Wednesday's coming up... that means another new X-title is about to make its debut, or at least, a new limited series is getting underway. This time, it's the heroine formerly known as Shadowcat who's in the spotlight, or to be more precise, it's her past that's center stage. Writer Akira Yoshida uses the 1980s mini-series Kitty Pryde & Wolverine as the clear foundation for this new story, and as someone who didn't read that title, I wasn't all that interested in what transpires in this new book. It's not that the script is inaccessible, but that it's clearly meant to resonate for those who are familiar with the title character's unusual past. Paul Smith's art is always a treat, but I really found myself wanting more of his Leave It to Chance work rather than this flashback to his 1980s heyday.
Kitty Pryde gets a mysterious letter from Japan, with a picture of a female dragon she and Lockheed once encountered years before and a message: "Come alone. Bring your dragon." Since Lockheed had a crush on the girl dragon, Kitty packs him up and heads for the Land of the Rising Sun. There, she encounters a government agent with a division of Japanese intelligence dedicated to supernatural and superhuman phenomena. Apparently, it had custody of the dragon for a time before it was stolen, and she hopes that Kitty can provide some insight into the dragon-napping.
Paul Smith's art here reminds me of the work of another classic artist from yesteryear who's work is on display in another nostalgic limited series: Marshall Rogers (artist on the current Batman: Dark Detective series). Smith's simpler style doesn't preclude him from establishing complex visuals -- such as the crowd scene early on in the issue. No one draws Lockheed better than Smith, but his work here pales in comparison to what I see as his pinnacle achievement: Leave It to Chance. Sure, that much-missed comic, written by James Robinson, also featured a young adventurer with a dragon sidekick, but there was so much more energy and passion in that creator-owned property than what we see here.
Kitty doesn't come off as the brightest bulb on the tree in this story. Upon learning that the other dragon was captured and spirited away from its keepers, she doesn't seem to clue in that perhaps the culprits have the same thing in mind for her dragon. She doesn't give any thought to the notion that she was lured to Japan for that purpose, and on top of that, she leave Lockheed unattended.
This is really a sequel of sorts to the ninja-laden Kitty/Wolverine story of the 1980s, and I honestly have little interest in it. Kitty is a X-Men character whose greatest strength has always been how down-to-earth she is. She's a kid from middle-class America who found herself plucked out of the ordinary world and dropped into the impossible. Turning her into a ninja warrior just doesn't play to the character's strengths, and this series promises to dwell on that darker side. 5/10
