Talia Wagner
Talia Wagner is a female comic superhero who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Talia Josephine Wagner was a female human Mutant born in the reality of Earth-2182 as the daughter of that world's Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch. (Exiles v1 #4)
By her teenage years, Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch seemed to be living apart at their separate team headquarters, but were still very much in love. T.J. also attended public school, going to the local Kennedy High School, where she apparently did not use an image inducer to hide her appearance or identity. Presumably, it was also at Kennedy High where she met some musically-inclined fellow students, and they decided to form a band called the Butt Monkeys, dedicated to 'neo-techno thrash' music. As Talia developed her own mutant abilities in addition to the physical skills she inherited from her father, she adopted the codename Nocturne and quickly rose through the New Mutants training program to become one of the youngest active X-Men of her time. Everything wasn't perfect in Nocturne’s reality, however. At one point, Wolverine was taken over by the Shadow King in an attempt to murder Professor X. He was tragically successful and, worse, the professor's last defensive act was a psychic assault that left Logan nearly paralyzed from the neck down. Cyclops could not forgive Wolverine for this act, even after he was freed from Farouk's control, and after Jean Grey died in an unrelated incident some time afterwards, the first X-Man went completely around the bend and abandoned his mentor's cause out of grief and rage. Active as an X-Man sometime following all this madness, Nocturne was part of a small roster led by her father and consisting only of the Phoenix Force, Shadowcat and Thunderbird. The team was now coordinated by Wolverine at a distance from the mansion, using TK-chips implanted in their heads so that Logan could mentally transmit commands and strategy to the field, backing up Nightcrawler's on-site tactics. In one critical mission, the X-Men were pitted against Apocalypse and the dual threats of his chronal disrupter device and his newly-minted son, Armageddon. Fortunately enough for the heroes, Armageddon chose to reject his father's teachings and aided the X-Men against the immortal mutant. In the aftermath of the chronal disrupter's destruction, however, Kate Pryde was mysteriously gone and Kitty Pryde sat in her place, only a few weeks into her training as an X-Man. Nocturne thus found herself in the unlikely position of being a tour guide and "big sister" to the young woman she once knew as 'Aunt Kate'. The very next day, as Armageddon and Sprite adjusted to their new places in the X-Men, a vengeful Cyclops returned with his own Brotherhood, determined to cleanse his mentor's home of the man's murderer... and anyone else who stood by his side. Cyclops' team tore through the X-Men, with casualties and injured on both sides, until a barely conscious Nocturne was all that stood between Cyclops and the crippled and helpless Wolverine. Unable to reach them in time to stop Scott from killing Logan, she possessed the unconscious Armageddon and used his telekinetic powers to animate Logan and pop his claws into Cyclops’ chest, ending the fight. In the months that followed, Nocturne would continue to act as a mentor to young Kitty, and a growing attraction between her and James Proudstar, Thunderbird, developed into a full-swing romance. (Exiles v1 #42)
Talia found herself drawn to Thunderbird, the loner on the team. She had been dating his brother, James, back in her reality and it was interesting how alike they were. On their next mission, the Exiles spent a considerable amount of time just sitting around Department H with Alpha Flight, trying to find signs of the Hulk. While they were waiting, T.J. and John spent quite a bit of time hanging out and getting to know one another, and he even opened up to her a bit about the tremendous emotional pain he suffered, being a survivor of Apocalypse's brainwashing and bio-engineering as a Horseman. After he succeeded in knocking out the Hulk on his own, Nocturne even gave him a kiss later on, when they were talking about their respective versions of James Proudstar. (Exiles v1 #16)
Shortly after she began to open up some, the Exiles were abducted to the Mojoverse, and Nocturne and Morph ended up prisoners of the place’s mad ruler, Mojo. He wanted the group’s funny man to appear on the TV shows he produced but, when Morph declined the 'offer', Mojo ordered Nocturne to be tortured. To spare her from further being hurt, Morph did as told and eventually the remaining Exiles managed to free them with the aid of Longshot. Afterwards, Morph felt guilty for Talia’s suffering, but she reassured him that he was not to blame for Mojo’s actions. (Exiles v1 #19)
X-Men
By accident or design, they all ended up in the Mojoverse, where Exodus bought the Brotherhood's freedom by "selling" Juggernaut and Nocturne to Mojo. Talia tried to escape by possessing Spiral and transporting her and Cain back to Earth. Unfortunately, it was a Trojan Horse ploy and, once back on Earth, Spiral was separated from Nocturne and summoned Mojo himself to Xavier’s school. After a brief reversion into X-Babies, the mutants defeated their opponents and sent them packing back to the Mojoverse. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #461)
Shortly thereafter, the Scarlet Witch released another chaos wave that mostly restored the timeline to its previous state, with the exception of an overwhelming percentage of mutantkind worldwide losing their powers. The event was soon declared M-Day by the media. (House of M v1 #8)
New Excalibur
T.J.’s traveling companion, the Juggernaut, also joined the new group, just like former X-Man Dazzler, with whom Talia quickly became good friends, the two of them sharing the same interests. (New Excalibur v1 #5)
Sabretooth had registered an incident in the Multiverse leading to T.J. and Morph being dispatched to a world that resembled the Wild West. Once there, they fell under the mental domination of Pastor Xavier who used his telepathy to make them join others forced to serve him such as the world's Magnus Gang. This led to a conflict with Blink and her team of Exiles that were captured after the were seemingly betrayed by T.J. and Morph. This was until Valkyrie attacked Xavier after he killed her steed Elendil with him forced to use the greater sum of his abilities on her. This freed Morph and T.J. who helped Blink in killing the mad telepath but in his last moments he sent a mental bolt that killed Morph. T.J. and Blink mourned the death of their comrade with this being interrupted by the arrival of the Watchers who had come to arrest the Exiles for crimes against reality. (Exiles v3 #7)
Overview
Personality and attributes
The fact that her possession powers worked on a lunar cycle led to her inspiration to taking the name Nocturne. (Exiles v1 #4)
One of her hobbies as being a singer in a band called Butt Monkey that played neo-techno thrash. It was fast, loud and served as an excuse to vent serious baggage. They were not very good and were more a garage band who never had a gig. (Exiles v1 #42)
Her parents were Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch who fell in love due to their shared heritage. (Exiles v1 #4) Her father would often reprimand her and tell her to follow his instructions when operating as an X-Man. This eventually led to an argument with him as she said that she could not be like him. Nightcrawler had never seen her so angry until that point and lamented how he simply wanted to prepare her with the necessary skills to survive in the world. However, this came across as being too demanding and harsh with his daughter. (Exiles v1 #41)
She looked up to her Aunt Kate Pryde who always knew what to say. (Exiles v1 #41)
Among the X-Men, she came to develop one of the biggest crushes on James Proudstar. She thought him to be scary as he was quick to anger but the danger was one of the attractions she had to him. Talia ad said that she acted like such a girl around him. (Exiles v1 #41)
Powers and abilities
Her ability to possess others was the first power she ever came to manifest. Generally, Talia could only stay within a person's for around 12 hours or lunar cycle. Anytime she took over bodies, the brains of the host were rendered inert and left comatose for nearly 24 hours. (Exiles v1 #4) A counter to her body possession was wearing a personal disruptor field generators that repelled such an attempt. (Exiles v1 #42)
The hex-bolts though in reality was opening a portal to a side dimension and releasing a burst of energy. This was the dimension her father transported to when he teleported to locations. The reason she called them hex-bolts was to be a nod to her mother's powers. (Exiles v1 #4)
Afterwards, she came to learn a way to combine her hex abilities with her telepathy allowing her to create a psychic shield. (Exiles v3 #7)
Notes
- The Nocturne Talia Wagner was created by Jim Calafiore where she made her first appearance in X-Men: Millennial Visions v1 #2000 (August, 2000).
Alternate Versions
- In New Mutants Annual v1 #6 (1990), a similar character named Blue appeared in the Days of Future's Past reality designated as Earth-811 in the Multiverse. She was the daughter of Nightcrawler and Amanda Sefton who gained powers similar to her father but on a greatly enhanced scale where she came to be a member of the New Mutants. She and her friends were under the tutelage of Banshee at Xavier's School when they unexpectedly crossed paths with the New Mutants of Cable's era due to Franklin Richards' time travel shenanigans.
- In Exiles v1 #7 (2001), an alternate version of Nocturne appeared in the reality designated as Earth-36527 in the Multiverse.
- In X-Men: The End v1 #1 (2004), an alternate version of Nocturne appeared in the reality designated as Earth-41001 in the Multiverse. Nocturne was captured by Tullamore Voge and turned into one of his slavers. Aliyah Bishop came to save her from Voge, and Nocturne aided the X-Men in the final battle with Cassandra Nova. She was one of the lucky ones to survive the final battle, and lived with Nightcrawler and his family. She was seen among the survivors twenty years later at President Kitty Pryde's speech to the mutants.
- In Uncanny X-Men v1 #463 (2005), an alternate version of Nocturne appeared in the House of M reality designated as Earth-58163 in the Multiverse. Nocturne and her partner the Juggernaut were sought by Callisto's Marauders for her having royal Magnus blood as she was an alternate reality daughter of Wanda Maximoff, but was protected by Psylocke and Marvel Girl. Marvel Girl allows Nocturne to possess her in order to keep her out of the Marauders' reach, but she ends up taking control, and in a confused daze, flies away. Psylocke pursues, eventually culminating in a telekinetic blade battle, which Psylocke wins. This allows Marvel Girl's own consciousness to resurface. The three of them fight off the Marauders together and later help Captain Britain and Meggan prevent reality from being destroyed.
- In Exiles Annual v1 #1 (2006), an alternate version of Nocturne appeared in the reality designated as Earth-33629 in the Multiverse.
Appearances
- X-Men: Millennial Visions v1 #2000: (2000)
- Exiles v1:
- Uncanny X-Men v1:
- New Excalibur v1:
- Exiles v3:
External Links
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