Kitty Pryde aka Ariel aka Sprite

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Growin’ up

The subject of people ageing in the mainstream comic book universes is always a tricky one. See the Leòn Genetic Sequence article for more thoughts about that.

Katherine Pryde is an interesting case. During much of the era covered in this writeup, she ages more or less in ’real time‘.

• Between her late 1980 initial appearance and the late 1984 debut of Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, she roughly goes from 13⅓ to about 16.
• Most of this ageing occurs between 1981 and 1983, where she does appear to age two years (from 13 ½ to 15 ½).
• At this point her ageing starts dramatically slowing down. Her character concept shifts from “spunky kid” to “very young woman” and she gains enough character development to settle around the new concept.

More generally, during the 1980s, the characters do age in the X-Men books, though at a slowed rate. It is possible to count using the Christmas-themed issues, which occur about every 20-30 issues and do seem to correspond to the characters getting older (with some exceptions, such as Wolverine). See our detailed Time in Uncanny X-Men article for more.

From then on Kitty ages as slowly as any comic books character. From 1984 to 2009 she aged maybe 8 or 9 years, max. As a random data point, in the 2002 Mekanix limited series, she resumes doctoral work in physics and seems to be roughly the same age as the other grad students, or perhaps a year or two older.

There were also two points where she suddenly got younger (!), but that’s for another profile to cover.

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Since she follows the standard comic book pattern (ages normally until the late teens or early twenties, then slows down by a large factor), Kitty was presumably born in 1968.

There have been attempts to retcon that. For instance at one point she states that Carmen Pryde, originally described as a Korea vet, like Xavier, served in Việt Nam whilst underage. This would result in Kitty being born in the late 70s so she can be in her mid-20s by the early 2000s.

Yet, recent Marvel sourcebooks confirm Carmen Pryde as having served in Korea as originally stated, not Việt Nam.

Powers and Abilities

At this point, Kitty is starting to seriously tinker and get training in science, electronics and computers. She’s not a professional yet, though – especially since this is the early 1980s and personal computers have been available for but a few years.

Likewise she has some Red Cross first aid training, but has not yet been trained in CPR and the like.

She knows a few basics about about the Blackbird (such as the checklist to start the engines), but cannot pilot it (or drive a car, for that matter). She did manage to perform a vertical landing with the Blackbird once, but it was a rocky one despite taking place under optimal circumstances.

During that era, she is telepathically taught Russian, Japanese and Shi’ar. Another advantage of telepathy is that, like the other X-Men, she has a low-level psi-link with Xavier. This allows her to teep  for help in case of emergency. In DC Heroes RPG terms, some GMs may consider that doing so requires expending one or two Hero Points .

Most of the time, Sprite acts as the team’s scout and saboteur.

History

(This section starts *right* where the History section of the previous profile ended.)

Days of Future Past

Right after this, Kitty was possessed by her future self from the Sentinels-dominated “Days of Future Past” timeline. As the adult Kate Pryde in her 13 ½ year-old body, she explained to the X-Men the path history would probably take – and what would happen in her nightmarish future.

Still as Kate in Kitty’s body, she fought along with the X-Men to prevent Mystique and her Brotherhood of Mutants from killing anti-mutants politician Senator Kelly.

Keeping an eye on the bigot, Kate/Kitty saved him from the crossbow bolt that should have been fatal. This dramatically lowered the probability of the “Days of Future Past” timeline. The Kate Pryde consciousness was thus slung back to her alternative future. Though she retained no memory of the possession, Kitty was briefed about what had happened.

Old World charm

Pryde’s training and education continued. However she was barred from missions more serious than routine reconnaissance until she had fully mastered her phasing ability.

One such low-risk reconnaissance mission turned hairy. Kitty and Wolverine were sent to Mount Wundagore to check for a possible Magneto base. Instead, they stumbled upon a village secretly inhabited by New Men. The locals were being terrorised by one of their own, the dreaded Man-Beast.

The local storyteller came up with a plan to inspire the New Men into standing up to the Man-Beast. He used the High Evolutionary’s tech to transform Kitty into a catlike New Person. As such she had a remarkable resemblance to a mythic heroine of the New Men, Lady Shadra — a super-evolved humanoid cat.

Clad in Lady Shadra’s armour and enjoying superhuman fighting instincts and agility, Kitty repelled an assault of brainwashed New Men on the village. She then rallied the free New Men to put an end to the Man-Beast’s plot. The High Evolutionary and Wolverine’s intervention closed the lid on that case, and Kitty was returned to her normal form.

Wolverine grudgingly agreed that Pryde may have potential as a fighter, and to give her more responsibilities on the next missions.

Demonukah

During the following holiday break, the team dispersed to take care of their private lives. This left Kitty alone in the mansion for her first Hanukah  away from her parents. As it turned out, this Hanukah was even more special than expected. A N’Garai warrior demon had managed to reach Earth from a nearby cairn , and entered the closest building – the Mansion.

Kitty soon realised the N’Garai could magically kill even an intangible person. Terrified, she used whatever she could to stop the creature, who could easily demolish walls and kept tracking her down. Even the Danger Room on a lethal setting couldn’t defeat this N’Garai.

Kitty eventually managed to give the demon a proper feast of lights. She caught it into the exhaust of the Blackbird’s jets at full burn, incinerating it. Though much of the mansion and the Blackbird had been wrecked, Kitty had survived, won, and undergone a multi-million dollars rite of passage.

Shortly after the N’Garai incident she was very briefly kidnapped by the Morlock Caliban, who wanted the companionship of other mutants. Caliban was repulsed by Storm and Spider-Woman.

Commies and werewolves

As the repairs to the Mansion were underway, Kitty ended up being hastily recruited by the Soviet Super Soldiers (Darkstar, Vanguard, the Crimson Dynamo and Ursa Major). The Soviets had originally come looking for Colossus’ help in controlling a potentially catastrophic nuclear power plan incident in Russia.

Kitty’s abilities were instrumental in discovering that the place was actually an inhumane mutants experimentation centre – to the surprise of the Super Soldiers. They were also essential in taking over and breaking up the mutant gestalt who had caused the nuclear problem.

During that adventure Kitty realised that Piotr saw her as a little sister rather than as a potential romantic interest. She stubbornly swore to her friend Wolverine that she would change the young Russian’s mind.

Wolverine then left her alone in the forests of Southern Illinois to teach her wilderness survival. Howevern Kitty got caught in a clash between Wolverine, a pack of semi-feral werewolves, and Jack Russell. As the situation unfurled, a werewolf smitten with Wolverine turned him into a fellow lycantrophe to make him her mate.

Pryde ended up allying with Russell to thwart the pack’s assassination attempt against her father. This case taught Kitty not to be afraid of werewolves, and that she couldn’t drive worth bupkis.

Against the Petrified Man

After all of this, Kitty was determined to get qualified for field missions, or at least start some heavier training. She redesigned her Sprite costume to more… colourful standards, including roller skates. The latter likely were an attempt to emulate disco star and X-Men ally Dazzler.

Pryde then stowed aboard the recently-repaired Blackbird. She wanted to accompany a team of X-Men on a reconnaissance mission, reasoning it couldn’t be too dangerous. As it turned out, the team ran into an heavily mutated Garrok while investigating an abandoned Magneto base.

Kitty, being the only one able to damage Garrok, saved the day. She even rescued Storm from certain death.

On its return flight, the team ran into Magneto’s current secret base. Though overpowered, the X-Men managed a valiant fight and wrecked some key assets ; in particular Kitty was sent by Cyclops to disrupt all the computers while the master of magnetism was busy fighting, ruining his plan.

The stars are right

In anger, Magneto grabbed Kitty while she was solid. She tried to defend herself by disrupting his magnetic field, but he electromagnetically shocked her in return. At this point Magneto realised that he was killing a kid, and couldn’t go on. Shocked to see that he was acting like the men who had reportedly killed his own kids decades ago, Magneto gave up the fight and left.

While still in Magneto’s base, the Professor sent Cyclops and Sprite out to investigate strange noises. As could be guessed from the R’lyeh-like  architecture of the place, which had been lifted from the bottom of the ocean, it turned out to be an aeons-old eldritch thing from beyond the veil of space and time.

During this adventure with Cyclops, Sprite came to understand him better. She ended up yelling at Wolverine so that he would leave Scott alone and stop their stupid feud.

School transfer

All the while Kitty’s parents were getting a filtered version of what was going on, without the bits about mutant powers and the X-Men. Nevertheless, they decided that being in a school in which she was by far the youngest was not a good thing for their precocious daughter.

They decided to have her transferred to the Massachusetts Academy. Kitty could not point out the whole business about the White Queen (Emma Frost) and the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club, lest she breaks the X-Men’s secret.

This transfer was indeed a trap. Within minutes of Storm and Kitty’s arrival, the White Queen psionically ambushed Storm. Frost then switched bodies with her to infiltrate the X-Men. One thing did not work out, though. Storm, trapped in Frost’s body, escaped and made contact with Kitty.

The two X-Women soon proved instrumental in turning the tables against the Club, and vanquishing them. As a spoil of victory, the Massachusetts Academy staff ensured Kitty’s prompt return to the School for Gifted Youngsters.

Kitty’s fairy tale

Soon after her return, Kitty was caught in a Hand plot to recover a mystical mask. This initiative was opposed by Daredevil, Wolverine and Elektra.

After foolishly bragging to other girls about knowing Thor, Kitty ended up having to convince Wolverine to arrange for a Thor appearance.

She later worked as a roadie during a Dazzler concert. Though this should have been a dream scenario, Kitty messed that one up. She committed some idiocies out of jealousy when her friend Terri O’Rourke got more attention from Dazzler than she did.

On the other hand, when Madrox the Multiple Man experienced his first case of having a dupe go independent, Kitty gave him excellent advice that changed his life.

After the famous episode of her telling a fairy tale to the sick Illyana Nikolaievna, Piotr Nikolievitch’s kid sister, Kitty resumed her training and studies. While swimming in the ocean, she was suddenly teleported aboard a Shi’ar war cruiser in Earth orbit, along with most X-Men.

The Shi’ar empire was in crisis. Professor Xavier, the Imperial Consort of the realm, found himself involved.

Kitty in spaaaace

When asked to provide two hostages among his students as proof of his good faith, Xavier chose Kitty and Kurt. He then telepathically provided Pryde with his knowledge of the Shi’ar culture, tech and languages. He also telepathically instructed them about the mission he had for them.

Whilst pretending to play with a Shi’ar clothing generator, Kitty accessed the cruiser’s intranet to gather intelligence. She then rigged up a portable, limited version of the costume generator. Nightcrawler and she came up with a plan. When the situation degenerated, the two X-Men knocked out their jailers before they could kill them and sprang into action.

Knowing that the Shi’ar cruiser holding them would likely soon open fire on Earth, Kurt and Kitty arranged a fake apparition of the Dark Phoenix right on the flagship’s bridge, using the generator and their powers. This threw the Shi’ar in disarray, allowing the two X-Men to contact Imperial Guardsbeings they trusted (including the mighty Gladiator).

Kitty and Kurt convinced these Guardsbeings to oppose the plot of their Deathbird-aligned colleagues. During the fight, Kitty attempted to wreck the computer core of the flagship. Though she failed, another team of X-Men and Starjammers saved the day.

Kitty the fearless vampire hunter

During the Shi’ar crisis, Colossus had been believed dead, to Sprite’s considerable grief. Once she was reunited with Piotr it became obvious to them both she badly wanted to date him. But at that point she was barely 14, and Piotr was 17 or 18. The uncomfortable tension lingered on for months.

Kitty kept being increasingly involved in X-Men business, though mostly by reacting to situations rather than being sent on missions. She proved instrumental in determining that Storm had been mesmerised by a vampire. Kitty repelled Dracula himself when he accidentally burned his hand on her Star of David pendant.

Kitty convinced the X-Men that Dracula was real, and tried various traditional methods for combating him. She played an essential role in allowing Storm to muster her enormous willpower and reject vampirism and Dracula’s hypnotic authority.

Do the limbo

When Belasco kidnapped little Illyana, Pryde was among the small set of X-Men that ended up in Limbo. In short order Belasco took Pryde prisoner, embedded her into a large mystical gem, then magically extracted her skeleton and kept it suspended close by.

This situation was fixed by an older version of Storm living in Limbo. The X-Men managed to grab Illyana, rescue Kitty and leave. Belasco’s plan had not been quite foiled, though. Due to Limbo’s peculiar properties, Illyana had experienced years of relative time there, and was now 13. Her closest friends, Kitty and Piotr, helped her adjust to her return on Earth.

The Brood War, part 1

During a Shi’ar ceremony, Kitty and other X-Men were caught in a coup attempt by Deathbird. They were handed over to the Brood, whom Kitty memorably called “sleazoids”.

This resulted in a brutal war between the X-Men and the Brood. Kitty killed in self-defense for the second time, spacing a sleazoid who was trying to poison her.

She even volunteered to jury-rig repairs to the Starjammer, sticking to the hull in a Shi’ar vac suit. She repaired the ship in the middle of space combat, phasing though enemy fire as she worked. Despite some minor cuts and blood loss from shrapnel, she managed to fix the warp drive so the ’jammer could jump away from the opposition.

Though she managed to stay largely composed, Pryde was terrified. This became doubly true once she understood that all X-Men had been implanted by Brood eggs and were going to turn into sleazoids and die.

Terrorised at the thought of dying in deep space at barely 14, eaten from the inside by an horrible alien, she obliquely asked Piotr to make love to her. Though he assured her that he loved her, he gently refused her, explaining that it was neither the time or place and that she was too young.

The Brood War, part 2

Waging a bitter war against the Brood, the X-Men managed to save themselves and destroy the Queen of the Brood clan opposing them.

During one of the battles, Kitty accidentally ran into a sort of cat-sized dragon-like critter. It saved her life by torching the Brood soldiers chasing her. Pryde and the creature felt an immediate rapport. Though she thought for a time that she had been separated from ’her dragon’, it discreetly followed her.

Returning to Earth, the X-Men stormed the Mansion, knowing that one last Brood Queen embryo had been implanted into Xavier. Kitty was dispatched to gun it down with a Shi’ar blaster, but she faltered as she aimed. She was taken down by Xavier, now a Brood.

The Brood was stopped in time to save the Professor’s mentality. A new body was then generated for Xavier by the Starjammers.

Pryde was shocked by Xavier’s subsequent decision to transfer her to a newly-assembled team of mutants much closer to her age, the New Mutants. The harrowing war against the Brood, and the near-death of the X-Men at the tentacles of the aliens, were presumably what informed this decision.

Enters the dragon

Kitty tried everything to convince Xavier to keep her with her team, to no avail. She thus grew to hate her black-and-gold costume, as it was now the New Mutants’s uniform. She did not want to be considered a part of that group, whom she called the “X-Babies”.

As she investigated an intruder alarm, Kitty ran into some Sidrian hatchlings hidden in the basement – Sidris being a race of hostile aliens, a horde of which had attacked the Mansion some months before. She determinedly fought them off, and in the process was reunited with the small alien dragon, who also was hiding in the Mansion’s basement.

Teaming up, they beat back the hatchlings until Colossus reached them and finished the last one off, saving Sprite.

Impressed with how she had fought the aliens, and intrigued by the alien mini-dragon (whom Kitty called “Lockheed”, after the team’s SR71 Blackbird spy plane), Xavier changed his mind. He allowed her to stay with the X-Men on a probationary status, provided that she kept working hard at her training and academics.

Victories, small or big

To celebrate, Kitty ditched the black-and-gold. She started wearing a green costume, which unlike previous tries of hers was not completely horrible. She also started thinking about changing her code name, as she felt that “Sprite” was too childish.

Now 14 ½, Kitty finally convinced Piotr to have a date downtown – the only actual date they would share. Though she “borrowed” a sophisticated dress from Storm without her knowledge (somehow adjusting it so she could wear it) and procured some high-heeled dress shoes, the date was a disaster.

Kitty kept tripping on her heels, the waitress at the samovar restaurant assumed she was Peter’s little sister, and she ruined her dress with some spilled borscht. Piotr salvaged the situation so they just ended up eating ice cream and having a good time, diplomatically avoiding to point out that this was more age-appropriate for her.

On Wolverine’s next birthday, Pryde was briefly kidnapped by Sabretooth to harass Logan and spice up their annual fight. However, Logan had just obtained some instruction from Shang Chi, the Master of Kung Fu. Using his new-found ability to centre himself, Wolverine defeated Sabretooth for the first time, and freed Kitty.

Description

The ghastly costume with the roller skates thankfully lasted for but one mission and was then quietly burned. Apparently it was not just colourful, since Kitty referred to it as being ’spangly‘.

Kitty then reverted to the basic black-and-gold. She adopted the green costume shortly before changing her code-name to Ariel. She then experimented a bit with a variety of custom costumes, none of which lasted for long.

Personality

See the first profile.

Quotes

Kitty: “No problem. We simply design an open-ended virus program to erase any and all references to the X-Men, and plug it into a central Federal data bank. From there it’ll infect the entire system in no time.”
Storm: “Can you do that, Kitten ?”
Kitty: “The Starjammers can.”

(Experiencing a minor breakdown) “I don’t understand – why is everyone cracking jokes, acting like nothing’s wrong ? We’ve been murdered ! We all carry queen embryos inside us ! When they hatch, we’ll turn into sleazoids ! And there’s nothing we can do to prevent it !”

“Professor Xavier is a jerk ! He’s the cruelest, meanest, most heartless man on Earth ! It isn’t fair, Illyana ! I’ve earned my place among the X-Men, all of them say so — why won’t the Professor listen ? Why is he treating me like a child ?”

“We’re a family, don’t‘cha see ? The X-Men are as close to me as my own parents – in some ways closer !”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Vintage X-Men comics plus 2008-2009 Wolverine : First Class flashbacks (up to and including issue #18).

Helper(s): About.com paediatrics chart (for height and weight at 13 ½). Pufnstuff, Chris Cottingham, Alan Wilkinson, Gareth Lewis, Eric Langendorf. M&M stats by Pawsplay.