Nightcrawler's Second CostumeWagner grew up happily in the circus, and his two closest friends were Margali's natural children Stefan and Jimaine. Long before his teleportation power emerged, Wagner had tremendous natural agility, and by his adolescence he had become the circus' star acrobat and aerial artist. Circus audiences assumed that he was a normal-looking human being wearing a devil-like costume.
Years later, the Texas millionaire Arnos Jardine, who ran a large circus based in Florida, heard of the circus for which Wagner worked and bought it. Jardine intended to move its best acts into his American circus. However, he demanded that Wagner be placed in the circus' freak show. Jardine drugged him to prevent escape but a young mutant child with the ability to sense other mutants helped Kurt escape. Appalled, Wagner left and made his way toward Winzeldorf, Germany, where his foster brother Stefan was. He discovered that Stefan had gone mad and had brutally slain several children. When they were younger, Stefan had made Kurt promise to kill him if he ever took an innocent life. Two nights after leaving the circus, Wagner found Stefan and fought him, hoping to stop his rampage. In the course of the struggle, Wagner unintentionally broke Stefan's neck.
The villagers of Winzeldorf, who assumed from Kurt's appearance that he was a demon who was responsible for the child killings, discovered Wagner. They were about to kill him when they were all psychically paralyzed by Professor Charles Xavier, who had come to recruit Wagner into the X-Men. Wagner agreed to join the group, but before they left for America, he and Xavier went to the Bavarian circus so that Wagner could explain to Margali about Stefan's death. However, Margali was not there. She held Wagner responsible for murdering Stefan, and created a facsimile of the hell from Dante's Inferno in which to punish him years later. Yet through the use of Doctor Strange's all-seeing Eye of Agamotto, she learned the truth and she and Wagner were reconciled. Wagner was also happily reunited with his foster sister Jimaine, who now lives in the United States and changes her name to Amanda Sefton, later becoming Kurt's girlfriend. Known as Nightcrawler, Wagner became a member of the X-Men.
Some time later, Nightcrawler fought Shagreen the Sorcerer, and became lost in various dimensions in his first major solo adventure.
Shortly after this, and once he had rejoined his teammates, a tactic designed to disable the super-Sentinel Nimrod backfired and Kurt found himself at the mercies of an angry mob without his teleportation ability. He was rescued by Shadowcat, Colossus, and Magik but feared he had lost his ability for good. His power returned but left him drained and vulnerable when he used it, again leading to self doubt about his worth to the team. It may have been these feelings that led him to use his "multi-port" stunt to disable Vertigo during the Mutant Massacre. This tactic left him unable to escape Riptide's attack, leading to horrific injuries and his subsequent coma.
While he recovers from these injuries, his fellow X-Men are apparently killed on a mission in Dallas. Not long after, Nightcrawler and Shadowcat leave to join Captain Britain in an adventure in the UK. They fought Gatecrasher's group of inter-dimensional mercenaries known as the Technet. The heroes work together so well, they decide to form a group they name Excalibur.
Nightcrawler's Excalibur Costume