The X-men get into an all and out war over Piotr's younger sister Illyana in this issue. The X-men meet Belasco for the first time and it's almost their doom. It starts out with the X-men training and Illyana wanders away to follow a voice that is calling her. Kitty follows Illyana to keep and eye on her and ends up in a temple with lots of light discs, trying to figure out where Illyana went. Kitty steps on one of the disks and is gone as well. Piotr notices that Kitty and Illyana are missing and after a while Wolverine gets suspicious that something might have happened to them so the X-men follow the girls' trail into the temple. They too disappear.

They wake up in Limbo where Kitty has gotten captured by Belasco and he has ripped her skeleton from her body and is playing with it (Kitty is encases in crystal so she is safe unless she phases out of it). The X-men face off with their other selves from Limbo, where in another time and place they had gotten whomped by Belasco and his sidekick S'ym. Sy'm proceeds to whoop on Wolverine and Collosus to the point that Wolverine decides he really doesn't want to mess with S'ym again anytime soon. The X-men end up rescuing Kitty with the Limbo version of Ororo's help and they grab Illyana while Limbo Ororo keeps Belasco's goons busy. But Belasco grabs Illyana at the last moment and Kitty grabs onto Illyana's other side to try and stop him from taking her. She loses her grip on Illyana for a moment, but then grabs her again and pulls her back into the circle out of Limbo with the X-men. One small problem though...Illyana is seven years older then she was and the X-men are wondering if she spent those seven years in Belasco's care or in Ororo's. Piotr at the end of the issue starts to bond with his younger sister again and starts to come to grips with her being seven years older. Illyana falls asleep with her amulet (that holds the bloodstones that sealed her fate) in her hand.

My Opinion: This is probably one of those issues that one has to read just to figure out what is going on in the X-men later on. This is a basic issue for any X-men fan to own. Illyana ages in this issue (by the way if you want the rest of the story check out the Magik LS...a very GOOD Limited Series that follows Illyana's life in Limbo). Kitty and her become the best of friends later on, but this starts it all. It introduces Belasco and S'ym to the X-men, two people who pop up a lot through the years, especially in the nineties in any book you can imagine. It also introduces the realm of Belasco's Limbo, a dimension that has played a LOT of roles in the X-men universe since it was introduced.

The Death of Magik. Young Illyana Rasputin dies in this issue of the Legacy Virus. The whole issue pretty much is a flashback of Jubilee describing how Illyana died. Jean comes in and finds Jubilee in the Prof. Ready Room trying to come to grips that Illyana is actually dead and Jubilee reflects back on how Kitty was taking care of Illyana. Illyana was always ten shades of happy every time Kitty came into the room and Jubilee couldn't figure out what was so special about Kitty that Illyana would react that way. Jean calls up the Cerebro files and shows Jubilee how Kitty and Illyana first met when Illyana was a child, how Illyana got captured by Belasco and how Kitty and Illyana then became such good friends after Illyana came back seven years older from Limbo. Kitty and Illyana had become inseperable, Jean tells Jubilee and she shows Jubilee pictures of Kitty and Illyana together during their friendship. She then shows Jubilee how, after Illyana was deaged again during Limbo, that Kitty kept in touch with Illyana even after she was a child again by writing her letters in Russia. Jubilee thought it was pretty cool that Kitty would do that and that a friendship could be that long and true.

It then flashes back again to Illyana dying and Kitty arguing with the Professor that keeping Illyana catatonic was not going to fix anything and to just let her go. He does and at the end of the flashback Piotr comes home to find his sister gone and gives no reaction at all. Jubilee flashes back to the present and asks Jean how it was that they couldn't save one little girl. Jean doesn't have any answer for her and instead just holds Jubilee while she cries.

My Opinion: This issue torqued me off on a lot of levels, truth be told. For one thing, Kitty was at the mansion and it would have made a HECK of a lot more sense for Kitty to be giving the details of Illyana's death or something, but Jubilee's flashback was still pretty good considering. Jean really didn't need to be in this issue at all. Kitty, Kurt, or even Wolverine would have made much better choices to talk to Jubilee about Magik since Jean didn't even KNOW the child, but what do I know. Overall the issue worked, but it could have been better. Although it was stupid they killed Illyana to begin with anyway or even deaged her for that matter, so really it doesn't matter. I even think that Illyana was the only character, pretty much, that STAYED dead from the Legacy Virus, so the whole concept of the virus was a pretty stupid idea to begin with.

And the fact that Ororo gives the eulogy at Illyana's funeral irritated me to depths you can't even imagine. But that is for a later opinion.

This issue is mainly a flashback to Prof. X's past in Israel. It begins with Prof. X catatonic due to his telepathic probing of the Brood. Scott is upset that he is watching yet another person he cares about die and he can't do anything about it. Kitty is seen in one of her two bit parts in this issue when she asks Wolverine why Scott is so upset. Logan explains the situation to her.

The flashback then takes place with Prof. Xavier fighting for his sanity in his mind. He remembers back to Israel and how he met Gabriel, the later mother to his son. She was one of his patients and he helped her to wake up from the catatonic state she was in. They then later got involved, Prof. Xavier really taking advantage of her (in my opinion) and showing that he's somewhat of a jerk when it comes right down to it. She gets captured later by "Baron" Strucker and Magnus and Prof. X have to go and rescue her. Magneto shows that he has powers beyond comprehension as he takes magnetic powers at the end of the issue and floats tons of GOLD ("Baron" Strucker's money) and flies away. Gold by the way is an element and is non-magnetizeable.

It then flashes back to the present where Lilandra is having a feast for the X-men and thanking them for their help. Kitty is seen in a white Shiar outfit and Piotr and her are admiring each other in them. In the middle of a toast to thank the X-men, Lilandra falls into a catatonic state like Charles. The X-men wonder what is going on and get ambushed by Deathbird and the Brood. It ends with the X-men unconscious and at Deathbird's mercy.

My Opinion: I found this issue somewhat annoying, mainly because "Baron" (using the term baron loosely) Strucker is one of the more annoying of the Marvel villians I've seen. That and the obvious lesson that Nazi's are bad people gets somewhat hackneyed as time goes on. WWII has been over since the 1940's and yes I understand they did horrible things to the Jews, but at the same time everytime they put a Nazi into a comic book all they're missing is the long black mustache and the evil laugh and we'd be in a really bad movie. Nazi's have been no major threat since WWII ended, so everytime they bring a Nazi in as a villian now a days it seems like the writer isn't even trying. It's like when I watch old episodes of Johnny Quest with the evil Chinamen and laugh...it's hard to take a really bad accented Nazi villian seriously in a comic book anymore. BUT this issue DOES start into the Brood Saga, probably the best X-men storyline of all time, so I can't fault it completely.

This whole issue is a big flashback through Wolverine's POV and dream sequences due to delirium. In the beginning, Wolverine is having a normal dream about running through the woods. Then he is being attacked by roots or something and then he is riding through a field with Mariko, his true love. Then they both get attacked by Brood and Mariko is killed. Wolverine attacks the brood and ends up getting flung into a spider web where he loses consciousness. He regains it only to realize that he's still alive but he can't figure out quite how. He is in a considerable amount of pain and then it goes into a flashback of the X-men being attacked at Lilandra's palace and what happens later. They get transported to the Brood's main ship where they are being held prisoner.

Suddenly we are back in another dream sequence where Carol asks Wolverine to dance and asks if he is okay. She then gets taken by the Sleazoids and Wolverine yells at her to fight them (Carol seems okay with them taking her away). It flashes back to the the near present in the flashback where Ororo asks if Wolverine is alright and he realizes that the visions are all in his mind. The X-men are concerned, but he brushes them off as they are taken before the Brood Queen. All of the X-men seem okay and hug the queen, and then it comes to Kitty's turn and she freaks. Kitty yells that this isn't real and that it's not possible and beg the X-men to help her. Wolverine tries to help her but something is controlling his body so that he can't move. The queen grasps Kitty's head and Kitty begs her not to, but the queen doesn't listen. Then it is Wolverine's turn and the queen turns into the Brood she is and bites him. He yells in pain.

Flash to another dream where he is fighting monsters again wondering what is going on and what is happening to him.

Finally Wolverine wakes up in the present and knows that something is seriously wrong with him. He goes to check with Ororo who blows off his concerns and says that he is sick and that she will summon a physician. He knocks Ororo unconscious so that he would not be discovered as in his right mind. He goes into Kitty's room where she is sleeping and he kisses her on the cheek to say goodbye for now. He assures her everything is going to be alright and ends up getting a flash of him possibly having to kill her. He can't figure out what made him think such things until he sees a normal person in the ship get turned into a Brood. Wolverine yells and gives himself away and has to fight his way out of the ship.

He then has to fight the alien egg that has released the Brood Virus into his system. The strain almost kills him, but he manages to survive and then realizes that he is going to have to go back and kill his friends. And then he thinks, it's the Sleazoid's turn.

My Opinion: Not my favorite issue in the Brood Saga just BECAUSE it's so disjointed I couldn't figure out where any of it was going, but you know it does get better and you start to realize what actually happened and what is going on. After it was all said and done it was really cool to watch Wolverine's reaction at potentially having to kill Kitty and also the fact that out of all of the X-men, Kitty put up the most resistance to the Brood Queen's control.

Binary is being experimented upon by the Brood and they realize that she isn't human, but that her mind remains defiant and sane. They wonder why, but are interupted in their musings by Wolverine who whoops them and frees Carol. Her scent is no longer human and she feels a fire burning inside of her, which scares both her and Wolverine, but they push that aside as they make their way to freeing the other X-men. Cyclops has a dream in which he is getting attacked by Brood and is being overwhelmed. He remembers his psychic training from Professor Xavier and fights off the psychic attack to wake up in his own bed. He tracks down Ororo, not remembering what happened and sees her kneeling on the ground. He sees a super-imposed image of the Brood Queen on Ororo before Ororo shoots lightining from the sky in her state. Scott wakes her up to find her weeping because she can not find herself.

Corsair is seen as he was going to go and try to rescue the X-men by the way. Anyway, Scott and Ororo meet up with Wolverine and Carol and Piotr finds them as well. They go looking for the others after Wolverine explains about the Brood to them. They run into Brood and fight. Carol uses the distraction to free Lilandra. They fight some more. Meanwhile Ororo goes and frees Kitty and Kurt. Kurt teleports Kitty down to the yacht so that they can escape. The shields are up so Kurt teleports her onto the hull where Kitty only has moments to phase into the ship and let Kurt in before he freezes to death. She meets up with a Brood and contemplates having to kill it when it attacks her. They end up in a scuffle where the door gets opened and the Brood gets sucked into space and dies. Kitty drags Kurt onto the ship and prays that he lives, as he is cold as ice. Meanwhile the X-men fight the Sleazoids and Wolverine almost kills the queen but she teleports away just in time. Kitty ignites the engines on the yacht and the X-men escape.

My Opinion: This is a really good issue even though the beginning is disjointed due to all of the dreaming and such going on. But, it shows that the X-men can throw down in a scrap with the Brood and do okay and it also shows that Kitty does indeed have what it takes to deal with killing something. Even though it was accidental, Kitty realizes that it was necessary. She just isn't too happy about it.

The X-men are under attack again. The ship gets hurt in the process and Kitty goes out to see what she can do to repair it. Meanwhile Carol is going through fits of weirdness where she feels dizzy and disoriented. Kitty gets hit with a piece of flying shrapnel and tells everyone that she doesn't think that it is serious even though she is bleeding. Kitty knows it is serious but lies because she knows that the ship is going to be in deep trouble if she doesn't fix it, so she keeps plugging along and ignores the pain. Carol transforms into Binary for the first time and desimates the enemy right when Kitty fixes the warp engines and tells Lilandra to throw the ship into warp. They lose contact with Kitty.

Meanwhile back on Earth Illyana tries to draw Prof. X out of his shell by telling him that she's a mutant like Piotr, but Prof. X can't be sure what because her mind is protected by a super thick shield.

Back to the ship where Carol rescues Kitty from certain death as Binary. She brings Kitty back onto the ship only for Kitty to find that the engines are completely drained of power and that they were all going to die unless someone could saturate the engines with enough energy. Carol does so. She then helps to repair the ship and Piotr asks her to join the X-men now that she has powers since she's a good friend. Carol doesn't think that Earth has a place for Binary though.

Kitty is completely recovered from her injuries and it worries Kurt because just a few days before she was dying. The Brood virus actually saved her from dying of radiation poisoning. Scott starts probing about Wolverine's bad mood and Kitty's miraculous healing when he walks in on Ororo collapsing. He tries to get her help but she refuses and then she realizes that she's pregnant. She tries to figure out how and freaks out. The others learn the truth about the Brood and start to deal with their fate.

My Opinion: These are the issues that make the Brood Saga great. This issue is pretty cool watching how they all deal with all kinds of weirdness and once they put it all together how they begin to deal with the fact that they are turning into Brood. And you get to watch Kitty and how heroic she actually is when she's out on that ship's hull.

Carol left the ship in a rage to kill the Brood and the other X-men have to deal with the hole in the ship she left behind. They fight to stay in the ship as the vaccuum of space tries to suck them out and kill them. A pretty funny scene overall. Meanwhile on Earth Moira uses some pretty nasty words to convince Charles to form the New Mutants. Back in space Ororo tries to commit suicide to stop the Brood from taking her over by shooting herself into space and overloading her powers, thus killing the embryo inside of her.

Kitty has turned 14 while in space without her even knowing it, a birthday coming and going in all of the chaos. She finally fell asleep after all of her ordeals and has some massive nightmares about her dying and then turning into a sleazoid. She wakes up in Piotr's arms. They talk about death and Kitty tries to convince Piotr to sleep with her even though she is still young. He refuses because she is too young and it is not the proper time or place. Ororo starts appearing to the X-men in different forms and the X-men meet up with the Akanti for the first time. Storm finally gets her appearance right and tells the X-men that she and the Akanti are one right after the whole ship the X-men are on gets swallowed by an Akanti.

My Opinion: This is a really good issue that a lot of people refer to once in a while when talking about Kitty because this is the issue where her and Peter start to fool around with the idea of their true feelings for one another. It is also a good issue if you want to see some of the potential of Storm's powers because it's pretty cool to watch her latch into the power of the stars and planets themselves.

Carol descimates the Brood's homeworld in her rage and kills an Akanti out of compassion because she realizes that the Akanti are being controlled by the Brood through a virus, so that the Akanti are essentially captive slaves to the Brood. Storm grabs Carol to help the X-men. Ororo explains the Akanti's plight to the X-men and how evil the Brood are. Figuring they are dead anyway the X-men agree to try and take down the Brood homeworld. Ororo is bonded to the Akanti's Prophet Singer to give it the necessary stability to grow into maturity and she gets a place to regrow her body that is protected from harm. Ororo and the Akanti cause a distraction so that the X-men can sneak onto the planet below to destroy the Brood by releasing the soul of the old Prophet Singer so that the young one would get the experiences and could lead his people to freedom. The X-men meet opposition and Kitty ends up phasing out of the area by accident in an effort to protect herself.

Kitty ends up in a nest of eggs one of which seems to have hatched and finds a whole load of Brood skeletons. She leaves the area quickly but doesn't realize she's being watched. The X-men are in trouble and then the Starjammers show up. Wolverine rips off Scott's visor to find that he's a Brood pretty much and the X-men end up getting ambushed and knocked out. Kitty meanwhile is trying to find her way around the ship when she is attacked by Brood. They are about to obliterate her when they hear a small "ahem" from behind them and turning they see something that scares the crap out of them. They try to flee but get obliterated and Kitty comes face to face with the little dragon we know today as Lockheed. Kitty and he befriend each other immediately, but Kitty loses him as the Brood blast a hole through the wall to a beautiful light. It burns the Brood but Kitty thinks it's beautiful and so she walks toward it without thinking twice. The X-men take on Scott and win because Wolverine gambled with an all or nothing shot. Kitty walks out and explains about watching the Brood warrior turn to crystal and that the soul had judged her and the Brood and found the Brood wanting. They go into the core of the Prophet Singer's soul and the Queen Brood sucker punches Wolverine when she realizes that she's corrupting the holy space.

The X-men start to turn into Brood and Wolverine is going to kill them when Carol swoops in and stops him. She puts him down where he is suffering from massive amounts of venom and then goes to work by releasing all of her energy she can into the cavern, creating enough energy to release the Prophet Singer's soul out of the cavern prison into the newly born one. On it's way out the soul also cured the X-men and turned the queen into crystal. The world destroys itself without it's center and Kitty wonders what happened to her dragon when all is said and done and the X-men return to Earth to try and stop Charles Xavier who now holds the only living Brood Embryo.

My opinion: Good issue. Caps off everything that needs capping, has GREAT character moments AND it introduces Lockheed! Buy it!

The relevant part of this issue is the flashback in which the X-men are fighting the Sidri. In this back story Kitty doesn't want to kill the Sidri even though Logan and Cyclops do during the Brood Saga (they are on their way back to Earth after the Brood Saga and run into the Sidri). She comes up with a plan to save the Sidri which Kurt approves of wholeheartedly, as does Piotr, and Kitty puts a regenerative virus into the Sidri ship via a missle, which would heal the affects of anything the X-men had done to them. So no evil aliens die in battle with the X-men and all overly-idealistic-liberal-PC-people are happy and satisfied. In the present the Sidri are holding a grudge because the regenerative virus makes them freaks, which ousted them from their people, and they capture Kurt, who they are going to kill, and Kitty, Piotr and the rest of Excalibur then have to save.

My Opinion: This is a bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD issue. I really hate Raab's period on Excalibur, with the exception of a couple of his beginning issues. True to Raab form here the characters are slaughtered in this issue, the story makes no sense and it's like pulling your teeth out with pliers to read it. Kitty is a psycho-witch who conviently forgets that the Sidri were a group of evil nasty creatures who wanted nothing more then to kill everything and she was quite glad when Lockheed wiped out a nest of them and Piotr killed off one of them in a back issue of X-men (showing Raab's tendency to NEVER do any research before he writes something). Kurt and Piotr are just as bad and if Cyclops could ever get the stick taken out of his butt in this issue it'd kill him. It's just a BAD issue and I would not recommend buying it if you want to read something good. I actually feel dirty putting this right next to the Brood Saga in the chronology just because it was just THAT bad.

The X-men fight the New Mutants after returning to Earth to try and stop the Brood Queen who is in Prof. Xavier. Kitty sneaks in during the chaos and tries to sneak up on Prof. Xavier because he can not sense her in her phased form. She makes the error of seeing if the Proffessor is actually human still or not and gets taken out by the Brood Embryo. Xavier turns into the Brood in the middle of the living room and turns on the X-men. The New Mutants help as best they can to help stop the Brood Queen, realizing that the X-men are indeed still alive (all on Earth believed them dead). They take down the Brood Queen Embryo hard and fast and take it aboard the Star Jammer to see if they can save Charles Xavier.

Kitty awakens in the hospital after being injured and seeing Piotr and Illyana hugs them both, happy to be alive and alright. Ororo stands aside reflecting about Kitty growing up and how lonely she feels as a result. Corsair and Scott make peace and are just happy that they too are still alive and well and Scott finds out he has grandparents still alive in Alaska. The two of them make plans to visit the grandparents when they are interupted by Gladiator who wishes an audience with Lilandra. After getting to her Gladiator begs her to help overthrow Deathbird completely because the whole empire is in misery and Lilandra realizes she has a duty to perform for her people. She learns that Reed Richards had healed Galactus who had long made her people suffer and so she goes after Reed Richards for justice.

After she gives Reed the message that if Galactus eats any more worlds known to her people that the Fantastic Four would be held responsible she steps out of the holographic chamber to find Kitty up and around and Charles Xavier in a new clone body that can walk. His mind wouldn't let him walk, however, due to psychic scarring from the years of pain he'd been in. Kitty is then knocked down to the New Mutants by Prof. Xavier to study with children her own age.

My Opinion: This was a good ending with lots of good Brood Saga aftermath to deal with. It also did a good job of leading into the issues that follow and Kitty's grudge match with Prof. Xavier over whether she should be an X-man or not.

It's the X-men vs. Dracula pt. 2. Kitty has just found out her parents are divorcing and doesn't take it well. She throws a fit and runs crying up to her room where she cries herself to sleep. And then gets possessed by Dracula's daughter. Ororo meanwhile has a dream she kills all of the X-men as a vampire and realizing what it means flies off to find where Dracula is hiding. She finds him and ends up getting captured. Kitty/Dracula's daughter goes into Piotr's room and grabs him for a companion that she will need to kill Dracula in the meantime. Ororo finds out that the consort of Dracula is actually Rachel Van Helsing, who is descended from the family of vampire hunters and also finds out that Dracula wishes her to steal a book that has a spell in it that will obliterate all vampires. Ororo agrees if no one is harmed and it is a deal. Ororo breaks into the house and gets shot by Kitty who is armed with a crossbow. Ororo blows Kitty backward to try and get away. The X-men take the whole thing wrong and try to attack Ororo instead of Kitty and Kitty meanwhile grabs the book that Ororo was supposed to steal. Ororo dives out a window to escape security after realizing that Kitty is possessed and is taken by the vampires again.

Ororo dreams of Cairo and watching her parents die and wakes up in a coffin. She makes sure she is still human and tries to kill Dracula. Dracula is about to turn her into a vampire when the X-men attack. They get a couple of good blows in at Dracula and Rachel comes to Dracula's rescue, whomping on Cyclops but good. Kitty and Collosus show up and go after Dracula, following him as he flees. The X-men realize something is quite wrong with both Kitty and Collosus but can't quite put their fingers on what. The X-men get to the catacombs and attack Dracula again, but Wolverine gets bitten and put into Dracula's service temporarily and tries to kill Cyclops. Ororo frees Kitty from killing Kurt when Kurt interupts Kitty in the middle of the spell that would have slayed Dracula. He knew Kitty's soul would have been forfeit had she completed the spell. Kitty transforms into Dracula's daughter and in the middle of the battle with Dracula, Rachel attacks her creator and stabs him through the heart. At the last moment when Wolverine is about to end Dracula's life completely by severing his head, there is a cave in and we're not sure what happens to him. Wolverine kills Rachel and Dracula's daughter leaves Kitty and all is right again.

My Opinion: This is a good issue, although I liked the first X-men vs. Dracula story better. This one gets somewhat convoluted with the whole "Kitty is possessed and Ororo is working for Dracula but not working for Dracula" thing.

It opens with Doc Samson giving Better Banner comfort because she kicked Bruce out telling him she didn't want to live with a man who liked to turn into a monster. Bruce, the alien Bereet and Rick Jones left to find amnesty for the Hulk somewhere. The Fantastic Four help after the Hulk comes to them for help and other super heroes come to his aid as well. Including the X-men. The Hulk helps to stop an alien invasion with the other heroes and is given amnesty for his sins of the past.

My Opinion: I really don't have one. It's not a bad issue and if you look REALLY close in the first couple of pages you get a shot of Kitty's head and that's about it. She's the little speck in the back.

Kitty only makes a cameo appearance in #1 of three in these issues of Contest of Champions, but she is SUPPOSED to be there, you just don't get to see her, so it does affect her history. All the heroes are captured in the Marvel Universe and pitted against one another in the ultimate competition in these three issues. The heroes are kidnapped from their homes and find out that the Grandmaster has kidnapped them (he's eternal) to perform the greatest tournament the world has ever seen. Through this the Grandmaster hopes to gain the power to return his brother to life for he gains power through competition. The heroes try to think of a way to escape to no avail and are prepared for battle for they must battle or Earth dies.

My Opinion: I always thought the concept of the Contest of Champions was sorta silly and the fact that Kitty isn't in it just reinforces that belief. But if you like a knock down, drag out fight with no purpose feel free to read this.

Susan Richards vs. Talisman. Daredevil vs. Iron Fist. Sunfire vs. Darkstar. Daredevil's team wins the first round as he claims the golden prize. Arabian Knight vs. She-Hulk. She-Hulk vs. Sabre. Defensor vs. Iron Man. Captain Britian vs. Arabian Knight. Captain Britian vs. Sabre. Iron Man vs. She-Hulk. Arabian Knight wins.

My Opinion: The fights jump around a little bit, so be prepared to be a bit confused from time to time over who is on what team. Overall, other than that, they're not too bad.

Black Panther vs. Wolverine. Angel vs. Le Peregrine. The Thing vs. Vanguard. Wolverine is trying to kill the Black Panther when The Thing steps in and tells him to quit it because it's all a game anyway. The Thing digs on Black Panther's say so and gets the prize. Storm vs. Blitzkrieg. Captain America vs. Shamrock. Sasquatch vs. The Collective Man. In the middle of a huge storm that Storm brings up Shamrock just happens to find the prize, thus Irish "luck" wins again. Death ends up winning in the end because the Grand Master gains the power to restore his brother only by killing himself and the collector goes with Death willingly after that. The heroes return to Earth after it is all done with only an hour passing there.

My Opinion: Even though Kitty isn't in these it IS fun to see a lot of members that are no longer active in the comic books, or are dead for all I know, fighting it out. I didn't even know what "Collective Man" did or who he was until I read this issue. Some of these characters are pretty interesting.

A being called Proja goes searching for the true spirit of competition and first goes to the Thing to take him. He then takes Thor, Doc Samson, Colossus of the X-men, Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Sasquatch and he tries to take Vision, but then realizing Vision's an android does not for he is only allowed to grab those within his master's own lifeclass. The heroes are teleported to a prision that is set in the middle of a starless void, they find, and they find their captor's name to be The Champion. He wishes to have a contest of strength and skill with the others because he has not had a good challenge in ages and he has NEVER had an opponent that could last past the second round. Kitty is seen in this issue talking to the other X-men wondering what or who could have taken Piotr. Doc Samson is disqualified because he can not take a hit of the magnitude needed. Namor just refuses to participate and is dropped back home.

Everyone goes to see the fight after the training is over with. The Champion takes on Thor first and whomps him by denying his hammer the ability to return to Thor's hand. The Hulk was just too violent and mindless and so got teleported out by the Champion's hand. Sasquatch lasts like three second. Piotr gets the tar kicked out of him and almost lasts a full round of pounding. The Thing lasts over a round, but still not the full two, but the Champion realizes he'd have to kill the Thing before he'd give up. He realizes that was the true spirit of competition and so admits defeat to the Thing.

My opinion: This was a fun and cute issue really. I like Ben Grimm. He's a fun character.

The Thing is recovering from injuries sustained in his fight with The Champion and all of his old foes are trying to kill him. It's up to the heroes of the Marvel Universe to stop them, including the X-men. This is a humor packed issue where you get to see a huge free for all right in front of the hospital to protect the Thing. Meanwhile The Thing is going crazy in the hospital because he doesn't have anything to do.

My Opinion: Even though Kitty doesn't show up in this issue in other than a cameo appearance sitting in the waiting room (waiting for news on Ben)...you have got to read it anyway. Kitty has no lines, but that doesn't matter once you get to reading it. This issue is fun and it's FUNNY. Watching all of the villians and heroes fight it out while Ben is in the hospital bored out of his ever-loving mind is worth the read. Trust me.

Origins of the second team of X-men revealed. Kitty is in the gym and doing all kinds of gymnastic stuff and pushes herself too hard so she smacks herself pretty good. Illyana helps Kitty up and tells her she's been exploring and Kitty tells her she can show her the other cool stuff the mansion has to offer. Kitty gives Illyana a tour of the mansion and shows her all kinds of neat things from each of the new team's rooms, such as Ororo's plants and the momentos she has from Africa and such. They then go to where the Blackbird is covered in the lake and check that out and Illyana gets an incredible tour of the mansion with Kitty's help They then sneak back to the mansion when an alarm is sounded, Kitty figuring she's going to have to try and not trash the mansion this time and finds herself in the middle of a birthday party for her fourteenth B-day. Illyana wanted to make sure they celebrated Kitty's missed birthday because she knew what it was like to miss a birthday or two in Limbo (her first of two fourteenth birthdays, which causes a lot of trouble in continuity figuring out Kitty's age to this day).

My Opinion: This is a pretty fun issue to read if you want to know the origins of the original team, see what their rooms are like or even how the mansion is set up. It is a reprint of Giant Sized X-men #1 and has a cool bonus story at the end of it. It's much cheaper than a Giant Sized X-men #1 too.

"Professor Xavier is a jerk!" That was Kitty's opinion of Professor Xavier at the beginning of this issue. Kitty has been demoted down to the New Mutants and isn't taking it well. Illyana tries to cheer Kitty up but to no avail. Finally in dance class, Stevie Hunter manages to knock some sense into Kitty's head about how to get through to Professor Xavier instead of fighting with him. So, Kitty starts working with Professor Xavier any way she can to make him realize that she's brilliant so the X-men can use that, that her powers would come in handy in battle, that she's been an X-men for far too long to get demoted now...especially when she's helped the X-men through so much, and other reasons. The X-men even step in on Kitty's behalf trying to get Professor Xavier to change his mind. They think that Professor Xavier is out of line also. Professor Xavier doesn't seem to be bending though, until one evening. Kitty is essentially alone in the mansion, with the exception of Professor Xavier. Piotr and Illyana ask her in the middle of studying if Kitty would like to go and chop up some firewood with them but Kitty declines to study some more. Kitty is studying the specks for the Blackbird over and over again before Prof. X will let her fly it and it's driving her crazy. She feels like she could take the Blackbird apart in her sleep. There is an alarm saying that there is something wrong in the maintenance tunnels and Kitty decides to check it out. She finds a chewed through cable and calls Professor Xavier to tell him telepathically what has happened. She then hears a noise and popping around the corner figures she has got the intruder beaten. It's then a small purple little dragon makes himself known to Kitty. Kitty is thrilled to see her friend again, for it's none other than Lockheed! She and Lockheed take a moment to hug one another in welcome (by the way we're never QUITE sure how Lockheed got back to Earth from Broodworld, but we'll assume he stowed away on the ship that the X-men were on). Lockheed growls at something and Kitty finds herself face to face with the Sidri Hunters.

Professor Xavier tells Kitty to run, but she knows she's not going to get the chance. She quickly realizes that her phasing power is useless against these creatures and it doesn't work right after she gets hit by one, so she usees the training Wolverine taught her to scrap with them the hard way. Lockheed meanwhile is descimating them himself, breathing fire on them. They seem to be quite susceptible to extreme heat, and Kitty is glad for the help. Kitty then gets hit from behind by another Sidri and is about to get obliterated, wondering to herself if it is going to hurt. Suddenly Collosus shows up and kills the Sidri that was about to hurt Kitty, lucky for her, and Kitty hugs him glad she is alive. She is wondering where Lockheed disappeared to when suddenly the little dragon appears out of one of the side rooms. Collosus had just told her that the Sidri had a nest and they knew they were going to have to find it before the Sidri hatched. She needn't have bothered for Lockheed comes out of the room with a slight burp. He wiped out the entire nest by his little old lonesome and we find out through that, that maybe Lockheed is one heck of a feared hunter.

They then return to the upper part of the mansion and Kitty introduces Professor Xavier to Lockheed. Professor Xavier, after hearing Kitty's arguments about why they should keep Lockheed, agrees to let him stay. He also tells her that she has proven herself to be of X-men standards in that she did not freak out during the battle with the Sidri. She remained calm during the battle and showed how much experience she really did have under her belt. He offers to let her come back to the X-men under a probationary status and she finds that the best news she's heard all day.

Scott meets his grandparents for the first time and also meets Maddie Pryor, blown away by her resemblence to Jean Grey.

My Opinion: This is another classic Kitty issue for any fan. Kitty shows spunk, she shows the temper she used to have when she was younger. She uses her head to think her way through a situation. She gets Lockheed back, which starts the almost twenty year friendship we all know and love today. This is an essential issue for anyone who wants to put together a good collection of Shadowcat issues.