Nightcrawler is Kurt Wagner. He is a mutant.His primary mutant power is the ability to teleport, subject to certain limitations. His teleportation is accomplished by interdimensional travel, leaving behind him a cloud of sulfurous smoke that escapes from the dimension he travels through. His mutations manifested in childhood as fuzzy blue skin, a barbed prehensile tail, hands and feet with only three digits, and glowing yellow eyes. Nightcrawler can cling to walls and ceilings, and is able to become nearly invisible in shadow or low light. He is also an accomplished gymnast and swordfighter.Nightcrawler is a man of a strong Catholic faith, and has completed the course of study required to become a priest.His body is sometimes covered in symbols of Angelic Script, one for every sin, though lately these have disappeared in the comic book series.Nightcrawler was abandoned by his mother, the radical mutant Mystique, when he was a baby.Soon after, he was found by a Gypsy fortune-teller and given the name Kurt Wagner. The fortune teller raised him as her adopted son in a traveling German circus, where he worked as an acrobat until the circus went bankrupt. He then made his way to the swamps of Florida, supposedly to perform with another circus, this one owned by an unscrupulous fellow named Amos Jardine. Jardine had no use for Nightcrawler's talent in performance and shot him full of a serum that prevented him from teleporting, putting him in a cage to be exhibited as a freak. After escaping from Jardine, Nightcrawler made his way back to Germany in time to catch his step-brother Stephan murdering a number of children while demonically possessed. In trying to stop his step-brother from killing any more, Nightcrawler accidentally killed Stephan, and was chased by an angry mob of villagers who thought he was a demon due to his appearance and the death of Stephan. It was at this time that Professor Charles Xavier arrived to stop the mob and offer Nightcrawler the chance to escape to America and join the X-Men.In Latin America, Nightcrawler is called Predicador ( preacher ).