Kitty Pryde

Katherine Anne Pryde, also known as Kitty Pryde and the Shadowcat, is a character from the Marvel comics.

Kitty is a mutant gifted with the ability to become intangible and phase her entire body through solid material. A talented prodigy, she became the poster child of the X-Men; eventually reaching maturation and becoming the team's current leader.

Personality
Kitty Pryde is a young, sweet, upbeat, cheerful and optimistic teenage girl, but she did have some naive tendencies, mainly due to having lived a sheltered life before joining the X-Men. Caring and sympathetic, she is considered virtuous in almost all respects. With the typical attitude of a valley girl, Kitty can come off as a bit of a ditz, but she has since grown into a very intelligent, open-minded, and worldly young woman. Kitty isn't the most athletic person and her culinary skills are a constant source of dismay among the others. Regardless, she is a loyal friend and teammate, as Kitty's in it to fight the good fight and will need no convincing to rush off into battle as she's always willing to help others in need.

Phasing
Kitty Pryde has the ability to pass through solid matter by allowing the molecules of her body to travel through the space between the molecules of whatever solid she is traveling through. In A+X she explains she used to hold her breath or she thought she had to but after the initial shock wore off, she can now phase through solid objects while breathing and talking. She can also render other people and objects intangible by touching them. When phasing through extremely dense materials, such as adamantium, Kitty experiences pain and disorientation as well as those with dense metals in their bodies ( Wolverine, X-23, etc.) should she phase through them. For some unknown reason, when Kitty phased through Garokk, it caused him intense pain. The reason for this is unclear. Kitty is capable of phasing any amount of her body through objects as well as humans leaving them unconscious. Kitty is also capable of killing another being by phasing them into a solid object and then releasing them, causing them to solidify whilst still within the object. Kitty has trained herself to reflexively assume her intangible state at any indication of danger, such as a loud noise like a gunshot, in order to protect herself.

Kitty can disrupt electronic devices by passing through them in this manner without harm to herself. When she uses this ability in the opposite direction she can levitate herself by walking on air, as if she were walking up a flight of stairs. In her intangible state she is weak against certain energies, psionic and mystical attacks. While in phase form Kitty has demonstrated a remarkable resistance to psychic probing and psionic attacks, but she can be hurt by the Soul Sword and remains vulnerable to magic-based attacks. As guided by the Doc Green persona of the Hulk, she has been shown to be able to use her phasing abilities to perform surgery, essentially phasing cancerous growths out of people's bodies.

According to the book "The Science of the X-Men", one theory that could potentially explain Kitty Pryde's power of intangibility is that of "spintronics". This theory is based on electrostatic repulsion, which is the force that keeps subatomic objects from passing through one another.

Electrons naturally repel each other and instead of positive or negative charge, electrons have what is called "spin", which is based on a random pattern of up and down. If Kitty can rearrange her molecules into an organized manner so that they are "polarized" with the objects she is trying to pass through then she can pull her molecules through objects (like a molecular magnet) by controlling the spin on all of the particles in her body. By reversing the polarity on air, she can then air walk by making the air around her much harder. This also explains why she disrupts electronic systems since she basically polarizes the spin of electrons in objects she passes through and drastically changes the conducting forces in circuitry.

Expert Martial Artist
Kitty is an extremely adept fighter who has mastered several martial arts, including karate, aikido, ninjutsu, and krav maga. In addition, Kitty was taught how to fight with a sai and bo staff by the undead ninja Ogunas well as with swords by Wolverine and Nightcrawler.

Genius-level Computer Expert
A genius with applied technology and computer science, Kitty is especially skilled with computer hardware design and use.

Multilingual
Kitty speaks fluent English, Japanese, Russian, the alien language of the Skrulls, and the alien language of the Shi'ar. She also has knowledge of both Hebrew and Gaelic.

Dance Training
A skilled dancer, Kitty was taught by Stevie Hunter in the ballet style.

Expert Pilot
Kitty is an accomplished pilot of jet and piston engine aircraft, and is adept with interstellar vehicles.

Leadership
Kitty Pryde has grown into a fantastic leader, becoming headmistresses for the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. She has trained many students and served as a mentor. She lead the original five X-Men from the past.

Trivia

 * Kitty Pryde was intended to be a member of an X-Men "in-training" secondary team, alongside a newly created Willie Evans, Jr. and a not yet created and different version of Caliban. Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooternixed the idea, however, saying it sounded too much like the Legion of Substitute X-Men. The Kitty Pryde we know today would go on to be the only one of the three to join the X-Men.


 * John Byrne named Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde after a classmate he met in art school in Calgary in 1973.
 * The creator of Kitty Pryde, Chris Claremont, stated that he intended the love of Kitty's life to be Rachel Summers and therefore be bisexual, however this never came to pass after Claremont's run of writing her ended.