23 Years Later, Avengers: Doomsday Is Finally Giving One X-Men Favorite Their Signature Weapon in Live-Action
Alan Cumming’s return as Nightcrawler in Avengers: Doomsday is giving the teleporting mutant a second chance at live action after more than two decades away. The Traitors‘ host first played Kurt Wagner in 2003’s X2: X-Men United, poofing into one of the most memorable introductions of the franchise as Nightcrawler invaded the White House in his signature puffs of sulfuric smoke. The movie captured his acrobatics, teleportation, religious faith, and demonic appearance, but it left one major aspect of the character behind on the comics page. Cumming’s Nightcrawler never returned to the Fox produced sequels, while his younger counterpart Kodi Smit-McPhee also went without the character’s signature accessory. Marvel Studios has given Nightcrawler an updated look for him to “bamf” onto the screen for his MCU debut. Our first look at the “elf’s” new costume for Doomsday indicates that Kurt will finally get to wield the weapons that make him more than the X-Men’s resident teleporter.
In a pic shared by Cosmic Marvel from the floor of D23, we are getting our first look at Cumming’s full costume along with his signature cutlass sabers. This marks the first time in live action Nightcrawler will be able to fight with his swords. Providing a closer look at the details of Kurt’s ensemble, his outfit appears to be an evolution of his X2 look, rather than a more comic-based costume that characters like Cyclops received. Kurt still wears a long duster, now decorated with a large red-and-black X across his chest, while the raised collar evokes the priestly imagery associated with the character’s Catholic faith. Twenty-three years after he first teleported onto screens, Cumming is finally getting the complete Nightcrawler package.
Nightcrawler Has Always Been The X-Men’s Resident Swashbuckler
Nightcrawler’s swordsmanship is not a random cinematic upgrade. Created by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum for Giant-Size X-Men #1 in 1975, Kurt is a circus-trained acrobat with a lifelong love of swashbuckling adventure. Cockrum leaned heavily on that aspect of the character for Wagner’s solo miniseries, sending him into a fantasy world filled with pirates, sorcery, and high-flying adventures. The character’s long tenure as the de facto star of Excalibur, the British X-team, centered the image with a seemingly endless collection of covers that highlighted Nightcrawler bounding off the page, saber in hand. His agility coupled with a prehensile tail and teleportation makes him a uniquely unpredictable swordsman capable of attacking from impossible angles, sometimes while carrying a second blade with his tail. The swords became an essential part of his identity, even if the Fox movies reduced his weapon usage to that of a dagger in his initial assault on the President.
Upon returning to the X-fold, Cumming shared that his work on Avengers:Doomsday was “healing” after a miserable experience making X2. Much like his character’s mother, the blue-skinned Mystique, the actor spent hours every morning getting intricate makeup painted and airbrushed onto his skin. He said at the time the process was maddening. After two decades of applying prosthetics, the process is less of a pain point. His updated costume follows the adoption of post-Grant Morrison adaptations the comics made, creating a self-referential circle that gives us the large red-and-black X across his coat and the high collar that became a staple of Kurt’s costumes in the early 2000s Uncanny X-Men. Alan Cumming has always been a fashion-forward favorite, but now he has his ultimate accessories and won’t be held captive by any enemy, especially a makeup chair.
