Nightscrawlers

wizardelfgirl wrote: X-Men Origins: Nightcrawler

I guess that's why I feel more attracted by the movieverse right now. Even if it's loosely based on the comicverse, it's a whole separate and unexplored world. You can manipulate the characters as you wish because canon there is not as solid as in the comicverse. Kind of like a fresh start.

Problem is, for a lot of Nighty fans, the movie version was lacking a lot. Fur, for one thing. No, seriously. And while I became attracted to Nightcrawler because he had become Catholic somewhere after The Creator made him, the movie version was a bit namby-pamby. Not like some ass-kicking saints I could mention.

So, to me, even movieverse NC has baggage.

Except for the ones we're working on here. [And, no, I haven't updated the challenge. The next bits do exist in my hard drive, but need tweaking with a vengeance.]

Elfdame wrote:

wizardelfgirl wrote: X-Men Origins: Nightcrawler

I guess that's why I feel more attracted by the movieverse right now. Even if it's loosely based on the comicverse, it's a whole separate and unexplored world. You can manipulate the characters as you wish because canon there is not as solid as in the comicverse. Kind of like a fresh start.

Problem is, for a lot of Nighty fans, the movie version was lacking a lot.

Oh, but that's exactly the point! It was lacking in many ways, meaning we can fill those voids whichever way we want! As long as we stick more or less to a certain canon, there's a lot of potential there.

Nightcrawler has a LOT of potential. And who says his powers are "weak?" Teleporting up to two or three miles away, climbing walls, disappearing into shadows, and having a naturally more agile and flexible body, greatly enhanced by training, is weak? Or "not-powerful?" I'm sorry, that's just crazy. Nightcrawler actually has more non-related powers tacked onto him that basically any other X-Men character. Spiderman has less power than Nightcrawler. BATMAN doesn't even HAVE a power, and he's on of the most popular right now! The issue is not that he's not powerful enough... it's simply that people feel he doesn't make sense!

People who are devoted to him, who really take the time to understand his background and be his fans, get this. We on Nightscrawlers get Kurt... he makes sense to us and we like him. It's as plain and simple as that. If we were writing X-Men, Kurt would be one of the main characters, possibly even the leader of the X-Men. He'd be a swashbuckling hero, and all the rest of the X-Men would be exactly the way we want them to be.

And it wouldn't sell except to folks on Nightscrawlers. Why? Because the X-Men is as popular as it is because no one character ever steals the spotlight. Sometimes it's Cyclops' story, sometimes it's Wolverine's, sometimes it's Storm's, and sometimes it's Nightcrawler's. Basically, THAT'S the problem with the X-Men comics today. Too many of the comics have been completely taken over with the storylines of a few characters. Personally, I think that's why M-Day happened: so that they no longer had to deal with background characters. And they've been slowly killing characters off. I think Kurt is probably next. Unfortunately.

But I'd rather watch him die than watch his character be destroyed!

Bored and necroing a fairly interesting thread here....

I tend to agree with what some others have stated -- Nightcrawler, as he had be written for some time before his death, was not an interesting character any longer.

I still think one of the failings of the writers is to toss material, or developed characters, that they have and try and create the new and exciting sell-point. Then, once the rush of excitement is over for that storyarc, the character is shelved again. Few escape it.

Killing off Nightcrawler, I suppose, was a strategic way to deal with a problematic character -- at least in a sense. The problem is that it was a cheap shot. No one had done anything with him for years; not since Robertson. Writers wanted an impact death, so instead of taking an often used character for it, they dusted off a little used, but formerly loved one.

The thing is, I'm not sure the writers are aware that, with their new practice for fast easy fixes for action, they are not inspiring long-term devotion to the book or sales. By encouraging the 5 issue then closure thing, they are pretty much ensuring that the title is easy to drop. The same with having such flat interchangeable characters. It may do the trick for short term sales, but doesn't do it for long-term readership.

To start building an actual fan-base again, that is not reliant on the movie-verse, they need to build actual believable characters and allow readers to grow fond of them. You know, see the characters do something other than kick butt. To put it in different terms, it is the difference in a single player console game and a large mmorpg. The half life of a single player is what, a month, maybe two? Yet people play mmorpgs for years and years.

Back to topic I suppose....if a writer took the time to clean up the mess of Nightcrawler's character, he would have the potential to be a good selling point, or at least a necessary one for the development of other characters in the cast.

*edit to clarify that last comment

That is only if the writer used the character to his full potential, rather than the borderline priest figure he'd been portrayed as. Old-timers remember that Nightcrawler had many failings and uncertainties. He was often lonely and despaired of ever having a semblence of a normal life. He used humour to cover it.




[Edited on 14/1/11 by Matary]

Agreed. Though I don't believe readers stopped caring about him, and in 'Pixie Strikes Back 'his guest appearance was more entertaining than all the appearances of Scott, Logan and Emma combined. But, I agree about the quick fix and no long term pay-offs. I think it could be a generational thing, I noticed most people working at Marvel now came in as fans in the 90's so they don't know how awesome Kurt is.