Starting out as theX-Men’s kid sister, the phasing mutantKitty Prydehas enjoyed one of Marvel’s best character arcs of all time. Today considered one of X-Men’s best leaders,Kitty has grown uparound some of the world’s greatest heroes, following their example and developing her powers in shocking, unexpected and even unlikely ways.
Here are 10 obscure powers that Kitty Pryde has in X-Men lore, revealing thather ability to turn intangile iswaymore versatile and powerful than fans often assume.
10Superfast Flight
Kitty Can Use Earth’s Rotation to Travel Huge Distances
Kitty’s base power is the ability to turn intangible, however what she’s really doing is holding herself out of phase with the world around her. By pushing her powers to their limits, Kitty can phase out of contact with Earth’s gravity. This leaves her floating still, but with the Earth still turning without her, creating the impression of incredibly fast flight.
Kitty can ‘fly’ at around nine kilometers a minute, even taking others along for the ride. However, because Kitty isn’t actually moving, it’s difficult for her to direct this ‘flight’, making the power an excellent way to escape combat, but a terrible way to travel to a pre-selected destination. However, given Kitty’s genius intellect, she could likely calculate a deliberate trajectory if given time to prepare.
9Increased Density
The Opposite of Kitty’s Intangibility
While Kitty can turn intangible, it’s also possible for her powers to go in the opposite direction, increasing her mass and weight. In Marvel’s mainstream,Kitty hasn’t mastered this power yet, and it’s more often used against her - for example, in Chip Zdarsky and Terry Dodson’sX-Men/Fantastic Four #4when Doctor Doom triggers her hyper-density, sending her crashing through the floor.
One version of Kitty whohasmastered this power is the Kitty Pryde of Earth-1610, aka the original Ultimate Universe. In this universe, many of the X-Men were killed when Magneto attempted to flip the planet’s poles, leaving Kitty as the leader of a severely oppressed new generation. Taking the codename Shroud, Kitty began experimenting with her powers, developing increased density and strength so strong, she was able to punch the Thing off his feet.
Hopefully, the mainstream Kitty trains with this ability and reaches the same heights as her Ultimate self, since Doctor Doom already proved it’s something shecando.
8Non-Contact Phasing
Kitty’s Powers Are No Longer Limited By Touch
Kitty has always been able to phase other people by touching them, however in the most recent evolution of her powers, she can temporarily leave them in a phased state even after she withdraws contact. In Gerry Duggan and Stefano Caselli’sX-Men #25, Kitty is surrounded by a group of Orchis agents, using her powers and ninja combat training to kill her attackers.
Kitty pulls off some grisly moves such as phasing one villain’s gun into his head and merging another with the roof below them. However, her most creative attack sees her throw one attacker in a phased state, making him solid as he passes through one of his allies before turning him solid. It’s a brutal move that kills both men, but reveals that when pushed, Kitty doesn’t need to be touching someone to keep them phased.
7Telepathic Immunity
When Phased, Kitty’s Mind Doesn’t Technically Exist
Despite boasting some of the most powerful psychics in Marvel lore, a lot of the X-Men’s power shave the side-effect of making them immune to telepathy. Jubilee and Gambit’s energy powers make it impossible to read their minds due to the ‘static’ effect, while Storm can likewise use electrical charge to hide her mind from telepaths.
Kitty Pryde is another addition to this list, with her phasing making it hard for telepaths to access her mind. While this immunity isn’t absolute, it has defeated Omega-level telepaths like the Shadow King, and is strengthened bythe Red Triangle protocol- a non-superpowered defence against telepathy that Xavier taught all his students.
6Phase Tunneling
Kitty Can Extend Her Phasing in Wild Ways
Kitty is most famous for turning herself and maybe a few civilians intangible, but her powers arewaymore ambitious than that. Kitty personally saved the planet from a gigantic projectile fired by the alien Breakworld, showcasing phasing on a planetary level.
In Charles Soule and Ramón Rosanas’Hunt for Wolverine: Dead Ends #1, Kitty unleashed a truly unique application of this wide-bore phasing. When the X-Men were targeted by a series of missiles, Kitty phased the ground itself, creating a phase-tunnel so that the missile only detonated miles underground. Kitty created a gigantic chasm in the Earth by choosing to make a specific segment intangible.
This is best understood as the opposite of Invisible Woman’s force fields - Kitty can essentially create a negative ‘shape’ in a large object when in physical contact, changing how it interacts with the world around it. This ability takes a huge amount out of Kitty, but it has some major applications if she continues to hone the power.
5Selective Phasing
Kitty’s Powers Aren’t Binary
While Kitty’s powers are all about intangibility, years of honing her abilities have left her able to phase different parts of her body by different amounts. Kitty can make different parts of her body tangible and intangible at the same time. Thanks to being trained in combat byWolverine’s former master Ogun, this makes Kitty an incredible fighting machine, able to punch someone in the face even as she phases through a wall to do it.
4Electrical Disruption
Kitty Can Both Make and Great Tech
Kitty can phase through almost anything, but there are some instances where she struggles. Exotic metals like adamantium make it far harder to use her powers, and electrical energy is disrupted when Kitty passes through it. Kitty has learned to weaponize this ability, using it to shut down electronics.
That’s particularly useful for a hero who is often pursued by gigantic robots, and one of the X-Men’s most effective combat tactics is to drop Kitty straight down through a Sentinel, disrupting all its systems at the same time. Kitty has trained this ability over the years, making it easier for her to pick and choose when she disrupts electronics.
An early adopter of computer technology, Kitty has always been a whiz-kid when it comes to electronics, and is a gifted programmer with or without her powers. This insight makes her electrical disruption even more potent, as she understands exactly how to take down computer systems in the most effective way.
3Bio-Disruption
Kitty’s Phasing Is a Weapon
Kitty’s phasing allows her to disrupt electricity when she passes through it, and this ability includes the electricity within the human brain. Kitty is capable of causing disruptions within the body’s nervous systems or even causing targeted concussions within the brain, even via just a fingertip touch.
2Air-Walking
Kitty Can Fly, But It Takes Effort
By concentrating on her density, Kitty can achieve a state where she’s able to walk on air as if it’s a solid.X-Mencomics have treated this as either walking or ‘swimming’ through the air, rather than the freedom of flight, but it’s ideal for infiltrating enemy bases without turning tangible.
1Phase-Shifting
In Her Ultimate Form, Kitty Can Bend Space
In Kieron Gillen and R.B. Silva’sRise of the Powers of X,Kitty merges with the Celestial Death Seed, unlocking the ultimate form of her powers. This upgrade enhanced Kitty’s body, increasing her density, strength and size. It also unlocked extra powers, such as being able to phase objects without physical contact and the ability to ‘phase shift,’ essentially folding space to achieve teleportation.
While this future was erased by the X-Men defeating the ultimate Sentinel Nimrod, this is still the mainstream Kitty Pryde of Earth-616. Kitty’s Death Seed transformation revealed the upper ceiling of what her powers could be capable of in future, with her phasing warping space itself.
Those are the 10 powers that will change how you seeX-Men’sKitty Pryde, revealing that even after decades in the spotlight, she’s still discovering wild new ways to use her mutant powers.
X-Men
The X-Men franchise, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, centers on mutants with extraordinary abilities. Led by the powerful telepath Professor Charles Xavier, they battle discrimination and villainous mutants threatening humanity. The series explores themes of diversity and acceptance through a blend of action, drama, and complex characters, spanning comics, animated series, and blockbuster films.
