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How the deaths of Mystique, Nightcrawler and more established real stakes for the Ultimate Universe, according to Ultimate Wolverine writer Chris Condon

For Ultimate Wolverine writer Chris Condon, killing Nightcrawler and Mystique off established that "anything could happen, anybody could die at any point" in the series

The variant cover for Ultimate Wolverine #2 — Image credit: Marvel Comics

Features by Jules Chin Greene, Staff Writer

Published on Tue Jan 13 2026

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Marvel's Ultimate Wolverine starts off with a bang, literally. The first issue from Chris Condon and Alessandro Cappuccio's series culminates in, spoiler alert, the deaths of both the Ultimate Universe's versions of Mystique and Nightcrawler, two fan-favorite X-Men characters, at the hands of Ultimate Wolverine himself. These deaths were a huge subversion of our expectations, because outside of the X-Men's Krakoan Era, we're not used to seeing marquee X-Men characters like Nightcrawler and Mystique die. I mean, Mystique has survived being shot in the head in the mainline Marvel Universe. In Wolverine (2010) #303, Mystique moved "most of [her] brain down into [her] neck" in anticipation. She's not an easy character to take down in any universe.

The Ultimate X-Men series from Peach Momoko doesn't include the usual suspects you might expect from an X-Men book, which left Mystique and Nightcrawler on the table for Ultimate Wolverine writer Chris Condon to put into his own story. But in an interview with Popverse, Condon spoke about how the shocking deaths of Nightcrawler and Mystique in Ultimate Wolverine #1 set the stage for where the series went next.

"It's kind of funny because we kill two people in issue 1. And then we don't kill anybody else until issue 8. But because of what we did in issue 1, everybody says that we kill so many people [laughs]," Condon began.

"So there has been this span of time where nobody's died, but everybody feels like everybody can die because of what we did in issue 1. So it's a really interesting thing to watch and to read, but I think that that's good because I do think you want stakes. And that was why we made the decision that we made in issue 1. I didn't know, necessarily, if they're gonna let me do it and then [editor] Wil [Moss] said, 'Yeah, we can do it.'"

A panel from Ultimate Wolverine #1 — Image credit: Marvel Comics

It's precisely because Mystique and Nightcrawler got killed off so early on that it created in our minds a much higher body count in Ultimate Wolverine than there actually was in the story. It forced us to reconsider our understanding of Logan's lethality. Sure, we've seen Wolverine have a breakdown (or get possessed by a demon) and fight his fellow X-Men before, but not necessarily in the same brutal manner that we see him use against The Hand or other hordes of baddies. Seeing him take out Mystique and Nightcrawler is a real moment of "This is not my beautiful house," our beautiful house being Logan himself, and how he typically functions within a story.

And to be clear, it wasn't easy for Condon to take out these beloved characters, especially Nightcrawler. Condon said, "It was absolutely wrenching. I love these characters, you know. Nightcrawler specifically was a tough one, but I thought we gave him a worthy death when we gave him some cool action before he kicked the bucket, you know. This is, you know, spoiler territory, but it's also the first issue, and it's been out for nearly a year at this point. But that was a tough one to write because I love that character, but I felt like not only with the pages that Alessandro drew, but also in the back matter, I put that piece of back matter in the prayer for Logan because I wanted that moment to feel genuine and feel not like it was just for shock value. I guess partly it was not shock value necessarily, but we did need to show people that this isn't 616, this is a different universe. And the things here that happen here have stakes. I wanted this to feel like anything could happen, anybody could die at any point. "

Personally, I can't think of a more effective way to establish the status quo of an alternate universe story like Ultimate Wolverine than that.

Popverse members can read our full interview with Chris Condon about Ultimate Wolverine here.

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Jules Chin Greene: Jules Chin Greene is a journalist and Jack Kirby enthusiast. He has written about comics, video games, movies, and television for sites such as Nerdist, AIPT, and Multiverse of Color.