This page covers the Marvel comicbook hero Kitty Pryde also known as Shadowcat , Sprite , Ariel , Kitten , Cat , Kate Pryde , Katya . If this is not the page you were looking for check here.

Origin

Kitty was born in Deerfield, Illinois. When she was 13 years old she began getting headaches which were the result of her mutant powers starting to manifest. Both the Hellfire Club and Professor X pursued Kitty to get her to join their cause. Kitty did not like Emma Frost or her attitude which made Kitty feel uncomfortable around her. It was an easy decision for Kitty to go with Xavier and the few X-Men accompanying him. One of the X-Men was in that group was Storm, and they quickly became friends. Storm told Kitty about herself and about what the X-Men fought for.

The X-Men were abruptly attacked by mercenaries sent by Emma Frost. The X-Men battled them and defeated them easily, but Emma used her telepathy to freeze everyone. Kitty was able to slip away during the confusion and was able to contact Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Nightcrawler. They arrived soon after and Kitty helped them rescue the captured X-Men.

When Kitty's parents got worried about their daughter who had been missing for a day, Xavier brought her back and to her furious parents. Kitty's parents would not allow their daughter to join Xavier's school and hated him for the danger they felt he represented to their daughter. Jean then erased their memories and replaced them with false ones, thus changing their perception of Professor Xavier. Kitty was then allowed to join the team and became the youngest X-Man ever.

Early X-Men years

While being an X-Man Kitty Pryde developed feelings for Colossus. She also became close friends with his sister Illyana Rasputin. Kitty was also uncomfortable around mutants that were physically quite different, like Nightcrawler. Eventually she overcame this problem as she got to know him, and the two became close friends. During a mission in space, Kitty befriended an alien dragon named Lockheed. They gained a psychic bond with each other and Lockheed became extremely loyal to Kitty. As a result, the two are nearly inseparable.

Kitty began dating Colossus but their relationship wouldn't last long. Colossus developed feelings for an alien named Zsaji who he met during the Secret Wars. At first he thought the feelings were due to the side-effects of her healing powers but when he returned to Earth, he realized that his feelings were true and he started to grieve since she had died. He confessed to Kitty that he had not been faithful and cheated on her with Zsaji, this ultimately ended their relationship.

When Kitty's father, Carmen Pryde, runs into trouble with the Yakuza, Kitty went to Japan to investigate. She was kidnapped and brainwashed by a mob boss and a ninja named Ogun. They made her into an assassin and she single-handily killed entire groups of ninja. Ogun then ordered her to kill Wolverine. Kitty nearly did kill Wolverine before his friend, Yukio, knocked her senses back. She realized that she had been turned into a killing machine and wanted to run away. Wolverine stoped her and forced her to face her problem. Kitty, Wolverine, and Yukio then battled Ogun and defeated him. Kitty decided not to kill him which revealed to Wolverine that she was herself again. Ogun tried to kill her but was impaled on Wolverine's claws as he passed through the phased Kitty. Together, Wolverine and Kitty helped her father and then returned to New York City. The two of them have since developed a big brother/little sister relationship. Kitty also adopted the code name Shadowcat after this event.

Maturing Years

During the Mutant Massacre Kitty was badly injured by Harpoon. Her injury made her become intangible and she was rushed to Muir Island to be treated by Dr. Moira MacTaggert. Moria was able to stop her from losing physical substance which would have made her cease to exist, but was not able to do more. Kitty was still intangible and had to make an extreme effort of concentration to become solid. At first they went to Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) for help but he declined claiming that he did not know what he could do for her. The X-Men turned to Doctor Doom and it angered the Fantastic Four. The Fantastic Four then tried to stop Dr. Doom from treating Kitty and they battled the X-Men. Franklin Richards stopped the 2 teams from fighting and made everyone come to their senses. Reed Richards saw the error of his ways and decided to help Kitty, saving her life.

During a fight with Adversary (Kitty was not present), the X-Men made a sacrificing move to defeat the Adversary. This was televised live and it showed the X-Men being killed while defeating Adversary. They were later resurrected and decided to keep a low profile so they could have the advantage on their enemies. This meant they could not contact friends, family, or even Kitty. She left and helped form the team Excalibur. Later, Colossus regained his feelings for her and went to England to get her back. Unfortunately, Kitty was with someone else at that time, namely Pete Wisdom. It took a while, but he accepted it and joined Excalibur. The team eventually disbanded and Kitty returned to America to rejoin the X-Men.

Kitty remained an X-Man for some time, but when Colossus sacrificed his life to host the cure for the Legacy Virus, Kitty was distraught and left the team. She took his ashes back to Russia where he was born and raised and spread them across his family farm. Afterwards she retired from her career as a superhero and attended college in Chicago, working part-time in order to pay for her tuition. It was at this time that she also began to search for her father who she discovered had been in Genosha during the Sentinel attack that completely decimated the island nation's mutant population. Despite her reservations toward acting like a superhero, the rising anti-mutant sentiment and the threat it posed to her friends and family began to convince Kitty of her responsibility to once again use her powers and knowledge for the greater good. She also found a clip of her father in her messages sent before his death, telling her to make him proud. She then teamed with her friends, including Karma and Shola Inkosi, and fought back against attacks by Wild Sentinels and the Purity anti-mutant faction.

Kitty was then captured by Reverend William Stryker and his goons who injected her with psychotropic drugs in an attempt to convert her to their cause. She managed to resist them and nearly killed Stryker, but instead allowed him to merge with an A.I. in an attempt to teach him about humanity. Afterwards, Kitty was freed by the X-Men and was influential in helping Storm's team recover Destiny's Diaries.

Return to the X-Men

Even with Cyclops and Emma now being co-headmasters of the school, Kitty decided to rejoin the X-Men. She still hated Emma for what happened in the past, but Emma claimed that this was the reason she chose Kitty to be on the Astonishing team. Because if Emma decided to return to her evil roots, the person that trusts her the least would be the one to notice first. On a mission, Kitty discovers that Colossus is still alive. There was a brief moment of awkwardness, but everything turned out fine and they resumed their relationship. They also finally made love for the first time.

During the crisis with the Hellfire Club, Kitty did exactly what Emma thought she would do. Kitty beat Emma and trapped her deep underground. Then Kitty was caught under a telepathic spell by Emma's evil version called Perfection. It gave Kitty the illusion that she and Colossus had a baby and the X-Men were taking it away to kill it because it was too dangerous. She was eventually lead to a box somewhere inside the school, she phased through it an took it out thinking it was her baby. Still not knowing anything, she actually freed an alien entity that contained Cassandra Nova's consciousness. Nova jumped over into Emma's mind and Emma manipulated Kitty into trying to shoot her to kill Nova. Kitty refuses to kill her and Nova then tries to leap into one of the students. Everything was then interrupted by SWORD and teleported to Breakworld.

Characteristics

Gender - Female Height - 5'6" Weight - 132 lbs Eyes - Hazel Hair - Brown

Powers

Kitty Pryde has the ability to pass through solid matter by allowing the molecules of her body to travel through the space between the molecules of whatever medium she is traveling through. She can disrupt electronic devices by passing through them in this manner without harm to herself. When she uses this ability in the opposite direction she can levitate herself by walking on air, as if she were walking up a flight of stairs. She can also render other people and objects intangible by touching them and then phasing their molecules.

Pryde does not have to be travelling through a solid object to remain in this intangible state and can stay in that form as a defencive measure. She still has to breathe while phasing however, so she must hold her breath while passing through anything solid. While in phase form Kitty has demonstrated a remarkable resistance to psychic probing and psionic attacks, but she can be hurt by The Soul Sword, and remains vulnerable to magic-based attacks.

Kitty experiences pain and disorientation when phasing through extremely dense materials, such as adamantium, and causes the same reaction to those with adamantium in their bodies (Wolverine, X-23, etc) should she phase through them.

According to the book The Science of the X-Men, one theory that could potentially explain Kitty Pryde's power of intangibility is that of "spintronics". This theory is based on electrostatic repulsion which is the force that keeps subatomic objects from passing through one another. Electrons naturally repel each other and instead of positive or negative charge, electrons have what is called "spin", which is based on a random pattern of up and down. If Kitty can rearrange her molecules into an organized manner so that they are "polarized" with the objects she is trying to pass through then she can pull her molecules through objects (like a molecular magnet) by controlling the spin on all of the particles in her body. By reversing the polarity on air, she can then airwalk by making the air around her much harder. This also explains why she disrupts electronic systems since she basically polarizes the spin of electrons in objects she passes through and drastically changes the conducting forces in circuitry.

Unrelated to her mutant ability, Kitty Pryde is an extremely adept fighter who has mastered several martial arts. She is also a genius with applied technology, and with computers in particular.

Kitty has also accomplished swordsmanship

Alternate Universes

Earth-1610 - The Ultimate universe

Kitty Pryde is a 14 year old girl and her powers only recently manifested. Her mother seeks Professor Xavier and allows her to go to his school as long as she does not do any Danger Room training, or go on missions. Kitty joins the X-Men anyway, which makes her the youngest X-Men ever. She begins dating Iceman but when Iceman starts a fixation with Rogue, Kitty dumps him. She eventually begins a relationship with Spider-Man and decides to hang out with him and help him fight crime. Their relationship would take a turn though, after the clone saga and the (thought to be) death of Professor Xavier. After this, Kitty leaves the X-Men to live with her mother again. They move to Queens (close to Peter Parker). She even transfered to his school and was put in one of his classes. She was told to sit behind Peter (who is of course Spider-Man). She already knows at this point in time that Peter and Mary Jane had gotten back together, but after being questioned by other students about her relationship with Spider-Man she just says that there is no relationship. The questions keep coming, so she runs through the wall and down the hall. She is later seen by Peter and Mary Jane, sitting in their spot on the bleachers near the football field. Peter confronts her, but only to be chewed out by her, and then she storms off through the ground. Kitty still mad a Peter avoids him and when the school is attacked by Ronin she let's her anger out on him even though in the end she get's beaten up. She later was seen elping Peter fight the Shocker(again) with a new costume. Peter was later taken into custody by S.H.I.E.L.D. capatin Carol Danvers Kitty went to his rescue. Both Spider-Man and Shadowcat were then assigned as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents while they took down Norman Osborn. During the fight Peter was out of spider web and was in a near death experience involving the laws of gravity and the Green Goblin falling on him. Again Kitty came to the rescue and phased him through the floor at the last second. After the Goblins death she started dating Kenny(Kong). At the very same moment the Human Torch and Iceman arrived. Iceman and Kitty had a Feud on Bobby's girl taste and then he gave her a note from Logan. (What the note said was unrevealed). After that Kitty along with Kenny, Peter, MJ, Liz, Bobby, and Jhonny went to the beach where it was apparent that Liz Allen was a mutant.

Earth-295 - The Age of Apocalypse

In the Age of Apocalypse universe, Kitty Pryde's parents were killed in Chicago and she was forced to grow up alone. Eventually, Kitty would be forced to join Apocalypse's army and serve him. However, Kitty would be rescued from Apocalypse's control by Colossus. She would be introduced to Magneto and the X-Men, where Magneto would appoint Wolverine as her mentor. Kitty would develop into an incredibly great fighter, and also made retractable claws in order to be more like Wolverine who trained her. Kitty and Colossus would also eventually marry. In this universe Kitty was accidentally but tragically killed by Colossus himself due to his obsession with the protection of his sister.

Exiles

A version of Kitty Pryde codenamed Cat has joined the team in Exiles. She is a younger version there than her Earth-616 counterpart and wears a different uniform, but she essentially has the same powers, skills and genius level I.Q. In her first appearance, Cat helped Psylocke defeat Dr. Doom's soldiers, and later helped to rescue Blink, Morph, and Sabretooth from being lost in the multiverse. She has now become the teams computer systems expert. An earlier alternate version of Kitty also appeared in Exiles, but this version was killed with Colossus when they were blasted into space by Hyperion.

Earth-811

In the Days of Future Past reality, Shadowcat goes by the name Kate Pryde. She helps Rachel Summers travel back in time to to undo the past events that created her present. Rachel instead arrives in Earth-616. For more on that story see: Marvel Girl. Kate later becomes Widget.

Earth-2182

In Nocturne's home reality Kitty is a member of Professor W's X-Men and a good friend of Nocturne.

Earth-9997

In the Earth X reality Kitty ironically dies taking a bullet for Colossus.

Earth-2149

In the Marvel Zombies reality Kitty is (as are most of Earth's heroes) transformed into a zombie.

Earth-1298

In the Mutant X reality Kitty becomes a vampire hunter, and later the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club.

Earth-597

In Earth-597, World War II was won by the Nazis. Kitty is forced to serve in the Lightning Squad - a nazi version of Excalibur.

Kitty Pryde Appears in These Volumes

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