Warning: This article contains minor spoilers for X-Men: Apocalypse. Read at your own risk.
One of the highlights in X-Men: Apocalypse was the battle scene between a young Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Angel (Ben Hardy) inside an electrified cage in Germany. The cage fight was also teased in early May, showing Mystique seemingly on a mission in the country to rescue Nightcrawler from the fight club that sees mutants going against each other. In the movie, we see Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique saving only Nightcrawler in the end. It definitely begs the question why she chose to save only him when she could have taken Angel as well.
Well, as noted by Cinema Blend, this could be because X-Men: Apocalypse may have been setting up the backstory of Mystique and Nightcrawler's relationship in the comics, which reveals that Mystique is actually Nightcrawler's mother.
Their relationship was revealed in the 1994 issue X-Men Unlimited #4, 19 years following Nightcrawler's introduction into the Marvel Universe. In Marvel Canon, Nightcrawler is the son of Mystique and Azazel, who were forced to give him up after an angry mob threatens his life. Gypsy queen Margali Szardos eventually raised the teleporting mutant.
While we may never know until the next X-Men film whether Fox will choose to follow this storyline, it will be interesting to see, and that rescue mission in Germany would make more sense.
In the movies, Jason Flemyng's Azazel was introduced in X-Men: First Classwhen Mystique left James McAvoy's Charles Xavier to join Michael Fassbender's Magneto. They join other mutants including Zoe Kravitz's Angel Salvadore and Alex Gonzalez's Riptide. Considering that First Classis set in 1962 and Apocalypseis set in 1983, the age of Smit-McPhee's Nightcrawler enforces this speculation.
Mystique wasn't killed off in Apocalypse, and with Jennifer Lawrence expressing her interest in appearing in more X-Men films, we could very well see her backstory with Nightcrawler played out on the big screen. It wouldn't be hard to imagine and it won't likely be a hard decision for Fox to include Lawrence in the next series of X-Men movies. She's one of the biggest names in the industry and the movie-going audience will likely want to see her return to the franchise.
Do you think it's possible that X-Men: Apocalypse is setting up to tell Nightcrawler and Mystique's relationship?
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