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"Too late, assholes!"
―Kitty to the Sentinels[src]

Kitty Pryde, also known as Shadowcat, is a mutant with the ability to phase through matter and project a person's consciousness back in time. She was a student at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and trained as a member of the X-Men alongside Colossus, Rogue, and Iceman.

Biography

Original Timeline

Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters

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Kitty sitting with Jubilee and Rogue

Kitty was a student at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. During a physics class taught by Professor X, Kitty was present as Wolverine barged into the room. When Professor X dismissed the class, Kitty went back for her bag and greeted the Professor before phasing through the door as she exited.[1]

Kitty also took history classes taught by Storm. She was a classmate of Jubilee, Pyro, Iceman, and the newly-enrolled Rogue.[1]

X2: X-Men United

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When Colonel William Stryker's forces attacked the X-Mansion, Kitty phased through walls and helped the others escape. Later on, Professor X used Kitty to retrieve files from Stryker's office which he presented to the President of the United States.

X-Men: The Last Stand

Kitty joined the X-Men as a full fledged member of the group, and is seen in the Danger Room with the rest of the X-Men. Enemy fire blasts buildings around them, and everything's in flames. The students are running through the chaos, and Storm flies, avoiding getting hit. Iceman and Kitty are running around the inferno, and a flaming piece of rubble flies at their direction. Bobby turns to it and freezes it, successfully dousing the flames and making it miss them by nothing more than a few inches. With a satisfied smile on his face, he turns to Kitty, not realizing that another boulder in about to hit them. At the last second, Kitty jumps to hug Bobby, phasing them both through the boulder. Rogue shows up just in time to see them breaking the hug, and her boyfriend looking quite pleased.

Later, Professor Xavier is teaching his ethics class about use and misuse of power – he states that "One can use power for the greater good, or for personal gain and destructive ends. This is a dilemma we all must ask themselves. Why? Because we're mutants." For psychics, he says, "This presents a particular problem: when is it acceptable to use our powers, and when do we cross that invisible line that turns us into tyrants over our fellow men?". Kitty remarks that Einstein said that ethics are an exclusive human concern without any superhuman authority behind it, and Xavier replies that Einstein wasn't a mutant – as far as they know. The kids all giggle and Xavier proceeds to show them a tape sent to him by Dr. Moira MacTaggert.

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Kitty sitting alongside Siryn and Jubilee

In the tape, Dr. MacTaggart stands by a man in a hospital bed. She says that the man was born with no higher-level brain functions: his organs and nerves system work, but he has no consciousness to speak of. Xavier turns the video off and asks his students an ethical question: what if they were to transfer the consciousness of one person, say, a father of four with terminal cancer, into the body of this man? How are they to decide what falls between the range of ethical behavior and what…? Suddenly, he stops mid-sentence. Outside the window, gigantic rain clouds are forming. A moment passes in silence, and then Xavier dismisses the class, saying they'll continue this tomorrow.

The next day, Outside on the front yard, Ororo Munroe is eulogizing Charles Xavier in a memorial service in front of all his students: "We live in an age of darkness," she says, "a world full of fear, hate and intolerance. But in every age, there are those who fight against it. Charles Xavier was born into a world divided, a world he tried to heal – a mission he never saw accomplished. It seems the destiny of great men to see their goals unfulfilled."

Kitty, Bobby and Rogue (The Last Stand)

At Professor Xavier's funeral, in the crowd sit Rogue, Iceman, Kitty, Colossus, Beast and many other students and friends of Xavier's. Logan isn't sitting with them, as he is standing and listening from afar, a loner as always. Rogue looks at him, as Ororo continues her eulogy: "Charles was more than a leader, more than a teacher, he was a friend. When we were afraid he gave us strength, and when we were alone he gave us a family. He may be gone, but his teachings live on through us, his students". When tears fill Kitty's eyes as she listens to Storm's speech, Bobby, sitting next to her, puts his hand on hers to comfort her. Ororo finishes: "Wherever we may go, we must carry on his vision, and that's a vision of a world united." Logan walks away. All other people present stand up, and one walks to his memorial and puts a flower on it.

That night, Kitty is in her bed, crying. Bobby knocks on her door and enters, asking if she's okay. She says she's fine; it's just… Xavier came to her house; he was the one who convinced her to come there. Bobby tells her it was the same with him and says they're all feeling the same way, but she says he's wrong: he has Rogue, and she… She says she just misses home – the snow, and all that… Seeing her ice skates lying by the wall, Bobby gets an idea. He tells Kitty to get up and come with him, but she reminds him Storm told them to stay in their rooms. He tells her not to worry as they won't get caught – she can walk through walls, after all.

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They sneak outside to the big fountain, and Iceman tells Kitty this place can be home too. He touches to water with his finger and, within seconds, the entire fountain freezes up like a frozen lake. She sits on the edge to put on her ice skates, and he uses his powers to create ice skates for himself. They smile at each other and go on the "lake," ice-skating. They hold hands and skate around the fountain faster, until they stop in a swirl. They end up holding each other to keep balance, and Kitty thanks Bobby for doing this.

After the President fails an attempt to stop Magneto, the X-Men plan to take this into their own hands and stop Magneto themselves. They meet up with Storm, Iceman, Kitty and Colossus, and Bobby reminds Logan that there are only six of them. Wolverine pauses and tells the young students that he won't lie to them – they're outnumbered, they lost Scott, they lost the professor – but if they don't fight now, everything these men stood for will die with them, and he's not gonna let that happen. Iceman nods in agreement, and Logan says they stand together, X-Men, all of them. Bobby looks at Kitty and Peter, and they both sign they're ready. He then turns back to Logan, and tells him they're in. Ready for the battle of their lives, the X-Men walk towards the Blackbird.

When the remaining members of the X-Men arrive at Alcatraz Island, the Blackbird lands on the roof. Lightning falls on the battle scene as Storm descends from the sky. Next, Beast jumps from the roof and lands like a true animal. Iceman and Kitty jump together, phasing into the ground to avoid getting squashed, and then phasing right back up. Colossus jumps down too, his metal form protecting him. Lastly, Wolverine jumps down the wall, using his claws to scratch the wall and slow down his fall. Storm lands too, and Wolverine yells to the humans to go back and lock the doors. He then orders the X-Men to stand together and hold a line. Instantly, the six mutants line up in front of the Brotherhood to form a strict line of defense, ready for the battle of their lives.

Up on the hill, Magneto tells Juggernaut to go inside and find Leech – and kill him. Juggernaut says he'll do it with pleasure, and runs towards the building, letting nothing stand in his way. Wolverine sees him run straight through the wall, and Beast realizes he's going for the boy. "Not if I get there first", Kitty replies and runs at the same direction, phasing through anything in her way.

Inside the building, Kitty runs after Juggernaut through the halls. She jumps at him from behind and phases him halfway into the floor, getting him stuck. She then phases herself back up, smiling, and runs away, continuing on her way to get to Leech. "Don't you know who I am?" Cain asks her as she phases through the next wall. "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" He then easily breaks the floor with his arms and jumps up, running after her, breaking the walls along the way. He chases her like that through many rooms until she manages to outsmart him: in one of the rooms, instead of phasing on she just hides. Juggernaut continues on, not realizing where Kitty disappeared to, and she just runs at another direction.

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Kitty saves Leech from Juggernaut

In another part of the building, Kitty finally phases into Leech's room. She looks around and finds Jimmy hiding behind his bed, frightened. She runs to him and tells him not to worry – she's there to help him. She helps him up, telling him she's gonna get him out of there. She holds his hand and starts running at one direction, but then she hears Juggernaut running through the walls not far away and decides to go through the other direction. When they get to the wall, though, she is horrified to find that she can't phase through it. Jimmy explains that her powers won't work with him.

They hear Juggernaut is getting closer, and Kitty doesn't know what to do. She then gets an idea and tells Jimmy to stay close. Juggernaut breaks through the wall across from them and tells Kitty he's the wrong guy to play hide-and-seek with. She ticks him off, calling him a dickhead, and he charges towards them. Just in the last second before he hits them, Kitty pushes Jimmy and herself to the floor, and Cain just bangs himself against the wall, his powers dampened by Leech. From the force of the hit, Juggernaut drops to the floor, and the kids are free to run out through the holes he created on his way there. She managed to succeed and get people to safety when Jean Grey tried to destroy the world under the influence of the Phoenix.

The next day on the mansion's front lawn, Ororo and Kitty stand in front of the two graves of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, lying next to Xavier's grave – three great losses that the X-Men are left to mourn.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: The Rogue Cut

As the Sentinels are dispatched to find and kills mutants living underground, they adapt to any situation and change their form. Iceman, Sunspot, ColossusBlink and Warpath fight the Sentinels while Kitty and Bishop run off into a closet somewhere. Bishop lays down and Kitty starts the ritual, sending his consciousness back in time. As the Sentinels kill the rest of the team and break through the closet, everything fades away, revealing that the past has been changed.

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Kitty with the Free Mutants

As Bishop prevents mutants about oncoming Sentinel attack, they leave Moscow and hide in a monastery in China. Charles Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine, and Storm arrive to meet them. Professor X plans to get back to 1973 to stop Mystique from killing Bolivar Trask, which triggered the Sentinel Program. But Kitty, however, says that she could only send someone back about a month without them getting serious brain damage, and warns that sending a person's consciousness back more than fifty years could damage their brain. Wolverine, however, says that, since he can heal his wounds fast, he can go back. Kitty, Magneto, Professor X and Iceman goes to a chamber behind the Great Wall of China and Kitty sends Wolverine back to 1973. Everyone agrees (in the Rogue Cut Professor's decision causes discussion between mutants but they agree in the end).

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Kitty's sending Logan to the past

While in 1973, Wolverine comes across and recognizes a young William Stryker, and this causes him to get some kind of seizure. He has traumatic flashbacks from his Weapon X days, which causes him to violently shake in the future and accidentally slash Kitty in the rib with his claws, enticing Magneto to bind Wolverine with his powers, and telling Iceman to restrain Wolverine. The effects wear off after a few minutes, and Kitty keeps Wolverine at bay again. She loses lots of blood but continues keeping Wolverine.

Realizing that Kitty won't be able to keep Wolverine long enough as he seriously wounded her, Bobby offers to release Rogue from the X-Mansion. Magneto and Iceman manage to save her but they are attacked by Sentinels on their way back. Bobby sacrifices himself letting Erik and Rogue escape. When Professor X, Magneto, and Rogue return to sanctuary, Kitty wonders what happened to Bobby, and Rogue sadly tells her "I'm sorry Kitty". Kitty, realizing what Rogue means, gets very distressed to find out that Bobby died. Rogue then absorbs Kitty's abilities, and succeeds in switching places with her in keeping Wolverine in past.

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Rogue absorbs Kitty's power to keep Logan in the past.

Soon Sentinels find mutants and attack the sanctuary. Most of them were destroyed by the explosion of the X-Jet caused by Magneto and Storm's powers. But some Sentinels survive and begins to kill all the mutants protecting the sanctuary. During the Sentinel's attack, Kitty takes Magneto, who was punctured by a stray piece of Sentinel shrapnel, through sanctuary's wall after he had reinforced the entrance into the monastery with pieces of the X-Jet. Eventually, the Sentinel's break into the monastery and prepares to kill the rest of the remaining X-Men. As they fire on the remaining mutants, Rogue breaks the connection, erasing the original timeline as Mystique refuses to kill Trask in past.

Revised Timeline

X-Men: Days of Future Past 2023

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Kitty teaching alongside Colossus.

Kitty is seen at the X-Mansion, giving a presentation to her classroom while Colossus stands right by her side.

Westchester Incident

In 2028, Charles Xavier developed Alzheimer's and suffered a massive seizure that injured 600 people, and killed 7 mutants, including several members of the X-Men. It is unknown if Kitty was among those who were either killed or injured.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

  • Intangibility: Kitty possesses the ability to pass through matter, known as "phasing", by passing her atoms through the spaces between the atoms of the matter she wants to move through. In this way, she and the outside matter can temporarily merge without interacting, each being unharmed during the process, making her, for all intents and purposes, intangible. Hence, Kitty can easily walk through walls and barriers and when attacked, she can shift into a "phasing" state to allow any oncoming danger to harmlessly pass through her. She passes through matter at the same speed at which she was moving beforehand, phasing through it with no loss in momentum. She is also able to allow additional matter she is in contact with, living or otherwise, to become intangible and phase along with her.
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    Kitty using her mutant powers

    • Gravity Phasing: Kitty is able to influence her motion while in her phasing state in order to phase with or against gravity. She first demonstrated this when the X-Mansion was under attack by William Stryker and she phased through her bed on the second floor in order to drop down to the ground floor and run away. Later, on Alcatraz, she and Iceman descended into the ground via phasing in order to break their fall from a rooftop and ascended back up, rising from the ground. When confronting Juggernaut, she grabbed his legs and phased him into the ground beneath their feet in order to trap him, leaving half his body stuck in the floor while she phased upwards out of the ground.
  • Chronoskimming: Kitty has the ability to project an individual's consciousness through time into their past self. Any changes to the timeline made as a result will not take effect until the connection between Kitty and the person she is projecting through time is severed. After which the target's consciousness will return to the same point in time the travel first took place. Only the target will remember the original events of the past, while also having no personal memory of the altered timeline. However, she states she has limits to how far she can safely send someone back. She can send a person back maybe a month with no harm but if she tries to send someone, even a mutant like Charles Xavier, back for more than that, their mind will break. Only mutants with an advanced healing factor like Wolverine can survive a journey further back in time, which allowed Kitty to send him decades into the past.

Abilities

  • Expert Combatant: Kitty is a very skilled combatant. She was able to take down several members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Weaknesses

  • Consistent Physical Contact: If using her chronoskimming ability on someone else, Shadowcat must keep physical contact with the target to maintain their connection with the separate point of time.
  • Designated/Limited Time Period: A limitation to her chronoskimming ability is that the further the jump through time, the more strenuous the process will be on the person's mind. Even for a powerful mind, one such as Professor X, Kitty cannot safely send one further than one month back in time without the fear of potentially destroying the target's mind. Only one with powerful healing abilities, such as Wolverine's, can bypass this limit.
  • Calm Target: Once arriving at the chosen point of time, the target must remain calm or the connection can be severed. If the target gets too worked up while in another time period, they will be stuck in place between past and present/future. This was evident when Wolverine started thrashing around when he was having traumatic flashbacks of his Weapon X days upon seeing a younger William Stryker in the past.
  • Power Negation Field: She tries to get Leech to safety by going through a wall, unfortunately, her powers won't work with him, due to Leech’s ability to negate mutant powers that are within close proximity of him.

Relationships

Allies

  • Jean Grey † - Former Mentor, Friend, and Former Enemy
  • Jubilee - Former Classmate and Friend
  • Leech - Former Classmate and Rescuee
  • Magneto - Enemy turned Teammate
  • Rogue - Former Classmate, Teammate, and Former Rival (one-sided from Rogue)
  • Siryn - Former Classmate and Former Roommate
  • Angel † - Former Teammate and Friend
  • Beast † - Former Teammate and Friend
  • Cyclops † - Former Mentor, Former Teammate, and Friend
  • Storm † - Former Mentor, Former Teammate, and Friend
  • Colossus † - Former Classmate and Former Teammate
  • Iceman † - Former Classmate, Former Teammate, and Former Lover
  • Professor X - Former Mentor, Teammate, and Friend
  • Wolverine - Former Mentor, Teammate, and Friend
  • Warren Worthington II - Former Ally
  • Free Mutants - Former Teammates and Friends
  • Artie Maddicks - Former Classmate
  • Cypher - Former Classmate
  • Flea - Former Classmate
  • Jones - Former Classmate
  • Siryn - Former Classmate
  • Hellion - Former Classmate

Enemies

Allies

  • Colossus - Former Classmate, and Teammate
  • Professor X † - Former Mentor, Former Teammate, and Friend
  • Wolverine † - Former Mentor, Former Teammate, and Friend
  • Beast - Former Mentor, Teammate, and Friend
  • Cyclops - Former Mentor, Teammate, and Friend
  • Jean Grey - Former Mentor, Teammate, and Friend
  • Storm - Former Mentor, Teammate, and Friend
  • Iceman - Former Classmate, Teammate, and Friend
  • Rogue - Former Classmate, Teammate, and Friend

Trivia

  • In X-Men and X2, she is a minor character portrayed by different actresses. However, in X-Men: The Last Stand, she is incorporated as a main character and is portrayed by Elliot Page. X-Men: Days of Future Past is the first time in which Kitty is portrayed by the same actor in two movies.
  • In X-Men, Senator Kelly mentions a "girl from Illinois who could walk through walls" at a congressional hearing. It is unknown if this mutant is indeed Kitty as many mutants can have the same power.
  • Though Kitty is American, the three actors that portrayed her in the film series are all Canadian.
  • Maggie Grace was in talks to play Kitty,[2] but the actress expressed surprise at being considered a candidate, stating that she was never contacted for the role.[3]
  • In the novelization of X-Men: The Last Stand, it is revealed that Kitty and Colossus were previously in a relationship, but it ended as they broke up. This is a nod to their romantic relationship in the comics.
  • Her first appearance in the comics was during the Dark Phoenix Saga, which was loosely adapted in X-Men: The Last Stand. It is also the first film where Kitty has a prominent role.
  • In the "Days of Future Past" storyline from the comics, Kitty was sent back in time by Rachel Summers to avert the Sentinel future. In the film adaptation, however, she assumes Rachel's role as the one who facilitates the time travel by sending Wolverine back to the past.
  • She was going to be the main character in her own solo film.

Behind the Scenes

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 X-Men (2000). Bryan Singer (director) & David Hayter (writer). 20th Century Fox.
  2. Grammer, Grace in X3
  3. Russo, Tim (May 2006). "Freaks & Cliques". Premiere

External links

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