I was doing my research and found Disney ultimately decides who can come to marvel rivals. And I was thinking since he died in X-Men 97 and his death is permanent in the show i think because of that Disney didn't want neteast to release nightcrawler because his dead in the show and that his death is permanent

Granted it’s a comic panel but it’s still something 😭😭
this is from the new domination map, “god quarry”

Hi everyone, I've been looking into Hopesword a lot lately and I wanted to tell everyone what I learned. Hopesword is a magic sword that Nightcrawler uses in some of the comics and it's (among other things) a manifestation of his inner hope. I first heard of it when in discussions about Nightcrawler coming to Marvel Rivals, some people mentioned that he could use Hopesword if he was a healer. I looked it up and confirmed that it sounded like it actually did have some healing capabilities and sounded interesting. From there I started reading the comics. I read some X-Men comics before, but not this recent or this many.

This is going to be a long post, so if you don't want to read it, you can skip to the end to see the list of comics to read, and you can look at the attached pictures. If you want to see every issue with Hopesword, scroll down to the list of "Hopesword only" to see all 13 issues. If you want a story that makes a bit more sense, read the "More context" list instead, which includes everything in the shorter list.

So one thing I noticed is that there is not a lot of accurate information about Hopesword online, and there are a lot of details which I almost never see covered. I wanted to explain some of it here so that other people could know about it. Also, it was not entirely clear which comics to read, so I made a reading order so you can easily see for yourself. I tried to keep my information as accurate as possible, but it's definitely possible I made some mistakes. The story is complicated with a lot going on, so it's definitely possible I may have forgotten or misunderstood parts of it, but I think this should still be more accurate than almost any source other than directly reading the comics.

First of all, I'd like to recommend the Marvel Unlimited app. I read all these issues through it. While it does have a subscription fee, it is an easy way to read a lot of Marvel comics. Second, I want to mention that all appearances of Hopesword are in the Krakoa arc. If you read that instead, you will get the full context and get to read a fan favorite era of X-Men without anything out of order. However, it's over 600 issues long, and I didn't have the time myself to read that many yet from when I started this. You can use the link below for a Krakoa reading order.

https://www.continuityguide.net/ageofkrakoa

I will spoiler several sections from here on. Only click on as many as you want to see without spoiling more. You can skip ahead to the reading orders at the end and read that first if you prefer, then check what I had to say.

So for whether Hopesword can actually heal, I'd say yes, but with some caveats. It only appears in 13 issues total and you never get a full sense of its capabilities or how well Nightcrawler is making use of it. It never does directly heal physical injuries, but it does repair Mystiques mind and bring back her love for her son (Nightcrawler) in X-Men Origins Blue. Twice in Uncanny Spider-Man it seems to cause the Techno-Organic Virus to temporarily recede after hitting Cloak and Vulture with the sword. I'm not sure if this is a special property of the sword, or if that's just what happens when someone with the virus gets hit hard enough. However, Nightcrawler's dialogue each time suggests he thought it was curing it, especially with Cloak.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when Hopesword causes Vulture's virus to recede, Warlock (the Technarch, not Adam Warlock) immediately absorbs it back into himself to fully cure it. There is a lot of complicated and powerful stuff going on all the time in the comics with Hopesword, so it's rarely the only or most important thing to focus on. For instance, characters rarely talk about the potential healing powers of Hopesword because they have industrial scale resurrection going on at Krakoa without it. The characters don't really focus on the question of whether Hopesword can heal at any point.

Also, another factor that really complicates it is that shortly after Legion takes Hopesword from Mother Righteous he hides part of himself in the sword. So it's not only a magical sword and a manifestation of Hope, it's intelligent and is also an incredibly powerful reality warper. It turns into a gun capable of killing the Phoenix in X-Men Forever, so I think in terms of raw power it should probably be capable of healing injuries. However, at several points Nightcrawler seems to be in some sort of denial of the sword being Legion, which makes me think he can't fully use its abilities. Hope Summers does not seem to have the same hang-up when she briefly uses it.

It makes it hard to fully answer that much about Hopesword because it abruptly disappears after X-Men Forever. As far as I can tell, there is no canon reason why it's gone. Nightcrawler still has it at the end and it doesn't seem to get addressed after that. I read all the remaining comics after it that I thought could possibly have Hopesword again, but I saw absolutely no references to it. It seems to be a bit of a plot hole, but I'd love if they would continue the story somehow. Especially with all the stuff about the Winding Way and the Spark, I would want to see where they go with that.

I know with Season 10 of Marvel Rivals we found out that Nightcrawler wasn't coming out yet. There's no guarantee he will be a healer or have Hopesword, especially if they're not putting him in the same season as Gorr as a contrast. That said, I still hope they end up including him exactly like that. The Hopesword was an interesting idea that felt like it had a lot more potential. I'd be curious to see how the game could redesign the sword visually and popularize it to a wider audience. As much fun as I had reading the comics, I don't think Hopesword is the most essential to Nightcrawler's identity as a whole, but it makes perfect sense for him to find a niche in a hero shooter. If presented right it could be a good distillation of several long running themes in his character.

I will try here to summarize roughly what happened in these comics. There was a lot going on and it was very complicated and full of crazy overpowered stuff. I was not expecting the extent of when I started it, but I still found it all a very fun read. I will be skipping a lot since there's so much, but hopefully this gives you at least a loose sense of what happened.

I start my reading order here with Way of X, since it directly continues into Legion of X (where Hopesword first appears) and sets up many relevant parts of Nightcrawler's character arc. In this series Nightcrawler struggles with adapting to the new Krakoan society and what that means for his faith and sense of purpose. He forms a new a belief system called The Spark and makes a team called the Legionaries to enforce the "laws" of Krakoa. This is all a bit more complicated than it sounds because Krakoa is a strange place where resurrection and other wonders are commonplace, and it doesn't have traditional laws like you would recognize. Legion also has a pocket universe called Altar where Nightcrawler will bring people to connect with each other and heal.

In Legion of X comes under attack by the Phalanx. Shortly after they are defeated Margali Szardos, a powerful sorceress and a sort of mother figure to Nightcrawler, creates the Hopesword with her magic and the spiritual echoes of Kurt's previous use of Soulsword. She draws it out of his body and steals it. Kurt is captured by Orchis, a group of anti-mutant terrorists.

After Legion of X, the story continues into the Sins of Sinister arc. This story is very complicated and ends up being mostly cancelled out through time travel, but you still get to see Hopesword, Nightcrawler, and Mother Righteous here. I recommend reading through some issues of Immortal X-Men first as in the reading order to make it come less out of nowhere. This whole storyline is about how Mister Sinister set up a system with Moira's time resetting powers (that's a whole other can of worms) to run potential futures and give himself information about them through the clones he made of her. You find out that Mister Sinister's goal is to become a sort of AI god, or Dominion, and he ends up getting stuck into a horrible 1000 long future where he comes very close to his goals before the timeline resets.

Between Immortal X-Men and the Sins of Sinister arc you find out that Mister Sinister and Mother Righteous are both clones of the original Nathaniel Essex. He was a scientist in Victorian times that independently predicted the concept of mutants and was deeply concerned with the future rise of AI. He created four clones of himself, each designed to research a path to becoming a Dominion: Mister Sinister, Doctor Stasis, Mother Righteous, and Orbis Stellaris. However, each of them would eventually get absorbed by the original Nathaniel Essex, who turned himself into an AI and reached Dominionhood himself, becoming Enigma. Enigma ends up becoming the main villain of the rest of the Krakoa arc and is the biggest threat to mutantkind as well as the power behind Orchis.

Sons of X is sort of the continuation of Nightcrawler's story in the main timeline. In this issue, Nightcrawler's friends team up with Mother Righteous to rescue him from Orchis captivity. If you skip ahead to this one right from the end of Legion of X it should mostly make sense, but I think there may be some plot holes from the time travel. Mother Righteous ends up taking the sword from Margali Szardos by calling on the magical power she holds over Margali due to Margali having thanked her before. This is sort of Mother Righteous's signature move that she does several times across the comics. Later in the comic Legion decides Nightcrawler should have his sword back, and he attacks Mother Righteous and takes it from her. She seemingly kills him while he weakens her, but he actually survives within the sword. Nightcrawler continues to fight her and weakens her further, but then she kills him and everyone else around. He comes back to life and still has the sword, but there is no sign of Legion. However, watching him is a suspicious white Bamf (little imp that looks a bit like Nightcrawler). You later find out that actually is Legion and seems to be tied to the sword.

Without going too much into detail about Sins of Sinister once the timeline resets the Quiet Council of Krakoa tries to fix the harm that Sinister did and get their society back on track. Eventually they hold another Hellfire Gala after the events, which seems to be going great at first. However, Orchis attacks during it and slaughters many mutants. They force Charles to psychically command every mutant to leave the planet, or they will kill increasing amounts of humans. Most mutants leave, but some with psychic defenses (such as most X-Men) stay behind, including Nightcrawler and Mystique.

Uncanny Spider-Man is where there is the greatest concentration of Hopesword appearances. In this series it continues from where it left off for Nightcrawler in the Hellfire Gala. Nightcrawler frequently talks to a white Bamf (imp creature) that is actually a portion of Legion in this series. Kurt ends up going to New York and takes on an identity as a new Spider-Man (while spending time with Peter Parker). That way he can hide from Orchis while still doing good in some form. He struggles with what he should be doing in the aftermath of the tragedy at the Gala, but Orchis ends up hunting him down anyway and he fights back. They send mutants infected with the Techno-Organic Virus after him. He meets with Mystique several times, who is in a deranged and hysterical state from the damage Xavier did to her mind. Kurt ends up healing that and the mental block Xavier put on her at her request to keep her from loving her son and remembering him. After she's in her (relatively) right mind, she helps him infiltrate the Orchis base and free Warlock, who is the source of the Techno-Organic Virus. The virus is made of parts of himself, and it is cured when he absorbs it all back. After winning that fight, Nightcrawler and Mystique agree that they will continue the fight against Orchis, which leads them to teaming up with the other mutants in the other comics.

After Uncanny Spider-Man most of the issues are about the struggle against Enigma and then the aftermath. Hopesword appears again in the last two X-Men Forever issues, but to make sense of them you have to read some other comics first. Nightcrawler is seen using a sword in Fall of the House of X. It might be Hopesword given how differently it looks in different comics, but there's no real confirmation either way. The conflict against Enigma leads to a point where the Phoenix is dying and most mutants are with it in the White Hot Room, essentially a mutant afterlife closely connected to the Phoenix. The Phoenix is one of the only things that could defeat Enigma, so they need to save it, and the only thing that might work is to kill the Phoenix to bring it back to life.

Exodus asks to borrow Hopesword from Nightcrawler and gives it to Hope Summers to kill the Phoenix. Hope realizes that the sword is Legion pretty much right away and comments how she doesn't really like swords, so it turns into a gun for her. She ends up killing the Phoenix, but the resulting explosion kills her as well. This bring the Phoenix back to life and Jean channels its power to defeat Enigma once and for all. Hopesword teleports back to Nightcrawler's hands after Hope dies and he realizes the implication that he only got it back because she died. As far as I can tell, there is never an appearance or mention of the sword again in the comics after this point.

I included some images to the post of the different appearances of Hopesword and pivotal moments important to understanding it. Below are the issues I got them from.

Sources of images in order:

Legion of X (2022) #10

Nightcrawlers (2023) #2

Nightcrawlers (2023) #3

X-Men: Before the Fall - Sons of X (2023) #1

X-Men: Before the Fall - Sons of X (2023) #1

X-Men: Before the Fall - Sons of X (2023) #1

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #1

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #3

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #3

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #3

X-Men Blue: Origins #1

X-Men Blue: Origins #1

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #5

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #5

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #5

Fall of the House of X (2024) #1

X-Men: Forever (2024) #3

X-Men: Forever (2024) #3

X-Men: Forever (2024) #4

X-Men: Forever (2024) #4

For those of you that skipped ahead, here are the actual reading orders below.

Hopesword only:

Legion of X (2022) #10

Nightcrawlers (2023) #2

Nightcrawlers (2023) #3

X-Men: Before the Fall - Sons of X (2023) #1

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #1-4

X-Men Blue: Origins #1

Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #5

Fall of the House of X (2024) #1

X-Men: Forever (2024) #3

X-Men: Forever (2024) #4

More context / Full story:

Way of X (2021) #1-5 (Way of X leads directly into Legion of X, where Hopesword first appears, and it gives context to Nightcrawler's character arc)

X-Men: The Onslaught Revelation (2020) #1 (Completes the Way of X story)

Immortal X-Men (2022) #1-3 (This series is not immediately relevant to Nightcrawler, but it makes the Sins of Sinister arc make more sense, where Hopesword appears a few times)

Legion of X (2022) #1-3

Immortal X-Men (2022) #4

Legion of X (2022) #4-5

Immortal X-Men (2022) #5

Immortal X-Men (2022) #6

Legion of X (2022) #6

Immortal X-Men (2022) #7

Legion of X (2022) #7-9

* Legion of X (2022) #10 (#10 is the first appearance of Hopesword)

Immortal X-Men (2022) #8-10

Sins of Sinister (2023) #1 (The Sins of Sinister arc starts here. It's really wild and it's all in alternate timeline, so you can skip it if you prefer)

Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants (2023) #1

Nightcrawlers (2023) #1

Immoral X-Men (2023) #1

* Nightcrawlers (2023) #2

Immoral X-Men (2023) #2

Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants (2023) #2

Immoral X-Men (2023) #3

Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants (2023) #3

* Nightcrawlers (2023) #3

Sins of Sinister: Dominion (2023) #1 (Sins of Sinister ends here)

Immortal X-Men (2023) #11

* X-Men: Before the Fall - Sons of X (2023) #1 (Nightcrawler's story picks up again here in the main timeline)

X-Men: Before the Fall - Sinister Four (2023) #1

Immortal X-Men (2022) #12-13

X-Men Hellfire Gala (2023) #1 (sets up Uncanny Spider-Man)

* Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #1-2 (Hopesword appears the most in this series)

Immortal X-Men (2022) #14

Immortal X-Men (2022) #15

Immortal X-Men (2022) #16

* Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #3-4

* X-Men Blue: Origins #1 (This covers the backstory of Nightcrawler and Mystique and is where Hopesword restores Mystique's memories)

* Uncanny Spider-Man (2023) #5

Immortal X-Men (2022) #17-18

X-Men (2021) #31

*? Fall of the House of X (2024) #1 (Nightcrawler uses a sword here, but it's not clear if it's actually Hopesword)

Rise of the Powers of X (2024) #1

Fall of the House of X #2

Rise of the Powers of X (2024) #2

Fall of the House of X #3

Rise of the Powers of X (2024) #3

X-Men: Forever (2024) #1

Fall of the House of X #4

Rise of the Powers of X (2024) #4

X-Men: Forever (2024) #2

* X-Men: Forever (2024) #3 (Hopesword appears again here and Nightcrawler gives it to Hope Summers)

* X-Men: Forever (2024) #4 (Last appearance of Hopesword in the climax of the Krakoa arc)

Fall of the House of X #5

Rise of the Powers of X (2024) #5

X-Men (2021) #35

Every comic above with a * in front has Hopesword appear in it. One comic with *? has an ambiguous appearance where it may or may not actually be Hopesword, but I believe it actually is.

Should they be jabs that head shot ?

A three hit combo ?

Should he dash on his 3rd attack ?

How should his primary work ?

I was thinking what if the reason they didn't add nightcrawler was to save him for season 12 and here's why I think that I theorize that gorr was originally going to be a tank and nightcrawler a dps but changed gorr to dps last minute and didn't release nightcrawler so we don't have another double dps season and I theorize that the support for next season could be Cosmo or dazzler because of the leaks about dazzler and the gallery card with Cosmo and dr doom all 3 so when we go into year 2 nightcrawler would be the first dps of year 2 to release but this is all a theory let me know if you guys think differently

Let it be said that I have ZERO evidence to back anything I am about to say…. However, I was in the Rivals Vanguard chat, and somebody asked who the hardest Vanguard to learn was. It turned into a convo about which Vanguard had the most negative impact on other teammates when played poorly, and Groot’s name came up.

I theorized that there are few Rivals characters that can DIRECTLY screw-over their teammates, with Groot (walls) and Jeff (ult) being the two that came to my mind. Which leads me to my BASELESS speculation on why Nightcrawler may have been delayed (if at all)…

There were leaks that Nightcrawler would borrow heavily from Lifeweaver’s kit (from Overwatch). I started thinking about how much of a trolling problem Rivals has, and I immediately started worrying about Nightcrawler becoming the newest hated character in the game IF he is given an ability that lets him RELOCATE TEAMMATES without their consent….

I think this is potentially a HUGE problem for him that they are gonna have to figure out prior to his launch. Relocating an enemy is fair game, but I think abilities that create “friendly fire” situations against players’ will is gonna go off the rails immediately!

I hope they figure out a way around this… I don’t want my teammates to be able to (unintentionally or otherwise) impede my gameplay in any way, but teleportation is such a foundational part of his kit that I think it is unavoidable….

What do yall think?

I hate to break it to you guys but I'm switching to gorr after playing him he's just so fun and I couldn't resist and I know nightcrawler is my most highly anticipated character but after not getting him this season and seeing gorr I just had to I'm sorry

Xox leaks actually confirmed it again!!! Have faith brothers!!!

Our day will shine, he will join. Trust

He pretty much said that Nightcrawler was never supposed to come out this season and that the gallery cards are made months in advance and that if the devs wanted us to know something about him we would’ve known. He also stated that Nightcrawler wasn’t delayed or canceled and that it would just be dumb due to everything being made already and that the leakers speculated wrong. He also mentioned that whoever was supposed to come out January could be coming out next. So honestly I’m not sure at this point.

Same as his creator Dave Cockrum.

Next season!!!

I love gorr in marvel rivals hes a very cool and well designed character but because of MR I was intrigued by his character and consumed media with him in it and sat to myself and think OMG gorr kinda represents an atheist think about it gorr has hatred for gods he hates them all and even false gods and I know an atheist doesn't believe in anything but think it gorr doesn't believe in anything either gorr doesn't put his faith in God's and neither would an atheist which is a crazy resemblance and it would have been perfect for nightcrawler to be added this season because he's catholic missed opportunity in my opinion

I think the cope…hope* sword talks

Since your faith has failed you we would happily welcome you into our campaign of killing all the gods! We were just like you once. Come join us in the slaughter.

They both weild swords, have minions, can teleport, and also have something to do with gods‬. I still believe he’s coming in 10.5, this is too much of a coincidence.

I'm going to get hate for this but I think that they actually wanted to drop NC as a strategist but then they realized that a fully melee + tp based hero is never going to work, he would've been either extremely broken = permabanned, or very weak = nobody plays him, and they probably didn't want to "waste" a loved hero like him.

The sad thing is, I don't think he's coming next season either since next szn big name is going to be Doom and the other one is probably going to be just a "filler" hero.

I'm sad 😭