Nightcrawler's warmth is a large part of what makes the mansion feel like a place people might actually want to live. His humor and ease around friends matter, especially when s…

Nightcrawler's warmth is a large part of what makes the mansion feel like a place people might actually want to live. His humor and ease around friends matter, especially when so much of the outside world treats his appearance as a reason to fear him. Those qualities are useful in a team full of people who are very good at getting trapped inside their own troubles. Temporary leadership asks something less comfortable of Kurt. While Storm is away, he has to decide what the others should do and accept that a bad decision might hurt somebody. Being brave on your own behalf is one thing. Sending your friends into danger puts a different kind of pressure on that bravery. The encounter with Juggernaut and Nimrod in #194 is a good example. Juggernaut is an old enemy, but Kurt doesn't treat that as permission to attack him regardless of what he is doing. When Nimrod creates a new threat, the immediate job is to protect people, even if the situation looks terrible to anyone watching without the full story. That is a difficult kind of leadership to sell. Doing the right thing can leave the X-Men looking like the people causing trouble. There isn't a clean public reward waiting at the end of every rescue. Kurt's doubts also prevent his time in charge from feeling like a promotion that automatically suits him. He has to carry them while acting anyway. By the time the Massacre tears into this group, the loss of his presence in the field means losing far more than a convenient way to teleport across a room. It removes a friend whose judgment helps hold the group together.