X-Men Pin-up FRAMED #48 Nightcrawler vs Mystique by Joe Madureira

Description

The first inkling of a Mystique/Nightcrawler relationship came in UXM #141-142, the original “Days of Future Past” storyline, which introduced the whole “future ruled by Sentinels” idea to the X-titles. Mystique, who was a villain from the Ms. Marvel series, was trying to arrange the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly. Kitty Pryde was possessed by her future self, sent back in time by Rachel Summers, to try and stop Mystique. And somewhere in there, Nightcrawler saw Mystique… and recognized her from somewhere. The original plan from Claremont was that Mystique, a shapechanger based in feminine form, was actually Kurt’s father. Drunk and amnesiac after the events of World War II, Mystique was taken in by Irene Adler (Destiny), and the two of them had a child, Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler). Marvel being a corporate-run company that, for a while, didn’t even allow the word “homosexual” to appear in their books, quickly informed Claremont of the Great Displeasure he would find if he were to pursue that plot thread. It was thusly dropped, except for one scene in Murderworld (UXM #177) where Mystique showed that she was capable of killing anyone, even her adoptive daughter Rogue, except Nightcrawler. Cut ahead to the 1990s. Claremont was long gone, and Lobdell and Niceiza were left with the unpleasant task of cleaning up his loose plot ends. They decided that Kurt would be the son of Mystique, but Mystique would be his mother, not his father. The father, unrevealed, was implied to be some nameless German baron. Rogue, as Mystique’s foster daughter, is thus Kurt’s sister-by-law. It should be noted that the X-writers also have had Sabretooth briefly be attached to Mystique, with the offspring of that happy union being the nonpowered Graydon Creed, making him a half-brother of Kurt. All of the above was revealed in X-Men Unlimited #4, which is, quite possibly, the single most ignorable comic book in recent history, and thus highly suspect as a source of revelation on any subject. One hoped future Marvel writers would ignore the “history” revealed in X-Men Unlimited #4 just as blithely as X-Men Unlimited #4 ignored the history it was built on. Unfortunately, issues circa Uncanny X-Men #428 and following pick up on that same storyline, exploring Kurt’s parentage in “The Draco.” Now, apparently, count Christian Wagner and his wife (Mystique) wanted children, but Christian was infertile. Mystique then proceededs to see every available man in sight, as well as an in-vitro specialist, in order to get herself pregnant. Eventually, she meets the perfect man, has an affair, gets pregnant, and then realizes that the father of her child is Azazel, a red-skinned, pointy-eared guy who hails from “La Isla des Demonas” and has his own plans for the infant. Picking up from the events of Unlimited #4, Mystique gives birth, is pursued by a lynch mob, chucks the baby off a cliff, and doesn’t notice when baby Kurt is rescued. There are still numerous issues left to this storyline, and it’s not expected that it will make the best sense, but after all this time the answer seems to be in front of us. Meanwhile, in summary: Mystique and Azazel are Kurt’s parents, making Rogue his foster sister and Graydon creed his half-brother (via Sabretooth).

Frame is shrinkwrapped until time of purchase. Ships boxed with packing peanuts.

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