It's Not Easy Being Blue: Nightcrawler Appreciation

[Karl-5]

Now I'm beginning to feel ethnically-deprived, being only German all the way back to grandparents on both sides. Oh well, one can't have everything, right?
As far as Kurt's skin color, maybe they originally chose white just because he's from a European background and his features are essentially Caucasian, so that's the likeliest possibility. However, I do think he'd have been better portrayed with a seriously darker complexion. After all, being blue, he is really a "person of color", in the current terminology. (Yeah, white's a color, but that's not the point.)
What may be more relevant is the image Kurt himself chose to present, via the image inducer. The writers could have made it anything, but they overwhelmingly had him being white and handsome, often in the image of Errol Flynn. What an opportunity they missed, when he could have been shown to vary himself through many other possibilities, even female!
I also don't think it makes any sense to show what he "would have been" without the mutation. Rogue should have taken only his powers, not his appearance. Unlike most other mutants (at least at that time), he was born that way. Maybe there is no other way he could have looked.

[DevilishRogue]

Well, I might as well throw in... I'm Italian, Czechoslavakian, Welsh, German, Scottish, English and Native American.

Some Pirate Kurt. Arrh!

[Karl-5]

Good grief! Pirates with sunglasses. Or are they swim goggles?

[Karl-5]

Wanna bet? ;)

How much? And how would we decide who was the winner? ;-)

[Bamf Girl]

What may be more relevant is the image Kurt himself chose to present, via the image inducer. The writers could have made it anything, but they overwhelmingly had him being white and handsome, often in the image of Errol Flynn. What an opportunity they missed, when he could have been shown to vary himself through many other possibilities, even female!

No kidding! As much as I like Errol Flynn, if I had an image inducer there would be way more fun hijinks I would have gotten myself into than just looking like an actor. XD

At least X-Men Evolution played with that concept a little bit.

I also don't think it makes any sense to show what he "would have been" without the mutation. Rogue should have taken only his powers, not his appearance. Unlike most other mutants (at least at that time), he was born that way. Maybe there is no other way he could have looked.

Good point. I think I like that idea better, really. Kurt is who he is because it was who he was meant to be. I would be happy if the writers always kept him as his blue, fuzzy self.

[TheMutantJinx]

The Kurt I've pictured without the blue has always looked olive-skinned and swarthy; just my preference. :)

Artists have pretty consistently drawn him with "German cheekbones" and an Anglo looking nose, though.

Aside from Raven being listed as an American citizen(which could mean any ethnicity), we don't know anything else about her.
Azazel we could make some conjecture about. In the dreaded Draco, Azzy implies that he is thousands of years old and also what ancient Hebrews based their concept of the devil on. That would at least loosely hint that he might be from that general area, correct? (So they could see him and build legends around him.) So Northern Africa, or the Eurasian border. Maybe he's Turkish. That would account for Kurt's nose. :P The Russian accent was cute in the movie though.

Random Turkish guys :) http://www.habermonitor.com/img/630x...-birincisi.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_kxPG6y8Qct...wnload_003.jpg

Agreed with the swarthy bit, but perhaps I'm biased, since I look like the darker side of my family anyway. (And I find it amusing that Benjamin Franklin complained about "swarthy Germans" coming over to America. )

Also, those Turkish fellows are very nice to look at. I like to think Kurt would resemble them somewhat.

[Sundowhn]

I wish they'd played around with the image inducer a bit more as well in the books -- that could have been fun.

I can think of three times that Kurt has been shown with a non-blue version being his normal self. The first I can remember is Cadbury from Excalibur. The next was whenever the X-Men temporarily lost their powers. I actually thought it was particularly sad, because he was the only one who stayed behind to mind the (closed) school. He said he didn't know how else to be or what to do with himself. Then there is X-men Legacy. Anyway, all three times, he's pictured pretty much the same. White/Anglo with black hair and blue eyes. Interestingly enough, those are the same looks and colouring Mystique used as her default normal persona of Raven Darkholme for many years, not to mention the "normal" Raven from the X3 film. It makes me wonder if she, like her son, was born blue, or if she didn't change until puberty like most first generation mutants.

[Sundowhn]

Agreed with the swarthy bit, but perhaps I'm biased, since I look like the darker side of my family anyway.

That's funny. My family has a dark group and a light group as well, on my father's side. (Mom's people are mostly of German descent).

[TheMutantJinx]

I wish they'd played around with the image inducer a bit more as well in the books -- that could have been fun.

I can think of three times that Kurt has been shown with a non-blue version being his normal self. The first I can remember is Cadbury from Excalibur. The next was whenever the X-Men temporarily lost their powers. I actually thought it was particularly sad, because he was the only one who stayed behind to mind the (closed) school. He said he didn't know how else to be or what to do with himself. Then there is X-men Legacy. Anyway, all three times, he's pictured pretty much the same. White/Anglo with black hair and blue eyes. Interestingly enough, those are the same looks and colouring Mystique used as her default normal persona of Raven Darkholme for many years, not to mention the "normal" Raven from the X3 film. It makes me wonder if she, like her son, was born blue, or if she didn't change until puberty like most first generation mutants.

Yes, I remember that. I thought it was pretty interesting, too. Maybe, being a metamorph, Mystique had an "extra" set of phenotypes? Even if that's not the case it's still a very nifty thing.

[Sundowhn]

Yes, I remember that. I thought it was pretty interesting, too. Maybe, being a metamorph, Mystique had an "extra" set of phenotypes? Even if that's not the case it's still a very nifty thing.

Yes, it is. I wish they'd do something more with her background. :-(
I also think it's a shame that prudish editors nix'd the original idea for Kurt's parentage. That would have been unique.

[Drelion]

I wish they'd played around with the image inducer a bit more as well in the books -- that could have been fun.

I can think of three times that Kurt has been shown with a non-blue version being his normal self. The first I can remember is Cadbury from Excalibur. The next was whenever the X-Men temporarily lost their powers. I actually thought it was particularly sad, because he was the only one who stayed behind to mind the (closed) school. He said he didn't know how else to be or what to do with himself. Then there is X-men Legacy. Anyway, all three times, he's pictured pretty much the same. White/Anglo with black hair and blue eyes. Interestingly enough, those are the same looks and colouring Mystique used as her default normal persona of Raven Darkholme for many years, not to mention the "normal" Raven from the X3 film. It makes me wonder if she, like her son, was born blue, or if she didn't change until puberty like most first generation mutants.

It was sad. He was all clumsy cause his center of gravity changed. Oooh my poor not so graceful Kurt. ~_~

[Drelion]

Yes, it is. I wish they'd do something more with her background. :-(
I also think it's a shame that prudish editors nix'd the original idea for Kurt's parentage. That would have been unique.

It's hard to establish a background for someone who either out lives everyone around them or fills them with bullets before they can speak. LOL


Yeah...I think I would have preferred Dad-Mom over demon blood 8/

I'm ok with Azazel...so long as he reconned to be full of hot air with visions of grandeur but really just a regular mutant.

[Drelion]

One of the very few renderings where they show his "texture" ^_^



And the tip looks smooth...oh my! o_O

[M.Hammerman]

I wish they'd played around with the image inducer a bit more as well in the books -- that could have been fun.

I can think of three times that Kurt has been shown with a non-blue version being his normal self. The first I can remember is Cadbury from Excalibur. The next was whenever the X-Men temporarily lost their powers. I actually thought it was particularly sad, because he was the only one who stayed behind to mind the (closed) school. He said he didn't know how else to be or what to do with himself. Then there is X-men Legacy. Anyway, all three times, he's pictured pretty much the same. White/Anglo with black hair and blue eyes. Interestingly enough, those are the same looks and colouring Mystique used as her default normal persona of Raven Darkholme for many years, not to mention the "normal" Raven from the X3 film. It makes me wonder if she, like her son, was born blue, or if she didn't change until puberty like most first generation mutants.

It sort of made sense to me in that story where they all got "de-mutated" (or I think it was actually "de-evolved"? by the High Evolutionary I think?) that Kurt would stay behind at the mansion and be miserable. For some of the other X-Men their powers are separate from their body (or appearance) but for Kurt they're really not. I remember him having some great, tragic line in those comics (which were otherwise pretty terrible) referring to Warren where he was all like, "How can he be happy when he used to be able to fly?" (tear) Though Logan had it worse--he was dying of adamantium poisoning, as I recall...

[TheMutantJinx]

One of the very few renderings where they show his "texture" ^_^



And the tip looks smooth...oh my! o_O

I love this cover. Of all things to focus on, they went with Kurt's tail.