I opened a short box and began reading random comics this week as I felt bad. One series in this box was Chris Claremont's great tale of Kitty Pryde and Wolverine. This is an old series and many would say hard to find. I found all Six Issues in a back issue sale some years ago. Since then I have seen all six at Conventions and other places lots of comics are for sale. I would say that they are more available than one might think. It is a pivotal series as it takes Kitty and evolves her from Ariel or Sprite and being just a genius who can phase into a master Ninja that takes the Shadowcat. Granted, one must suspend disbelief to accept this transformation, but this story does it in excellent fashion.
Kitty has been dumped by Colossus after the Secret War and his falling for an alien hottie who could heal others. It shows her as a carefree teen with a few problems to work through. She is skating and decides to go see her Banker father. When she arrives he has some strange associates from Japan and Kitty soon is afraid that harm will come to him. They all leave for Japan and the adventure begins. It is cool seeing her use her powers to sneak in places and get herself across an ocean and continent. She leaves the X-Men out of it and is on her own.
Things just go from bad to worse for Kitty as Japan is not a hospitable place and she refuses to seek aid from Wolverine's love Lady Mariko. So she is sick and ill dressed as the bad guy Ogun takes her and manipulates her mind. Later in the series Wolverine tells her Ogun had her for a week. When I first read this it was never really something I thought about, but the implications can become very dark if you open you mind to run wild. Needless to say, Kitty becomes a mind controlled ninja that takes on Wolverine. The fight is vicious and in the end she impales Wolverine in his heart.
Yukio, another woman who is smitten with Wolverine is apart of the story. She is an assassin that is known as "The Wild One." Without her much of the story cannot be as good. Kitty's Dad interacts a bunch with her and she is the reason he lives through many encounters. She also has a great fight with a big sumo bodyguard of the bad guys. The recovery of both Wolverine and Kitty's mind is a great two issue part of the story. Kitty must become able to help herself and Wolverine is pushing her hard. This is an awesome bit of story on its own.
Ogun is the man that trained Wolverine. He could be an immortal swordsman from legend. He does have demonic powers now and is a person of pure evil. The fight to the end starts with Kitty protecting Lady Mariko and her adopted daughter, Wolverine's family. Once that happens we get the last issue where it is Wolverine against Ogun. You should know the outcome. It is a great fight on so many levels. It is just one of the best things ever printed in the X-Men mythology. Seek it out and you will not be disappointed. You will read this book however. It is full of dialogue and narration boxes.
BDS
No comments:
Post a Comment