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Nightcrawler is beset with contradictions. Besides being a demon with saintly aspirations, he can pivot wildly from jokey swashbuckling to melancholy self-reflection. UXM #204, a Kurt solo story by Claremont and June Brigman, masterfully negotiates these facets. #xmen 1/10
It opens with Kurt brooding outside his girlfriend Amanda’s condo, questioning his role in the X-Men and the universe after a rough start as team leader and an encounter with the reality-warping Beyonder. He has brandy for breakfast and feebly engages Amanda in romantic roleplay.
Kurt is struggling with a loss of agency. His desperate attempt to use theatricality to regain it suggests his swashbuckling persona relates to control; Kurt, a former trapeze artist who idolizes Errol Flynn, navigates trauma by embracing the transformative power of performance.
The Beyonder has introduced doubt about Kurt’s ability to control his performance (sexual implications intentional). This is evident in Kurt's failure to seduce Amanda, and the accusation she used magic to make him love her. Amanda storms out, but Kurt’s not alone for long.
From the balcony, Kurt spies an abduction by the villain Arcade. He busts into Arcade’s Murderworld, where he has an adventure perfectly suited to his skills and fantasies; it features guiltless violence and revolves around saving a beautiful (albeit decidedly modern) princess.
Kurt’s ability to humiliate Arcade and “get the girl” legitimates his Errol Flynn-inspired masculine fantasies. More generally, it legitimates his theatrical approach to life; in the gamified reality of Murderworld, Kurt’s heroic performance is satisfying and successful.
Yet aspects of Kurt’s gender performance are queered. Kurt doesn’t kiss the princess, but does joyfully kiss a holographic Arcade in female drag. Kurt also equates himself with the princess, recognizing her fear of Murderworld as similar to his fear of the Beyonder.
UXM #204 doesn’t resolve Kurt’s contradictions. It ends with him sidestepping the accusation he’s a reality-avoiding thrill-seeker, no better than Arcade. It also foreshadows Kurt’s departure from the increasingly grim world of the X-Men; he’ll be gravely wounded 7 issues later.
But this lack of resolution fits the character. Kurt’s theatricality is both silly and deadly serious, and his contradictions both perform and transform trauma. He is, at his core, a figure of reckless yet infectious hope, fighting an uphill battle to (re)write his own story.
The character-driven long-form storytelling Claremont pioneered would give him many more chances to do so, most notably in the Claremont and Alan Davis-created Excalibur, a genre-bending action-romance-comedy that partly extends from Kurt’s character (and UXM #204 in particular).
Today's thread was composed by (e)visiting scholar Dr. Anna Peppard, who recently published this (brilliant) article on the oft-undertheorized female gaze in comics (a subject of deep relevance to Nightcrawler): https://themiddlespaces.com/2020/08/18/thevisionspenis/
