I'm not overly fond of Kitty. When I started reading the X-books in the 90's, she was on Excalibur, which I didn't read. The first time I read something really featuring her was Whedon's Astonishing, where she was treated like a very big deal, and I remember not getting it at all. Skip ahead a few years to post-Schism, and it's the same thing. She co-ran the Jean Grey school with Logan and was one of the core characters who everybody respected and never questioned. Same thing when Bendis took over in his books (All-New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy). And it's continued like this over the years throughout different writers and editors.
I don't hate her or anything, it's just weird to see all these writers absolutely love her and act like she's the beating heart of the X-franchise, when I don't see that at all. To me, she's mostly come off as judgemental and full of herself over the years I've been reading her.
Bastion is the most boring character among major Sentinels-based ones.
Decimation/messiah era is among the top 5 x-men eras
“Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe
I couldn't stand comic-Kitty up until Astonishing. Everything before was everything you said - "she mostly comes off as judgmental and full of herself" - preach. She's a character used to show how empathetic other people are, like Storm and Wolverine, but she lacks empathy. I think she earned her fighting chops, but I don't think the canon respect of leadership she is given by teammates and other X-Men was earned or deserved at all. And I think a lot more characters have reason to resent her than they are willing to allow, for some reason.
Still a cool ability though. Simple yet effective.
Queen of Mutants, Mistress of Magnetism, Magnetrix and the MII, Pestilence of the Horsemen of Apocalypse, the Krakoan Oracle and creator of the Sanctus Sacrum Tournament Key, the Threshold Seed Shaper, Brood Queen of the Fall of the House of X, Lorna Sally Dane, Ph.D., of the House of M, Polaris of the X-Men
A new character with no personality, no identity, no relevant backstory, no agency and just one single line of dialoge for the entire movie.
She is essentialy just Striker's human attack drone.
Even her fight with Wolverine is just a drawn out repeat of his fight with Mystique in the first one. Infact she seems to be just a repeat of Mystique in general.
Come to think of it. Isn't there an old but enduring stereotype in action movie for villains to have a mostly silent sexy asian assassin/killer lady as his second in command or at least notable henchmen?
So the movie version would arguably be just another shallow female asian movie stereotype aswell.
Last edited by Grunty; 04-17-2024 at 08:24 AM.
She was a weird compilation character, an old love of Logan's IIRC. Maybe given Meriko's role or something? I watched TAS before I read any comics.
While we're talkin' Wolverine, though, I like Daken and am sad he was sacrificed for the pointless gorefest of Sabretooth War. If they bring him back as a villain, though, I might forgive this. I was not terribly fond of his characterization by Williams in X-Factor, anyway.
That's true. Storytelling always requires arche- and stereotypes to some degree. Familarity tends to make things easier and comfortable for the audience. Even trying to be different or subvertive usualy require an established baseline to be compared to.
The question then becomes what role/arche-/stereotype suits a character the best? Especially when said character was allready established in a different story/medium.
She's only sexy in that she's portrayed as an attractive woman. She isn't sexualized like Mystique is. Her silence is a result of the villain controlling her, not the narrative not bothering to give her a voice and we're clearly meant to see her as a victim of Stryker like the other mutants.
It is weird to have a book with evolution as a central theme, be one in which the cast is never allowed to evolve. (Either as characters, always being reset back to factory settings, or as a culture, or as a species, in the passing on of their genes, values, legacies, etc.)