X-Men: First Class served as a loose prequel to the original X-Men movies, hence why it utilised some lesser-known characters from the comic books. Among them was Azazel who, in the comic books, was revealed to be Nightcrawler's father following a brief relationship with Mystique. That romance isn't something Matthew Vaughn's movie explored, while Kurt Wagner's parentage was later ignored.
By the time X-Men: Days of Future Past was released in 2014, Azazel had been killed off screen, while Jennifer Lawrence becoming a top star in Hollywood turned Mystique into the franchise's anti-hero lead.
During a recent interview with IGN, Days of Future Past writer Simon Kinberg dropped a shocking reveal when he explained that he and Bryan Singer had made a big change to the source material; in this world, Azazel wasn't Mystique's lover or Nightcrawler's father; instead, he was Mystique's father!
"There's Azazel," Kinberg said, talking about the autopsy photographs Mystique discovers, "Who we know is her dad, but she never gets to learn that."
This is a major unexpected twist, and a big change to the source material. Still, Fox's X-Men movies always shook things up (for better or worse), so we probably shouldn't be too surprised by this.
How do you guys feel about Azazel being Mystique's secret father in the X-Men Universe?