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Marvel’s Nightcrawler was originally created as a literal demon, but then X-Men co-creator Jack Kirby got there first with DC's Etrigan the Demon
The X-Men’s Nightcrawler would have been an actual demon if it wasn’t for Jack Kirby’s Etrigan
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Have you ever noticed how demonic Nightcrawler looks? That’s because he was originally designed to be an actual demon.
When Marvel needed new characters for the X-Men, artist Dave Cockrum turned to his sketchbook, which included a rejected Legion of Super-Heroes character called Nightcrawler. Cockrum had created the character after staying up all night during a typhoon. The storm and the darkness had created some scary visuals, frightening Cockrum and his wife, but inspiring the artist to create a new character.
“Wouldn’t it be fun if he was a demon and he could teleport and run up walls and he howled like an animal…and all kinds of weird stuff,” Cockrum said during an interview for Fantagraphics’ The X-Men Companion. “I put him in as a sidekick to a character I called Intruder who wore a chrome skull and a black costume with chrome gloves and boots. He was a Batman type with a Robin character.”
However, the creation of Jack Kirby’s Etrigan the Demon caused Cockrum to take the character in a different direction.
“My storyline at the time was that he was a legitimate, honest-to-God demon. He had screwed up somehow or other and rather than go back and face punishment, he decided to stay up here and help the good, the other side. I dropped the whole demon shtick when [Jack] Kirby came out with his Demon. It seemed kind of superfluous then.”
Demon or no demon, DC wasn’t interested.
“I proposed four new Legionnaires, and Nightcrawler was one of them. But [then Legion of Superheroes editor] Murray Boltinoff’s response was that he was too weird looking,” Cockrum said.
Luckily the demonic look was no problem for the X-Men. In fact, Nightcrawler being reimagined as a mutant was the perfect explanation for his demonic look.
Nightcrawler made his debut in Giant-Size X-Men #1. The book was a hit, propelling the X-Men to new levels of stardom.
Just think, things might have gone differently if the weather had been peaceful the night Cockrum created the character.
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