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Who:
Kitty Pryde
Nicknames/Aliases:
Shadowcat, Sprite, Ariel
Skills:
She can walk through walls! Ok, its a bit deeper than that.. she can change her atoms to pass through the atoms of other objects. This creates the visual of her passing through, as well as levitating in some cases. She is also amazingly smart in computer science and piloting. Oh, and she can kick some serious ass because of her knowledge of Karate, Aikido, and Krav Maga.
Origin Story:
Created by comic greats Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Kitty Pryde was born circa 1967 in Illinois. When she became a teenager, she began getting really bad headaches, which turned out to be the onset of her mutant powers. She was originally recruited by mutant Emma Frost of the Hellfire Club. However, after being visited by Professor Charles Xavier, Kitty Pryde joined the X-Men. Good choice! The new mutant, with the power to travel through objects, first appeared in comics in 1980 with Uncanny X-Men #129. She was meant to juxtapose the now adult X-Men who had been well established in their ‘verse. Kitty came in as a 13 year old who was incredibly smart and ended up saving many of the X-Men right off the bat. Kitty also became the love interest for Colossus, the Russian mutant who turns into steel. In addition, Kitty becomes a close friend of Wolverine and a surrogate daughter to Storm. It is Kitty who sends all the early 1980’s X-Men to the future in the famous arc and next week’s feature film (hence this article!) Days of Future Past. In a pivotal moment for Kitty in the book Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, she becomes possessed by the demon Ogun, former teacher to Wolverine. Wolverine then helps Kitty beat Ogun. After beating him, she is changed, not only because of her nifty new martial arts skills, but because she was no longer the innocent, inexperienced girl everyone had once known. Upon her emergence from the ordeal, she became Shadowcat. Kitty has continued on in the X-Men series and is considered to be one of the best X-Men according to many a list.
Why is she important?:
Firstly, in my opinion, Kitty Pryde is important because she has a dragon. Yeah, she has cool powers, and can fight, and can fly a plane, and can speak like a lot of different languages, but really its because she has a dragon. Yeah. His name is Lockheed. He has even risked his life for hers. And he’s purple. I’d say all that makes her a lot cooler than Daenerys Targaryen (sorry Game of Throne fans).
So what else other than the dragons? Well there is the fact that Kitty Pryde changed the entire X-Men world. She is highly regarded as being the best “teen” mutant introduced to the X-Men. Kitty was the person who brought a level of normalcy to the group of misfits. Kitty was born into a ordinary family and she was a fairly ordinary girl. Her reactions to going to Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters were apropos to how most people would react to the other mutants and the happenings of her new and strange world. Kitty is so accessible to her readers, it is hard to deny her importance to the series.
What she means to me:
Kitty Pryde means a lot to me. I grew up watching the X-Men Animated Series in the early 90’s. Of course, Kitty wasn’t in that series, but because of my interest in the show, I did my research on all the X-Men, thanks to my good ole dad (thanks Daddy for answering my incessant questions when I was 5). What struck me about Kitty Pryde at first was “Hey! She has a cool name!” Then it went to “Why is Jubilee in this show and not Kitty?!” When I found out how down-to-earth and smart she was, I was a fan.
What really turned me into a Shadowcat fan? Well, if you keep up with me, and why the heck wouldn’t you, you know I like Buffy. I love Buffy. I exalt Buffy. I live and breathe Buffy. And you know who was the inspiration for Buffy? Well reader, in case you have yet to take a wild stab in the dark, Kitty Pryde was the inspiration for Buffy Summers. Joss, you son-of-a-gun, you. Not surprising, Joss brought Kitty back to the X-Men after being away with Excalibur and off to university in his series Astonishing X-Men. He then gave the fans what they wanted and brought Kitty and Colossus together again. However, (SPOILER FOR YOU WHO HAVEN’T READ ASTONISHING X-MEN or seen BUFFY) much like Whedon did with Buffy, he ended his run on the book by having Kitty sacrifice herself for the good of Earth. Aw shucks, Joss! You always get me right in the feels. And a thank you to Kitty Pryde for helping little girls realize that they are smart and cool and special and for all those times you stopped catastrophic things from happening to the non-mutants like myself.
all photos belong to Marvel.
written by Adrian Puryear
Hush Comics 