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Kurt Wagner’s arc is not a story about accepting oneself - he gets there almost immediately - but a much more complicated story about navigating your lack of acceptance in a society that fails to share the comfort and peace with which you view yourself. 1/6 #Xmen
“The original concept was that he was an angry, bitter, tormented soul. You know, ‘I’m trapped in the body of a monster.’ Well, Dave and I both felt we’d seen that movie before.” 2/6
Instead, Nightcrawler achieves self-acceptance, more or less in his first appearance. Xavier asks him if he still wants to be normal after being chased by a lynch-mob, to which Kurt replies “Perhaps not. I want only to be a whole Kurt Wagner!” 3/6
Throughout the run thereafter, Claremont has Nightcrawler deal with the bigotry and prejudice that come with being a visible, oppressed minority, an arduous and exhausting process that requires endless vigilance and constant effort. 4/6
Kurt likes Kurt, but that’s not the end of his problems. He still has to learn to adopt coping methods and strategies for managing the irrational fear and discomfort with which society perceives him, without betraying his self-respect. 5/6
This portrayal runs contrary to a cultural myth that suggests self-acceptance is the end of the journey for marginalized people, a myth that denies the complexity of social realities and unfairly burdens the marginalized as the source of the perception problem. 6/6
And, just FYI, the quote of Claremont from above can be found in Joseph Darowski’s ( @JDarowski) book “X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor.” Great read too. https://www.amazon.com/X-Men-Mutant-Metaphor-Gender-Comic-ebook/dp/B00JR06JZO/
