Nightcrawler Character 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 (May 1975). During the "X-Men: Second Coming" storyline, Nightcrawler is killed in an attempt to save Hope Summers in X-Force (April 2010).
A mutant, Nightcrawler possesses superhuman agility, the ability to teleport
across short or long distances in a puff of crimson red smoke,
invisibility in deep shadows, and adhesive hands and feet. His physical
mutations include indigo colored skin, 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 German 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.
Since his inception, Nightcrawler has had a regular presence in Marvel-related comic books and video games. He has 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 and will be returing in 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past.
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.
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Powers and Abilities (Nightcrawler)
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 in a puff of crimson red smoke. 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 (in one case, however, he teleports somewhere over 50 miles (80 km)). It can also be noted that 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 register 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." His abilities have interacted with Vanisher's on other occasions, such as when the two found themselves transported to various alternate dimensions.
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. 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.
In Other Media (Nightcrawler In Television and Film/Movie)
- Nightcrawler appears in the episode "The X-Men Adventure" of the 1981 animated series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, voiced by the late Stanley Jones.
- Nightcrawler (voiced by Neil Ross) appears in the 1989 cartoon Pryde of the X-Men, the pilot episode of an unproduced X-Men cartoon series.
- Nightcrawler is featured in the episodes "Nightcrawler" and "Bloodlines" of the 1992 X-Men animated series, where he is voiced by Paul Haddad. He is shown as a monk in a Swiss abbey, persecuted by one of his superiors and the townspeople who believe him a demon. Nightcrawler also makes brief appearances in the episodes "Repo Man" and "One Man's Worth: Part I".
- Nightcrawler is one of the main characters in the 2000 animated series X-Men: Evolution, voiced by Brad Swaile. He is much younger in this incarnation, a student at the Xavier Institute who is insecure about his appearance. Like the comics, this show reveals that Mystique is his birth mother and Rogue his foster sister.
- Nightcrawler recurs in the 2009 animated series Wolverine and the X-Men, voiced by Liam O'Brien. He appears in the episodes "Hindsight, Part 1", "X-Calibre", "Greetings From Genosha", "Hunting Grounds", "Backlash", "Breakdown", "Rover", "Aces & Eights", "Shades of Grey", and the three part series finale, "Foresight". At the beginning of the series, he leaves the X-Men when they disband, and he is later seen helping mutant refugees traveling on pirate ships. He enters into a romantic relationship with the Scarlet Witch and eventually rejoins the X-Men.
- Nightcrawler appears in Episode 5 of the Black Panther animated series, voiced by Nolan North. He is seen with Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine when they find out that Juggernaut is taking part in the invasion of Wakanda.
- In the film X2: X-Men United, Nightcrawler is played by Alan Cumming. Unlike the traditional versions of the character, in the movie Nightcrawler has blue flesh instead of blue fur. The decision to portray Nightcrawler with blue skin was due to the difficulty of creating a furry hide on Cumming. In the film, Nightcrawler is brainwashed with a fluid from William Stryker's mutant son Jason, in order to attempt an assassination on the President of the United States. He helps the X-Men infiltrate Stryker's base on Alkali Lake.
- Nightcrawler was originally going to appear in X-Men: The Last Stand but the character was written out.
- X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past actor James McAvoy confirmed in a interview that Cumming will reprise his role as Nightcrawler in the sequel.
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