Nightcrawler

Kurt Wagner, also known as the Nightcrawler, is a character from the Marvel comics.

Kurt is a prominent member of the X-Men and former member and leader of Excalibur. He possessed the Neyaphemian ability of teleportation, as well as incredible agility, wall scaling and a prehensile tail. Nightcrawler is a devout Catholic, contrasting his demonic appearance. He is a highly skilled swordsmen and former circus acrobat.

Personality
Nightcrawler is a devout Catholic and a very friendly character. Generally polite and cheeky, he is very protective of his friends and does whatever he can to help them, teleporting them to safety, helping infiltrate the Weapon X facility or even snoop on the adults on Rogue's behalf. Nightcrawler's friendliness and eagerness to interact with others sometimes leads to him being dismissed when trying to introduce himself, notable when Wolverine, Storm, Beast and Mystique generally dismiss him. However, he is seen to be respected by the other members.

In the official games, Wolverine has great respect for Nightcrawler's martial arts ability and finds it surprising Nightcrawler prefers to be against violence despite having a talent for it.

In the original timeline, Nightcrawler is generally portrayed as somewhat ashamed of his mutation, religious and timid mostly due to being brainwashed into assassinating the president which clearly had a strong effect as well as mutants were more openly discriminated. His interaction with Mystique shows that he believes she should try and look like human.

In the revised timeline, Nightcrawler is proud of his mutation to the point of announcing to Beast that he is blue in response to Beast's surprise at Mystique not in her blue form. He is still religious and dislikes fighting unless he is forced to do so, in order to defend himself.

In both timelines, he is seen many times praying for the forgiveness or the others like when Jean Grey died. He also is poetic and wise in a sense when he explains to Storm how faith is a better source of strength than fear or anger, he even pities the humans who hate mutants as he believes they are unfortunate not to understand what they see with their eyes. Due to his forgiving and friendly nature, not many characters dislike or hate him, except for Angel. Despite his pacifistic and timid side Nightcrawler is a talented fighter and is shown to easily hold his own against most adversaries and is very courageous when necessary.

Abilities
Kurt's mutant power is teleportation. He is actually opening a portal to and traveling almost instantaneously through another dimension. When teleporting, Kurt leaves behind a whiff of brimstone and a characteristic "bamf" sound as the air rushes into the space where he once was. After some training sessions, Kurt has developed the ability to bring more with him when he teleports, including water or other people. Kurt's teleportation range is limited, but he can travel up to two miles. He must also have visited the place before, or he risks teleporting into a solid object, which could be fatal as two things cannot occupy the same space in that particular instant in time. Kurt has a spatial awareness, which means depending on the distance he teleports he has a way of not ending up in walls.

This style of teleportation is physically demanding not only for Kurt, but particularly for others he brings along with him who are not used to it. When used offensively, the stress of rapid succession of teleports can incapacitate a normal person or cause nausea. It has been hinted that his physiology may make travel less physically stressful. His teleportation is more easily done following the magnetic poles of the earth (north and south) he can travel about 3 miles north and south and 2 miles east and west. His power can also be used more aggressively than this: He can grab a hold of, say, a person's head, and then teleport, concentrating in taking only the head with him (AoA), effectively killing his enemy, although in the 616 reality, Kurt has never done this because of his high regard for human life.

The upper limits of his powers were shown during the Second Coming story arc. Rogue tells Cyclops that Kurt has teleported over 300 miles in under a minute with a passenger. After he has been impaled on Bastion's arm, Nightcrawler teleports from Nebraska to Utopia with Hope and Bastion's arm.

Kurt has many demonic traits in his appearance. He is covered with dark blue fur, has yellow eyes, long sharp canines, and pointed ears. His hands and feet are both larger than average, with two large fingers and a thumb on each hand and two large toes with a toe-like protrusion on his heels (which allows him to grip with his feet). Despite his unusual fingers, he is shown to possess superhuman dexterity. He also has a prehensile tail that is strong enough to lift his own weight, he can use his tail to fight with a sword, grab things and can even hang from it.

The dimension he travels through constantly bends the light around him, making him appear in shadow during normal daylight and rendering him nearly invisible in the dark. There has been dispute over whether Nightcrawler's agility level is actually superhuman, or if his life as a circus acrobat has caused him to be extremely (but not superhumanly) agile, although it has been suggested that his spine is unnaturally flexible. Kurt also possesses, speed, and stealth, as well as the ability to cling to any surface, and is a skilled swordsman.

Trivia

 * A notable geography error appears in "The Winding Ways" (Nightcrawler Vol 3 #7-#11). Nightcrawler travels to Bavaria in order to visit his old circus, which he states is located in the Black Forest. The Black Forest region doesn't belong to Bavaria, it actually is part of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg.
 * Dave Cockrum actually designed Nightcrawler while still in the U.S. Navy, stationed in Guam, when a typhoon made it too noisy to sleep. His original vision, a demon who refused to return to hell for punishment after he failed a mission, was meant to serve as sidekick for another of his creations, the Intruder. He later submitted the character for inclusion in DC Comics' Legion of Super-Heroes series, which he worked on just before coming to Marvel. DC editor Murray Boltinoff rejected the character as being "too funny looking."
 * A calendar in Kurt's room shown in Nightcrawler Vol 3 #12 indicates that his birthday is in November.
 * Writer Chris Claremont had several different ideas for Nightcrawler's parentage, including Nightmare as his father, and Mystique as his father (with Destiny as his mother). The Nightmare connection was prevented by then-Dr. Strange (and later X-Men) editor Roger Stern, and the Mystique/Destiny idea was dropped almost immediately.
 * Nightcrawler's "shadow-blending" ability was deliberately ignored by Marvel at one point. In the 80's reprint series, Classic X-Men #11, the scene where Nightcrawler first discovered the ability was slightly redrawn and rewritten to remove any reference to it.