This article contains spoilers for X-Men ’97 season 2 episode 7.On its surface, the latest episode of X-Men ’97, “Strange Land, Savage Heart,” plays like a standard legal drama, just with mutants. The Catholic Nightcrawler, always the moral compass of the team, volunteers to argue in defense of the anti-mutant bigot Graydon Creed against the fundamentalist Exodus, leader of the Acolytes. Along the way, the story has plenty of space for over-the-top action, not just because the trial takes place in the Savage Land, a place in Marvel‘s Antartica that remains in its prehistoric state.But things start to get confusing right at the beginning, when the demonic-looking, blue-fur-covered Nightcrawler refers to Southern Belle Rogue as his sister. Even more confusing, he calls the blond-haired human Creed his brother. But if you think that’s weird, just wait until you read about how Nightcrawler is kin to these and other X-characters.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});Mystique’s Family TreeWhen Kurt Wagner a.k.a. Nightcrawler first appeared in 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1, he’s alone and being chased by his German countrymen. We don’t really uncover much more about his backstory until Uncanny X-Men Annual #4 (1980), in which we learn about how he was raised by the witch Margali Szardos, alongside his “sister”/girlfriend Amanda Sefton. But almost immediately afterward, in 1981’s Uncanny X-Men #142 by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the blue-skinned shapeshifter Mystique hinted that she and Kurt may share a familial connection.A lot of things get hinted at during Claremont’s legendary 17-year run on Uncanny X-Men, mostly involving sexual orientation. Many of the characters were written to be queer, but Marvel editorial and the Comics Code Authority (the industry-regulated censorship board) refused any open same-sex relationships. Thus, Mystique and the seer Destiny were always explicitly described as just really good friends. However, on a less despairing note, Claremont also liked to use shadowy backstories as part of his plotting, setting up things like the truth of Wolverine’s origin or the mystery of the third Summers brother as a engine that would drive future stories.By the mid-’90s, however, Claremont had left the franchise and others took over, people who wanted to pay off plot lines set up earlier. Thus, in 1994’s X-Men Unlimited #4, by Scott Lobdell and Richard Bennett, we finally definitively learn that Mystique is Nightcrawler’s parent. That issue also makes clear that, by extension, Nightcrawler is the brother to Rogue, in deed if not biology.In her first appearance in 1981’s Avengers Annual #10, by Claremont and Michael Golden, Rogue was a youthful member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, then led by Mystique. Shortly thereafter, Rogue has a change of heart and comes to Xavier’s, hoping they can help her break Mystique’s influence. Over the course of several decades, we learn the full story about the two, discovering that Mystique and Destiny raised Rogue after she ran away from her strict aunt. Even though she does not share Mystique’s values, Rogue remains grateful that the older woman raised her and considers Mystique her true mother, making Nightcrawler her brother.And then there’s her other brother, Graydon Creed. Created by Lobdell and Brandon Peterson, Creed first appears in Stryfe’s Strike File #1 (1992), where he’s described as a complicating factor whose existence will tear apart the mutant community. Over the course of the Sabertooth miniseries from 1993, we learn that Creed is the son of Victor Creed a.k.a. Sabretooth, who fathered him with Mystique, then disguised as the German spy Leni Zauber. Mystique kept Graydon’s identity hidden from Sabretooth, especially when she learned that their son was a human, lacking the X-gene that made his parents mutants. Over time, Graydon grew up to lead the Friends of Humanity, an anti-mutant hate group, and his rage only grew when he learned about the rest of the family.Father FiguresSo, now that we know about how Nightcrawler is connected to Rogue and Creed through Mystique, we still have one more question: who is Nightcrawler’s father? That secret remained in place until 2003, when Chuck Austen and Takeshi Miyazawa brought us the infamously bad storyline The Draco, which ran across Uncanny X-Men #428–434. For as long as Nightcrawler has existed, his kind nature and deep faith has been a contrast to his looks, underscoring the franchise’s central message of tolerance by showing that just because someone looks like the Devil doesn’t mean that they’re actually satanic.The Draco flushes all that away by stating that Nightcrawler looks like the Devil because his dad is the Devil. Moreover, his faith is a sham and all part of his father’s diabolical plan. The Draco states that the ageless mutant Azazel, whose red skin and forked tail inspired humanity’s ideas about the Devil, fathered Nightcrawler with Mystique, who was then married to German lord Christian Wagner. Azazel resurfaced because Nightcrawler had joined the priesthood, which would allow Azazel to bring invaders from his Hellish realm.The Draco regularly makes the list of the worst X-Men stories ever told. Yet, Professor X and Magneto founded the nation of Krakoa in the 2019 House of X/Powers of X storyline, Azazel accepted their offer of clemency for all mutants. Writer Jonathan Hickman also had free rein to write his characters as openly queer, and even made Mystique’s fight to resurrect her wife Destiny a major plot point of the era. And with those barriers out of the way, the full truth of Nightcrawler’s history could be told.The 2023 one-shot X-Men Blue: Origins by Si Spurrier, Wilton Santos, and Marcus To, Nightcrawler—who was, at the time, operating in the place of Spider-Man and using the code-name Creepy Crawler… we don’t have time to get into that—confronted Mystique to get the full story, a story that Claremont was rumored to have planned decades ago. Years ago, while she was married to Christian Wagner, Mystique fell in love with Irene Adler a.k.a. Destiny. She convinced Christian to hire Irene as a maid so they could be together, right under his nose.Using her powers of precognition, Destiny foresaw Azazel’s attack and convinced Mystique to have an affair with him to prepare for his fall. But that’s not how Nighcrawler came about. Instead, the two wanted their love to produce a child, and so Mystique used her ability to control her body on a genetic level to conceive a child with Destiny. Despite Mystique’s attempts to hide Destiny’s pregnancy and the nature of their relationship, Christian confronted them, forcing her to kill him. Worse, Destiny gave birth to a completely blue baby, which required her to hide him from the townspeople. When those townspeople revolted, Destiny hid her child in the hollow of tree so she could blend in and get supplies. But when she had returned, Kurt had already been found, adopted Margali Szardos and taking the first step on the trail that would lead him to Xavier’s.X-traordinary LoveOutside of a few nods to the familial connections between Nightcrawler, Rogue, and Creed, X-Men ’97 doesn’t get into the full history. Yet, there are some thematic similarities between Mystique’s story and “Strange Land, Savage Heart.” Fundamentally, Nightcrawler argues to both Exodus and Creed that as strange and unfamiliar as their lives have been, as different as they may look from one another, as unlikely and incompatible as their actions may be, they are all connected. And because they are connected, they must find a way to understand and accept one another.That ethos drives everything that Nightcrawler does, from the way he practices his faith to his acrobatic swashbuckling against those who would do others harm. Turns out, he learned about the importance of love, in whatever form it takes, from his parents, Destiny and Mystique.X-Men ’97 streams new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.The post X-Men ’97: Nightcrawler’s Parentage Is Even More Complicated Than You Think appeared first on Den of Geek.