History:
Kurt Wagner has resembled a demon in appearance since birth, but his powers of self-teleportation did not emerge until puberty. His unusual physical characteristics -- including indigo-colored fur, a prehensile tail, pointed ears, fang-like canine teeth, three-fingered hands and two-toed feet -- caused Kurt's mother to abandon her newborn son. Pursued by fearful villagers, she threw him over a waterfall to save her own life.
Margali Szardos, a sorceress and gypsy queen, discovered Kurt less than an hour after his birth in a small roadside shelter in the Bavarian Alps and brought him to the traveling circus at which she worked as a fortuneteller. Kurt was raised by a motley crew of circus performers, who bore no prejudice against so-called "freaks," and Margali acted as his foster mother. His two closest friends were her natural children, Stefan and Jimaine. Long before his mutant talent emerged, Kurt demonstrated tremendous natural agility. By adolescence, he had become the show's star acrobat and aerial artist. Audiences assumed he was a normal human wearing a demon-like costume.
Years later, a Texas millionaire who sought to cast Kurt in his American freak show purchased the Bavarian circus. Appalled, Kurt made his way to Winzeldorf, Germany, where his foster brother was living. But Stefan had gone mad and slain several children, and Kurt confronted him in an attempt to end his rampage. During the struggle that ensued, the young mutant unintentionally broke Stefan's neck. When the villagers discovered Kurt, he was assumed to be some sort of demon, responsible for the murders. The townspeople were about to kill him when they were psionically paralyzed by Professor Charles Xavier, who had come to recruit Wagner into the X-Men -- his team of masked, mutant adventurers.
Hated and feared for his strange powers and frightening appearance, Nightcrawler stood with his teammates in opposition to those who would use their genetic gifts to subjugate humanity. As an X-Man, Kurt learned to teleport multiple times in a few seconds, allowing him to attack foes from unexpected directions with uncanny accuracy. On rare occasions, he could teleport more than one person at a time, but it strained him tremendously. When the weather-manipulating Storm lost the use of her mutant abilities for a short period, Nightcrawler was designated leader of the X-Men.
Always a devout Catholic, Kurt later left the team to enter the priesthood. Subsequently, Nightcrawler returned to the X-Men with a renewed commitment to Professor Xavier's dream of human and mutant coexistence. |
