. His days in the circus make him a gifted performer and showman. Kurt is also a jokester. He has a great sense of humor for someone in his situation. He always plays pranks on people; some even call him "Trickster" because his combined teleporting abilities and playful disposition enable him to play quite the joke.

Wagner has used a personal holographic device called an image-inducer on several occasions to produce a holographic image of himself as an ordinary human (occasionally Errol Flynn himself) so that he might interact with non-mutants in a normal fashion. After losing a bet with his friend Wolverine, however, Nightcrawler was made to walk through town in his normal form for all to see. To his shock, the reaction of the average person on the street was simply one of startled interest. He was even able to sneak a kiss from a surprised, but unafraid woman. Kurt was, eventually, attacked by a carload of anti-mutant bigots, but he prevented Wolverine from tearing them to shreds, preferring to be merciful to the ignorant. The entire experience emboldened him, and he has since largely forsaken the use of this device, using it only when absolutely necessary.

Family Relations

Veteran X-Men writer Chris Claremont had intended for the mutant terrorist Mystique and her lover Destiny to have been Nightcrawler's biological parents. Mystique, being a shapeshifter, would have taken the form of a man and impregnated Destiny. However, Marvel felt the idea to be too controversial and an alternative origin was developed.

After hinting for many years that Mystique was indeed Nightcrawler's biological mother, it was confirmed by writer Scott Lobdell in X-Men Unlimited #4. In 2003, it was revealed that although Mystique was married to a wealthy German, Herr Wagner, Nightcrawler's father was Azazel, a member of a race of demonic-looking mutants known as the Neyaphem which date back to Biblical times that were banished to another dimension by a race of angelic mutants. The storyline was furthered by the revelation that fellow X-Man Archangel (Warren Kenneth Worthington III)'s healing blood did not heal Nightcrawler, and in fact caused him great pain.

Nightcrawler's siblings include his foster sister Rogue and half-brother Graydon Creed from Mystique; and Abyss and Kiwi Black from Azazel.


It is also revealed that in a parallel universe, an alternate Nightcrawler fathered a daughter with an alternate Scarlet Witch; this girl, named Nocturne, is a dimensionally-stranded mutant bearing traits similar to Nightcrawler himself. Nocturne has since referred to Nightcrawler as her father. The demeanor of Nightcrawler is very similar to that of the Nightcrawler from Nocturne’s reality, so the two developed a close bond that resembles a father-daughter relationship.

Powers and Abilities

Kurt Wagner is a mutant whose primary mutant power is the ability to teleport himself, his clothing, and a certain amount of additional mass from one point to another virtually instantaneously. He does this by means of displacing himself through an alternate dimension briefly and reappearing in a desired, pre-selected location. He has been shown to be able to teleport distances of up to two miles (3 km) under optimal conditions, although this is usually his extreme limit, and he can become severely fatigued if he tries to teleport that distance. He has exceeded this limit on multiple occasions. In one case, he teleports somewhere over 50 miles (80 km). Via coordinates received telepathically from Professor Xavier, Nightcrawler has teleported an unknown (but presumably large) distance. In a final, dying effort to rescue the mutant messiah Hope, he manages to teleport them both from Las Vegas, Nevada to the mutant safehold Utopia, just off the coast of San Francisco, a distance of approximately 413 miles (665 km). Nightcrawler's teleportation ability is also affected by direction — north-south along Earth's "magnetic lines of force" is easier than east-west against them.


He possesses a limited unconscious extrasensory "spatial awareness" ability which prevents him from teleporting into solid objects within his immediate vicinity, but this ability diminishes the greater the distance he teleports. Because teleporting into other solid matter would cause severe injury or death, he will only teleport to an area he is familiar with or that he can clearly see at the time or has seen in the past. His power automatically displaces liquids and gases when he arrives.

The process of teleportation places a strain on his endurance and that of any passengers; carrying mass other than his body and clothing when teleporting adds additional strain through his body. Through practice he has been able to teleport with a passenger over a lengthy distance without exhausting himself. Extensive training has raised his tolerance for teleportation, but most of his passengers lack this tolerance. Therefore, one of his tactics is to grab opponents and make several quick teleportations with them. They usually become weakened or even pass out from the strain.

After Nightcrawler teleports, he leaves behind smoke and a faint scent of burning brimstone; this is a small portion of the atmosphere of the dimension he travels through when he teleports. His teleportation power is due to a biophysical/biochemical reaction he consciously triggers within himself. A loud "bamf" noise is always present whenever he teleports (being the sound of air rushing to fill the space he was just occupying). His teleporting also causes a slight change in the atmosphere before he arrives, although only superhumans with heightened senses such as Daredevil can detect it.

In addition to his primary power of teleportation, Nightcrawler's physiology is unique in several different ways. His agility far surpasses that of an Olympic-level gymnast, and his bone structure allows him great flexibility. His spine is more flexible than an ordinary human, enabling him to remain in a crouched position for a long time and perform contortionist-type feats without causing any damage to his spine. Nightcrawler's balance and bodily coordination are all enhanced to superhuman levels. He has the ability to cling to surfaces through microscopic suction cups located on the pads of his hands and feet. He also possesses superhuman dexterity, being able to manipulate items and fence with either hand, both feet, and his tail.


He has the ability to blend into shadows, both as a result of his indigo fur, and the dimensional portal which always surrounds his body and absorbs photons. At one point shortly after his initial introduction, it was suggested that he could actually travel through shadows (in much the same way Psylocke did after exposure to the Crimson Dawn) and this was shown in Bizarre Adventures, but never really touched upon after that. In the story, Vanisher removes some of the Darkforce that formed his costume and threw it at Kurt, who disappeared. He then reappeared from within the Darkforce on the ground, saying that it was like "a pool of shadow" and that he "fell right through it".

Nightcrawler has a prehensile tail, allowing him to grab onto objects with relative ease. His tail is strong enough to not only support his body weight, but also lift an adult man completely off the ground at the same time, and is deft enough to fight with while holding a sword or blunt object. Nightcrawler's eyes (which are constantly glowing) grant him a marked degree of heightened night vision.

Aside from the abilities granted by his mutation, Nightcrawler is a superb fencer and a very skilled hand-to-hand combatant, to the point of being able to stalemate super-beings as powerful as Captain Britain. He has also served as the team's pilot and medic when more qualified X-Men were not around to do so. He and Wolverine were also the mechanics of the X-Men's Blackbird jet for a long time. He is also recognized by other Marvel characters as the leading authority on teleportation, with Spider-Man and Daredevil contacting him for information and advice following their first encounter with Francis Klum (Mysterio). Nightcrawler deduced from analysis of photographs of a crime scene that a man had been killed by someone else teleporting inside the victim, despite having never witnessed such a thing before.

For a long period, Kurt's body housed the Soulsword. Magik states that Kurt is attuned to magic and thus able to wield her Soulsword and Pixie's Souldagger.


Sources from en.wikipedia.org 

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