Nightcrawler (comics) - Publication History

Publication History

Co-creator Dave Cockrum originally designed Nightcrawler to be part of a group of characters called The Outsiders (not to be confused with the later team The Outsiders), set in the universe of DC Comics' Legion of Super-Heroes series. As Nightcrawler had been rejected by DC, when Cockrum started work on the new X-Men in 1975, he brought the character's costume design (and overall unusual look) over to Marvel.

Although an X-Men character for years, Nightcrawler did not get his own comic book title (written and drawn by Cockrum) until November 1985, when Nightcrawler, along with Lockheed, accidentally traveled to several alternate dimensions, meeting strange beings such as the Bamfs (the Bamfs originally appeared in a story fellow X-Man Kitty Pryde told Illyana as a bedtime story in X-Men #153). After various adventures, Nightcrawler and Lockheed managed to get home safely.

A second four-issue limited series appeared in November 2002. Written by Chris Kipiniak and penciled by Matthew Dow Smith, it focused upon Nightcrawler's decision to become a priest and his attempts to fight a group of slave traders.

In September 2004, the first Nightcrawler ongoing title book was published by Marvel. Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa with covers and pencils by Darick Robertson throughout the series duration, it featured the story arcs "The Devil Inside", "Ghosts On The Rails", "The Winding Way", and the final twelfth issue entitled "Happy Birthday, Kurt!". At the end of "The Winding Way", Nightcrawler came into possession of Magik's Soulsword, which was stored inside his body. The Soulsword has several magical properties such as dispelling and blocking magical effects, and severely damaging magic users (while passing through normal humans and mutants harmlessly).

The series followed Kurt through mystery stories of a supernatural nature. At the time, other X-Men subsidiary titles were steadily losing sales, and the Nightcrawler title was placed on hiatus by Marvel in February 2005, following issue #6; it did not resume publishing until June of that year. Despite the efforts of the creative team with "The Winding Way" story arc to tie in the previous stories, delve into Nightcrawler's past, and involve other X-Men franchise characters, the series was canceled with issue twelve.