Si Spurrier On Nightcrawler Becoming Marvel's Newest Spider-Man - Exclusive Interview
Nightcrawler is about to become Marvel's newest Spider-Man with the fan-favorite mutant set to suit up as a spider-hero in "Uncanny Spider-Man" from Marvel Comics. At the same time, Kurt Wagner's history will be explored in an all-new way in "X-Men Blue: Origins" #1, which will reveal new details and key moments about his origin, his mother Mystique, and their shared history.
With "Fall of X" destroying the mutant paradise of Krakoa, Nightcrawler and Mystique find themselves adjusting to new normals outside of their former home. In "Uncanny Spider-Man" by Si Spurrier, Lee Garbett, Matt Milla, and VC's Joe Caramgna, the five-issue miniseries will focus on Nightcrawler going on a new path as a hero. Meanwhile, in "X-Men Blue: Origins," from Spurrier and Wilton Santos, the new one-shot will shine a light at Nightcrawler and Mystique's relationship like readers have never seen before. We got the chance to speak with Si Spurrier about the upcoming stories and what X-Men fans can expect from the exciting new adventures.
Nightcrawler adjusting to his new normal
What drew you to the character of Nightcrawler specifically, and where does he find himself amidst the "Fall of X?"
Honestly, it was a brief before it was a dream. The opening phases of world-building for the era of Krakoa had presented this interesting situation where Nightcrawler was thinking about creating a mutant religion. Part of who I am and the career I've had in comics so far presents itself as when you have an awkward brief like that, I'm the guy that people turn to in the Rolodex. "Let's get a guy who can write a story about a mutant religion. Let's call Si." That put me onto deep thinking about Nightcrawler and the stories that I might tell involving him, revolving around him, and also the cluster of characters that I built around him. Almost immediately, I fell in love. He's a character who's fascinating for all the reasons that I find my favorite characters fascinating in the sense that he's complicated but simple. He's contradictory but utterly earnest.
It's a cliché to say, but the beauty of the character, the thing that encapsulates the character the best, is that despite being one of the least human-looking of the X-Men, he is the most human character in the entire Marvel canon, and that's a real privilege to write around. This isn't a downside, but one of the upshots of working so closely with Nightcrawler through all these phases of the Krakoan chronicle has been that his stories tend to be thoughtful, and they tend to speak to ideology and faith and things that I have a lot to say about and will never turn away from narrating.
The one thing we haven't had an opportunity to do is something that is also quite closely associated with the character, which is glorious, swashbuckling fun. I wanted that and I missed that. It's not something I've ever really been able to do at Marvel, precisely because I appear in the Rolodex as "cerebral, weirdo guy who writes about religion" and stuff like that.
So finally, we're at this point where, because of all the huge ructions going on in the Krakoan sphere, Nightcrawler has had to go into hiding, he's on the lamb, he's wanted for a series of awful atrocities that he's not really responsible for. He's found himself in this bizarre little niche where it made perfect sense to him in this state of high trauma that the best place to hide where he can continue to do some good is to put on an old Spidey outfit and bamf around Manhattan saving lives.
That's where we come in. He's doing good, having fun, and living his best life. But it being me, apropos the Rolodex and the cerebral weird stuff, there is a bit more bubbling under the surface, which slowly comes up, and we gradually realize that it's possible to be having a lot of fun and swashbuckling and saving lives, but still to be displacing and turning your back on the stuff that really matters. That's the core of the story and the dynamic that we're using in this tale.
What readers can expect from Nightcrawler as Spider-Man
Does he use being Spider-Man as a way of gaining his own personal freedom while also being able to cover up, potentially, the trauma he's experienced?
Yeah, exactly that. That subtext becomes text; couldn't have put it better myself. That's the crisis throughout the entire story: To what extent is doing street-level heroing valuable? To what extent does he have a responsibility to his people? His whole life, he's been a mutant, and because of all the awful things that have happened to mutantkind, he's suddenly feeling like he's just a mutant. That's all he'll ever be. That's all people will ever see when they look at him. It's just a mutant, and that's exhausting.
It's that quest to navigate being an individual, being a good individual, being somebody with moral righteousness, but also having a duty to represent your people to make sure that they are being looked after. All this is going on at a time when his people are scattered to the winds, if not dead, and he's not sure what's going on with them. He's simultaneously sticking his head in the sand, but doing his best while he's doing that.
Speaking about "Uncanny Spider-Man," what was it like to see Nightcrawler's Uncanny Spider-Man costume, and what was it like to work with Lee Garbett on this project?
Lee and I go way back. In fact, I think I'm right in saying he might contradict me. A story I wrote for "2000 AD" was the first published comic he ever drew, and that was like 12 years ago. It's been a long time that we've wanted to work together again. I actually seized the opportunity, because I know not only is Spider-Man one of his favorite characters, but Nightcrawler's his favorite X-character. When I knew this was coming down the pipe, having asked him a dozen times over the years and always he's been too busy, this was the time when I didn't stop nagging until he finally agreed. It didn't take much, because he jumped on it.
Yeah, it's been a joy — some of the best and most effortless designs that I've ever seen. He got the concept straight away, and he started faffing about with the colors and the design in a way that none of us expected, and it clicked. When you start to see some of the supporting character designs that he's put together, it's mind-blowing. It couldn't be better, and it's fun. It's always a great joy working with a friend and when they turn out to be an incredibly talented person as well, it can't get any better.
On getting things right for Nightcrawler's new adventurees
How difficult was it to balance the tone of the Uncanny Spider-Man book?
Walking that tightrope is the job, and I've got it right. The way of doing it is selling the swashbuckling half to the readers in such a way that it is joyous and exciting to read and thrilling, while always leaving that little shadow in the corner so that they know this actually isn't what he's supposed to be doing right now. That's quite a sophisticated little bit of subtext to mess around with, and it works because, increasingly, every time he tries to focus on the fun street-level stuff, the reality is sticking his face in the mud of the big picture stuff. He can't get away from it.
There's a version of this where it's using the classic quippy, one-linery street-level Spidey hero as a metaphor for PTSD and getting by in life. It works because every time it threatens to get too heavy, he can deploy a bad joke and bamf away, and it's like a mental release for the reader. You never get too stuck in his trauma and his melancholy, even though you are never allowed to forget that it's there just below the surface. By the story's end, by the end of the first arc, we know that it's all going to explode. That's the tightrope, and it works.
Going to "X-Men Blue: Origins", what was it like to revisit Nightcrawler's history and shine a light on a pretty established character's story and poking around at new elements of it?
All the adjectives: daunting, exciting, a privilege, terrifying. You will understand there's a limit to what I can actually talk about, because it's such a monumental bit of background interrogation, let's say, that to speak about it too much will give everything away. It simultaneously pays a great deal of respect, too, and has a great deal of affection for the current orthodox version of Nightcrawler's birth and the circumstances of his birth, and the story surrounding all of that.
What we didn't want to do was to say, "No, that's all lies," and throw it away and pretend it was never there in the first place. We've worked with it in a very clever way to sensitively dance between the raindrops and present something which doesn't take anything away, but does add a great deal.
On revisiting classic storylines and Marvel history
How does the new story have a shifting perspective?
It's an age-old but underused method, the narrative framework of an unreliable narrator who is not necessarily unreliable because they're lying, but because they can't trust their own truth. There's something quite compelling about that. It's worth saying with both "Uncanny" and the "Origin" story: They're configured in such a way that you don't have to know the big picture around them to drop in and to enjoy them. If you've read all the stuff I've done with Nightcrawler up to now, this will feel like a logical continuation. You're going to see a lot of cool Easter eggs and things that feel like threads that are continuing to be spooled out. If you haven't, that's okay; it's easy enough to jump in. So it is with "Origins" — you come in knowing that Nightcrawler has found Mystique, spoilers, and there's a whole bunch of stuff that we know about from the "Hellfire Gala," which all gets covered quite neatly at the beginning of this story.
That's all you need before we set off on this — "adventure's" the wrong word, because it's much more interior than that. It's a whole phase of soul-searching and revisiting memories, interrogating them, wondering why they are the shapes they are, all while we're still in Manhattan with Nightcrawler in his Spidey outfit and Mystique and it blossoms outwards. It's one of the hardest things I've ever written, simply because it's tempting to talk about it like an onion with lots of layers, but onions are not something that comes to mind. It's more like a rose. You peel a petal, and there's another petal below it. It's like that. It's this extremely poisonous rose, and there's something extremely beautiful in the middle of it if we can peel it down far enough without getting angry, without losing our way. That's the nature of the story, that it's a slow reveal for both characters of things that neither of them knew with a lot of shocks and surprises along the way.
What makes Nightcrawler and Mystique's relationship so interesting to you?
Because they're so different. Again, it's an almost mythical archetype, the child who has been cast out by a parent [and] becomes righteous. It's like I said at the beginning, for all that he's been through and for all that he doesn't look like anybody else, he is the most human of humans. This is a side note, but one of the things he likes to talk about is that within the world, there's a lot of prejudice between homo sapiens and homo superior, but "homo" is the genus. That's the bit that means "human," not the rest. That's just a species. They're both humans. They're all humans. To say that one side is human and one side isn't misses the point entirely, and he's the most human of them all.
Whereas Mystique, she's fascinating and wonderful and would be an utterly unlikable character if it weren't for the fact that everything she does is purely and pragmatically focused on love. That redeems so much — this idea that she and her wife have this centuries-old romance that is so overwhelming that it threatens to destroy not only everybody around them but also each other. They keep coming together and smashing together and then going away and coming back. It's this elaborate decades dance, which is such a wonderful thing to think about. Everything they do is focused on each other, so we can, if not quite forgive a lot of what Mystique does and has done, we can at least understand it in that context. That buys her a lot of points in my view.
The two stories are interconnected
What was it like working with Wilton Santos on this book?
I confess I have yet to see any art, but I'm a huge fan of his, so I'm very excited to see it.
How do these two new stories interconnect?
In the internal chronology sense, it was a bit of a challenge because the ... Let me see if I get this right. The framing narrative of the "Origins" issue takes place about halfway through Issue #4 of the "Uncanny" first arc. There's a point in the "Uncanny" story when we know this conversation occurs. There's some clever stuff in the "Uncanny" issue, which is about signaling to the reader that something has happened, a conversation has occurred. You don't have to go and read the "Origins" book if you don't want to, but you really should because it is wonderful.
Tonally, they're different enough, but not so different that ... If you imagine them all collected together as I hope they will be, it's not going to bump you out of the story. Without spoiling anything, there's a cute narrative voice which keeps us on track during the "Origin" story, which is borrowed directly from the "Uncanny" arc to ... I won't go into details, but there is a character in "Uncanny" who is a slightly metaphysical, slightly real, or not real, nobody's quite sure, and they play the role of the narrator in the "Origin" story as an external voice, which is familiar to the readers of "Uncanny" but won't be too jarring to people who are coming into "Origins" for the first time to keep us all on track. That allows the edges of the transition to be smoothed down a bit. I don't think it bumps at all.
What do you hope readers get from these books?
It's, funnily enough, the doctrine of the cleansing flame, isn't it? The Phoenix of it all. In order to generate new things and new life, you have to have these periods of devastation, and that's the notion behind "Fall of X." We've built this house of cards, we've never pretended that it's perfect, it's clearly got lots of holes in its foundations. Now, finally, somebody has come along and flicked it all down. That's fertile soil to be telling stories in. I'm always somebody who likes to juxtapose a very intimate emotional story against a big backdrop of stuff. This particular media works really well for me. The story of Nightcrawler and assorted other characters and the story of him and Mystique — all of it against this much bigger backdrop. We're constantly referring to the big picture, the epic of it, all the question marks. You have to remember a lot of the characters in this "Fall of X" phase don't know what's going on in the wider world. There are so many question marks.
It's really fascinating, really exciting. I have inklings of the next phase, so it's exciting to know what's coming down the pipe and be part of that. It's a great privilege.
The wall-crawler's debut is coming soon!
While seeing a new hero as Spider-Man might seem odd, Nightcrawler taking on the mantle should make for an exciting series, with Si Spurrier showing to have a good handle on the X-Men in his previous "Nightcrawlers" series. Check out our exclusive cover reveal for "X-Men Blue: Origins" #1, featuring Mystique and Destiny sharing a passionate kiss in front of skulls.
Marvel Comics
Additionally, check out the synopsis of "Uncanny Spider-Man" #1!
THE NIGHTCRAWLING WALL-CRAWLER! On the darkest of days, he is the spark in the shadows! After the devastating events of the Hellfire Gala, Kurt Wagner is on the run—and having the time of his life?! Swashbuckling about NYC in disguise, the Uncanny Wallcrawler sets aside his mutant angst and dedicates himself to the hero's life: saving civilians, hanging with fellow wallcrawlers, battling baddies, and hunting down the best pizza on the planet. But he can't ignore the mutant plight forever... Si Spurrier and Lee Garbett launch a joyful, sexy series that will shake Nightcrawler to his foundations — and have a hell of a good time doing it!
"Uncanny Spider-Man" releases on September 6th. Readers can pick up "X-Men Blue: Origins" #1 from Marvel Comics when it arrives in comic book stores on November 29th, 2023.
This interview has been edited for clarity.