O-Gunning For Mind Control Part II: Mind Controlling The Copyright Violations?

When we last left our heroes, Wolverine had just arrived in Japan to rescue Kitty from Ogun, a semi-mystical ninja samurai with demonic tendencies who had taken control of her. Not anticipating this situation (who would), Logan ran right into her trap... and her knife (ten times!)

Any other man would have died on the spot after getting carved up by an age old super powered ninja. But Wolverine's handy dandy healing factor kept him going long enough for Kitty's father Carmen and Logan's associate Yukio to sneak up on little miss ninja. Yukio hit Kitty from a distance with poison darts that knocked her out. 

Yukio and Carmen then dropped off the two X-men at a stronghold of the clan Yashida where they both tried to heal their respective wounds.

While Wolverine's injuries were rather extensive, they were merely physical. Kitty found herself assaulted by the personality and memory of Ogun, who to quote Claremont himself had "Taken her innocent soul and reshaped it into his own twisted image.'

It was up to Wolverine to do a little mind control exercise of his own,  by taking a page out of another Asian sensei's book...

"Take an hour and this rake..."

Doesn't sound nearly as catchy as Mister Miyagi's 'wax on, wax off' exercise from 1984's blockbuster The Karate Kid. Still, Kitty got the message and started raking away...

Only to discover to her horror that she'd subconsciously been creating an advanced Japanese zen garden, which proved she was still being infuenced by Ogun's soul. But how did he even manage to sink his claws into her at all? Prepare for some technobabble exposition in 3-2-1...

An enlightening scene: Kitty wants to be free of Ogun but Logan refuses to let her take the easy way out. Yes, Charles Xavier might be able to rid her of Ogun's influence but that would mean the demon ninja had won, according to Wolverine.

If Kitty can't muster up the strength to beat him herself after what he did to her, she'd never be able to heal herself. Point well taken. So after a period of training with Logan, Kitty goes out to confront Ogun while making an interesting discovery about herself...

"I'm not a kitty anymore... Much as I wish differently... I've grown up. I'm a cat,and I like the shadows a whole lot better than the daylight. Shadowcat."

With a new outlook on life (not to mention that new spiffy codename) Kitty finally squared off against Ogun when he tried to kill Mariko Yashida and her foster daughter Ameiko. Ogun thought his former apprentice an easy kill. He was wrong.

Al Milgrom's art really is quite creative here, showing the shattered demon mask to symbolise Kitty breaking free from Ogun's control. But since this limited series is called Kitty Pryde & Wolverine, we need some *SNIKT* time during the finale... So Wolverine shows up, finally healed after Kitty disemboweled him, and proceeds to fight Ogun to a standstill, but he offers Kitty to deliver the killing blow.

She can't do it, thereby finally proving she's regained control of herself because Ogun would have killed Ogun without a second thought (yes, that does sound a little confusing, doesn't it?). But like in any other horror movie, the monster always returns after you think he's defeated so when Ogun tries to stab Kitty in the back, Wolverine finally takes care of him.

So, how does one end a six issue miniseries that proved life and soul changing for the character of Kitty Pryde? How does she cope with having her mind and body violated by an ancient demon ninja? What will ease the void, the sense of loss and trauma?

Yup, ice cream... because mentally mutilated or not, everything is still better after ice cream, right?

O-Gunning For Mind Control Part I: Big In Japan

Nowadays, Wolverine's penchant for taking young girls under his wing is well established. Logan's sidekick kick started way back when Kitty Pryde first joined the X-men (as seen in the shortlived Wolverine: First Class series) and it continued on with Jubilee, his goddaughter Aniko right up to X-23.

But Kitty was there first, and her relationship with Logan was the focus of the 1984 miniseries Kitty Pryde & Wolverine that saw Kitty abandoning the X-men when her father Carmen went missing. She traced him to Japan, where she discovered he was involved in a shady money laundering deal with the local maffia... Only to fall prey to mind control. Hey, this *IS* still a Chris Claremont comic after all.

Running away in shock after learning her father is a crook, Kitty's prowess and phasing abilities catch the eye of Ogun. At first glance, he appeared little more than one of crimelord Shigematsu's bodyguards, but appearances can be deceiving. Ogun claimed Kitty for his own and went chasing after her.

Well, that didn't take long at all... Even when she's intangible, Kitty still needs to breathe so a dose of  knock out gas is the perfect weapon against her. So what does this Ogun fellow want with her? 

Take a minute to read the captions... As Ogun grooms Kitty to be his helpless slave/student, she is so terrified of all the horrible things she thinks he might do to her, that the actual humiliation he puts her to makes her feel... almost grateful? "Thank you master Ogun for demeaning me in so graceful and swift a manner"? Sigh... Yet, this was just the beginning.

Yours truly first read these issues when he was a kid. To an eight year old, a seemingly invincible shadow ninja with a demonic fright mask was just about the scariest thing imaginable. Its still haunting, despite penciller Al Milgrom's inventive yet ultimately pedestrian art. 

Ogun's plan was simple: remake Kitty in his own image by breaking down her core personality, getting rid of the unwanted character traits and basically build her up from the ground up to be as deadly a killer as he is. And by the end of this process, we got this scene...

Ogun had succesfully merged his mind with Kitty's, making it virtually impossible to see just where the Japanese master assassin ended and the teenage girl from Deerborn Illinois started.

Luckily, help was on the way. Before Kitty was captured by Ogun, she became desperate enough to finally call her fellow X-men for help. As luck would have it, Wolverine answered... But Kitty was so ashamed about impulsively travelling halfway across the world, she hung up on him. No matter though, Wolverine travelled to Japan to find his 'pum'kin'... and he did.

How that turned out, you wonder?

Ouch...

Find out Logan's fate in O-Gunning For Mind Control Part II: Mind Controlling The Copyright Violations?