Other aliases: None
Identity: Secret
Occupation: Adventurer
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
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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 ft. 9 in.
Weight: 195 lbs.
Eyes: Shining yellow, no visible pupils
Hair: Indigo
Other distinguishing 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 fanglike
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.
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.
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 Olympicclass
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.
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