Uncanny X-Men #168

[iamrman]

This issue is precisely when I started hating Kitty Pryde.

At least Kitty didn’t call Stevie a slur this time.

Xavier is pig-headed and stubborn? Kitty wants to look at herself in the mirror!

I’m just going to upset myself if I post any more of Kitty being an entitled brat, so have some subplots instead.

Comments

[scorntx]

"Oh, thank goodness, a subplot!" is not a phrase one expects to say very often.
But here we are.


The problem is, Kitty's not wrong. The Prof is being a jerk. And will continue to be a jerk. Not even for plot-necessary reasons.
But as Yana puts it, she's being a jerk as well.
And yeah, she's a teenager. We were all teenagers at one time and we were all obnoxious somewhere in there at least once. But that doesn't make it any more tolerable.

"Professor Xavier isn't an unreasonable man."
Stevie, what have you been smoking?


Scott's right to be astonished.
What is Mary-Jane Watson doing flying planes in Alaska?

[tcampbell1000]

Man, I could not disagree more about Kitty Pryde being unlikable this issue. Sure, she whines about her problems a bit--and then her friends call her out immediately and she listens to 'em. Twice.

A spoiled, entitled brat would just keep whining about how it's not faiiiir and I'm not a kid I'm not I'm not... heck, even a lot of non-spoiled teenagers do some of that, that's just part of growing up. Kitty, by contrast, quickly gets over it and works multiple angles to improve her situation, showing a good deal of patience in doing so...I mean, those last four frames of her have to take place over a period of days at least, right?

I feel like I've seen many srories like this, and most of them involved a lot more complaining and a lot less proactive action. Now, there are aspects of Kitty's narrative history I'd question--that somewhat statuory-rapey period where she was first Peter's girlfriend, the notion that's she's a genius on top of being a highly competent superhero. But this issue ain't one of 'em.

[mazway_75]

Thing is, I relate to Kitty a bit here. In this time, she's proven herself with the X-Men. She's fought Magneto, the Brood, nearly killed a few times and more...and after all that, she's sent to the New Mutants team? You'd have an attitude as well and she is called on it a bit with Xavier eventually realizing her point.

And yeah we move into the Madylne stuff and as messy as it later became, this early tease of "is she Jean or not" was a well done long range storyline.

[beyondthefringe]

And yet I can also understand some of the reasoning.
At this point, Kitty is still 13 1/2 or 14 or thereabouts. Easily 4 years younger than the rest of the X-Men, many of whom are grown-ass adults. She's got a crush on a guy too older for her, and Storm is more of a mom than a older sister.

She NEEDS to be around mutants her own age just to develop a healthy social group and friendships beyond Illyana. Heck, even a bunch of the New Mutants are older than she is. But still, she could have brought wisdom and experience to the New Mutants, instead of turning into a massive brat for a while. As it stands, because she refused to associate with the "X-Brats" I don't think Kitty ever actually developed any lasting connections to most of them.
(True, there was Illyana, and Doug, and MUCH later she'd share a mini with Xuan... and there was the overlap when Rahne was with Excalibur, but I don't think of her as being friends with like, Sam and Roberto and Dani.)

I don't blame Kitty for being upset, and yeah, as a 13 1/2-14 year old girl she's gonna be emotionally volatile, but imagine a world where she actually became a lasting member of the New Mutants...

Mind you, the same thing happened when Jubilee got demoted to Generation X--it was all "when I was with the X-Men..."

[scorntx]

Y'know, actually, come to think of it...
Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson are on record that they didn't want to make New Mutants in the first place, and that it was Jim Shooter's idea and he was clear that it would be done with or without their cooperation.

So Kitty's resentment at being foisted onto the unwanted kid team takes on an interesting light in view of that.
(Professor X's initial reluctance to take them on at all in the graphic novel too, as well...)
Claremont venting some of his own feelings via writing?

[lbd_nytetrayn]

"...this time"?!

[scorntx]

In the "God Loves, Man Kills" graphic novel (which is a ways off from this issue), Kitty gets into an argument with another student at Stevie's who is being particularly unpleasant. When Stevie gets involved, Kitty asks if she'd be so tolerant if he'd used the n-word on her.