| Posted: 06 February 2011 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | 2
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At the risk of thread drift, this piece, with one of the original X-Men and what was once one of the newest, got me thinking about when mutants in the Marvel universe began taking on more extraordinary appearances. Was Nightcrawler the first who didn't look fully human? It seems that since then, it's become more of the rule than the exception, with many mutants featuring bizarre appearances, much like the Inhumans.I'm curious whether I'm correct that mutants originally were basically humans with an "X-tra" ability but with mostly human appearances. Did that change over the years? •• I've mentioned before that it took me a long time to "warm up" to Nightcrawler. He seemed from the start so very much at odds with Stan's original conception of mutants in the Marvel Universe being people with AN extra ability. Kurt was a virtual grab bag of such, with his bizarre looks, his super agility, his ability to "stick" to walls, his teleportation, his generating fire and brimstone when he did so, his prehensile tail, and, of course, his later revealed turning invisible in shadows. (When he got the "image inducer" it quickly became yet another power. Roger Stern grumbled at the time that Nightcrawler was rapidly taking on aspects of Green Lantern, with the "Oh, look! My ring can do something it couldn't do last issue!" approach.) I was not at all surprised when Dave Cokrum told me the character had been originally conceived as a member of the Legion of Substitute Heroes. There Stan's restrictions on number and kinds of powers was not in place. Very close to the end of my tenure, in the Wendigo story, I finally "found" Nightcrawler's place -- as the comedy counterpoint to Wolverine's grim-and-grittiness. I was soon gone, tho, so had no chance to really develop this.
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