Disney+ has brought with it a huge revival of fondly remembered cartoons. Among them is one interesting superhero show with a faith-based episode you may have forgotten.

With this television revival, Relevant Magazine took a look back on one particularly spiritual moment in X-Men.

In the franchise's animated series, Nightcrawler, a conversation between the skeptical Wolverine and the mutant Nightcrawler addresses the love of God, among other spiritual concepts.

Theologically surprising with the information presented, the highlights show how the two fictional beings spoke about Christian themes.

Why do bad things happen to good people? The age-old question of faith comes up in Wolverine and Nightcrawler's conversation. In the episode, the two also address the persistence of faith.

Wolverine, addressing Nightcrawler, asks "What kind of God would let man do this to me?" during a time of pain.

Nightcrawler's response is one of comfort: “Our ability to understand God’s purpose is limited, but we take comfort in the fact that His love is limitless.”

Len Uhley, who wrote Nightcrawler, has worked in animation for many years, including feature work for VeggieTales among other franchises.

Uhley says he grew up a fan of DC Comics, with his favourite superheroes consisting of the Green Lantern, Batman, and Superman.

For Uhley, the messages embedded in the comics were lessons that have stayed with him, even today. He credits this to the experience and talent of the comic's writers.

"I think all of the people that were involved with the show were very faithful to the comics and, at the same time, expanded in different directions. They were doing things that were good storytelling about people, even though they were in long underwear and capes," Uhley says.

"Anybody who really wants to be a writer is foolish enough to think that other people will identify with what you have to say about the human condition. This is what they were doing on the X-Men series. They were doing these wonderful little half-hour dramas or melodramas or whatever you want to call them. It wasn’t just about things going boom. It was about feelings and interpersonal relationships. And, yes, things were also exploding occasionally."

When the X-Men comic book series began, the point was to provide those subliminal lessons.

"The subtext was racism — the mutants wanting to be accepted by society. When Eric Lewald, who was the showrunner on the original X-Men series, got to do this job, he took that notion and ran with it," Uhley explained.

"We’re all searching for meaning. I just happen to have an unusual opportunity to explore that. It was probably the first time it was discussed in a mainstream animated series."

Uhley worked for other shows with some faith-based content, but says X-Men: the Animated Series was the first time the topic of faith was really explored in a superhero show.

Despite the allegations by some that Wolverine is a Christian, Uhley disagrees.

"Just to do a little backstory on Wolverine the character: This is a guy who, at the time of the series, was 95 years old. As he says in the cartoon, he’s seen too much, he’s lived too long; he’s a bitter fellow. He may have had faith of one sort or another at one point, but it got beaten out of him by all of the horrible things that he’s seen and all of the horrible stuff that was done to him. Remember, he was treated as a lab specimen — that’s how he got those claws. Not a sunny disposition," Uhley explains.

The writer continues: "So, it’s not like he was suddenly a Christian or became a Christian. Remember, at one point in the comic books, he was a Buddhist. I think he probably might have had some exposure to faith in the past but maybe he soured on it. That happens to people. They step away from it — maybe later in life, they come back to it."

The episode featuring the conversation between Wolverine and Nightcrawler ends with Wolverine kneeling and reading the Bible.

Uhley notes that he does not believe Wolverine had a conversion experience, but that he was, perhaps, exploring.

"Maybe he’s getting in touch with something that he once had in his life, something that gave him comfort at one time. And the way back in for him turned out to be this creature: Kurt, the Nightcrawler."

Despite his devilish appearance of Nightcrawler and the reasons why he might be bitter, Uhley notes the faith displayed by this character.

"Yet he, among all the characters in the Marvel Universe, has the most profound faith! Wow. How did he get to that point? It’s inspiring and it’s a little unsettling for somebody with the perspective of Wolverine, but it resonates with him."

Uhley says his religous background is limited. He was baptized as an adult at a mainstream denomination but was not raised according to a particular belife system.

"I was agnostic and then some personal stuff happened that made me find my way to a church and pursue that, so here I am. So I do not wish to represent myself in any way as a biblical scholar," he says.

Another man who worked on the show, Sidney Iwanter, was raised in a Jewish household. Uhley says Iwanter may have known the Bible the best of all those working on the show: "He can probably quote chapter and verse better than anyone else on the team.

"In fact, there are a lot of people who helped make this thing possible. When Eric and I started on the episode, we were being cautious. The original version was this big adventure with Nazis and gold and wild boars. It was a mishmash of typical superhero adventure stuff. Sidney, to his credit, said 'OK, look, quit doing all of this. I want to hear about a loving, giving God,' and he was very adamant about it."

The episode was intentional, from showing the faith experience through a small, personal conversation, to the choice of not identifying any specific denomination through the Christian conversation.

"We just wanted to be sure there’s something here in the Christian tradition and that we’re not saying one denomination is better than the other. That is really not the point," Uhley explains. "The point is that you have these two characters who are butting heads: the bitter Wolverine and the faithful Nightcrawler, and it’s a clash of ideas."

Uhley, at the time, was able to speak with some clergy for guidance on the scripting of the episode. Not claiming to be any sort of biblical scholar, Uhley communicated his conviction of people hearing and thinking about the concepts presented in the show.

"I am just fascinated by how people process these big questions."

The episode ultimately allowed those seen as super-beings to consider a higher power.

"We all need heroes. That’s part of the human condition," Uhley says. "Every culture has the need for someone who represents our hopes and aspirations, the kind of person we aspire to be."