NightCrawler
Real name: Kurt Wagner
Other aliases: None
Identity: Secret
Occupation: Adventurer, student
Legal status: Criminal record in the United States, later overturned by
the courts; still wanted internationally as an outlaw
Place of birth: Somewhere in the Bavarian Alps
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: Eric Wagner (father, deceased), Margali Szardos (foster
mother), Jimaine Szardos (Daytripper, alias Amanda Sefton, foster
sister), Stefan Szardos (foster brother, deceased). The name of Wagner's
mother, who was presumed to be deceased, is not known for certain,
though it may be the mutant Mystique.
Base of operations: Muir Island, Scotland
Group affiliation: Excalibur, (formerly) X-Men
First appearance: GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1
History: 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, found
Wagner an hour after his birth, in a small roadside shelter in the
Bavarian Alps. She found his father, Eric Wagner, dead of a heart attack
on the road outside. Margali is said to have found Wagner's mother lying
next to the baby and dying, but this assertion has been called into
question, and not even Kurt Wagner knows the truth. 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 "freaks." Margali acted as Wagner's unofficial
foster mother.
Wagner 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's star acrobat and aerial
artist. Circus audiences assumed that he was a normal-looking human
being wearing a demon-like costume.
Years later, the Texas millionaire Arnos Jardine, who ran a large circus
based in Florida, heard of the circus Wagner worked for and bought it.
Jardine intended to move its best acts into his American circus.
However, he demanded that Wagner be placed in the circus's freak show.
Appalled, Wagner quit and made his way towards Winzeldorf, Germany,
where Stefan was. He discovered that Stefan had gone mad and had
brutally slain several children. Two nights after leaving the circus,
Wagner found Stefan and fought him, hoping to stop his rampage. In the
course of the struggle, Wagner unintentionally broke Stefan's neck. Then
the villagers of Winzeldorf, who assumed him to be a demon who was
responsible for the child killings, discovered Wagner. They were about
to kill him when they were all psionically paralyzed by Professor
Charles Xavier, who had come to recruit Wagner into the X-Men. Wagner
agreed to join the group, but before they left for America, he and
Xavier went to the Bavarian circus so that Wagner could explain to
Margali about Stefan's death. However, Margali was not there. She held
Wagner responsible for murdering Stefan, but years later, she learned
the truth and she and Wagner were reconciled. Wagner was also happily
reunited with Jimaine, who now lives in the United States under the name
of Amanda Sefton. Known as Nightcrawler, Wagner became a member of the
X-Men. Nightcrawler remained with the X-Men for years. Eventually,
however, he became a founding member of the British-based team Excalibur
and is now the team's leader.
Wagner has recently been told that his mother is the mutant known as
Mystique). To save her own life, she claims she had to toss the newborn
child into a waterfall, yet Mystique may have wanted to mislead Wagner
and may not actually be his birth mother. Wagner now believes that his
mother is Mystique and when and if new information comes to light it is
not known how Wagner will react to the news, or to Mystique.
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 195 lbs.
Eyes: Shining yellow, no visible pupils
Hair: Indigo
Strength level: Nightcrawler possesses at least the normal human
strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in intensive
regular exercise.
Unusual features: Nightcrawler has only 3 fingers (including an
opposable thumb) on each hand, and only 2 toes, each longer than an
ordinary human's, on each foot. Nightcrawler also has a prehensile tail
about 3 1/2 feet long, which can carry his own weight. His body is
almost entirely covered with a fine indigo-colored fur, making him so
dark that he seems to blend into deep shadows. (Contrary to appearances,
he does not literally turn invisible in deep shadow.) Nightcrawler also
has pointed ears and pronounced fang-like canine teeth. His spine is
more flexible than an ordinary human being's, allowing him to spend much
of his time in a semi-crouching position without damaging his posture
and enables him to perform contortionist-like feats.
Known superhuman powers: Nightcrawler is a mutant with the ability to
teleport himself, the clothes he is wearing, and, within limits, a
certain amount of additional mass which is in contact with him. He
teleports by displacing himself into another dimension (the nature of
which is as yet unknown), travelling through it, and then returning to
his own dimension at a certain distance from his point of departure. He
consciously determines his point of return. The entire process occurs so
quickly that Nightcrawler is unaware of being in another dimension at
all. Nightcrawler guides himself through the other dimension by an
unconscious, natural direction-finding sense. Although Nightcrawler
controls his teleportational ability with his conscious mind, his power
to teleport is not psionic. Rather it is the result of an unknown
biochemical/biophysical reaction which he triggers mentally.
When he disappears in teleporting, Nightcrawler leaves behind smoke with
a stench reminiscent of burning brimstone. This is a small portion of
the atmosphere of this other dimension that escapes while the aperture
is open. His teleportation is invariably accompanied by the muffled
sound of imploding air rushing to fill the vacuum left where
Nightcrawler's volume was.
The longer the distance over which Nightcrawler teleports himself, the
harder and more exhausting it is for him to make the teleportational
"jump." It is easier for him to teleport between north and south (along
Earth's magnetic lines of force) than it is for him to teleport between
east and west (against the magnetic lines). Under optimal conditions,
teleporting only himself and his costume, Nightcrawler can displace
himself a distance of about 2 miles east-to-west, and up to 3 miles
north-to-south. Making a vertical teleportation upwards is difficult and
dangerous. Nightcrawler has made a vertical teleportational "jump" of 2
miles by pushing himself to his physical limits.
Nightcrawler has a very limited unconscious extrasensory ability that
prevents him from teleporting himself so that his feet, for example,
would materialize below the surface of the local ground. Because this
ability is so limited, however, Nightcrawler will not teleport into any
place that he cannot see or has not seen in the past. If Nightcrawler
teleported himself into an unfamiliar area, he would run the risk of
materializing partially or entirely within a solid object. If too much
of his body materialized within a solid object, he would probably be
killed. Nightcrawler's powers automatically displace liquids and gases
when he arrives in the course of a teleportation. Nightcrawler's
momentum is retained throughout the process of teleportation: he arrives
with whatever amount of inertia he left with. For example, if he were
falling from a great height, he could not teleport himself towards the
ground in order to save himself; he would land with the same velocity
that he teleported with. He can subtract this inertia by teleporting
short distances upwards (as though taking two steps back for every one
forward).
The limits to the amount of weight that Nightcrawler can carry with
himself while teleporting, and the limits to the range of distance over
which he can teleport himself with such additional loads, are unknown.
When he transports a passenger over even moderate distances, they both
feel weakened and ill, to the point of exhaustion. Teleportation over
further distances could be fatal. Through practice, Nightcrawler has
increased the mass he can teleport with him. (He once teleported himself
and Storm from the center of a small island into the water just off its
coast without harming either of them). The upper limits of this capacity
are as yet unknown.
Other abilities: Nightcrawler is a superb athlete and an Olympic-class
acrobat. He can do a standing high jump of about 8 feet. He is skilled
at hand-to-hand combat and is a master at fencing, which he can even
perform with his tail.