Yet, Wolverine and Kitty Pryde deserves a sympathetic ear, if only because it takes place during a high point in Claremont’s work, before the central characters became as overused as they are today.
The original Wolverine and Kitty Pryde spanned six issues in 1984 and 1985, a few years after Kitty’s first appearance in Uncanny X-Men #129. Kitty joined the book as a nervous 13-year-old, who survived her first run in the danger room by closing her eyes, activating her phasing powers, and sprinting through it. She took on several different code names and costumes during this period, including a mish-mash monstrosity she wore under the moniker “Sprite.” All of it worked because Kitty was essentially the X-Men’s mascot, a cute kid they let pal around with the main team and didn’t boot to the New Mutants (well, not after she called Professor X a jerk for trying to boot her to the New Mutants), but never took too seriously.
Wolverine and Kitty Pryde changed all of that. Picking up shortly after the first Wolverine miniseries by Claremont and Frank Miller established Logan as a type of ronin, a man who lost his honor, Wolverine and Kitty Pryde sends the two mutants to Japan on a mission to rescue the latter’s father. Captured and brainwashed by the ninja Ogun, Kitty gains martial arts abilities to match her phasing powers, which leads to her adopting her most consistent identity, Shadowcat.
In the decades since the original mini, both Wolverine and Kitty have undergone multiple changes and rises in popularity, not always for the better. The ronin aspect of Wolverine has washed away after years of oversaturation, to the point that he’s too often a generic tough guy who can be plugged into any type of story. While Kitty has survived disastrous near-marriages to Colossus and Star-Lord to finally be canonically bisexual and openly in love with Rachel Summers, she’s often still written as an object of the readers’ affection more than a character who stands on her own.
By returning the characters their ’80s status quo, at least for a flashback miniseries, Wolverine and Kitty Pryde can give both readers and future creators a chance to take stock of the central characters. Claremont can do what he does best, embracing the soap operatic aspects of mutants and the twisty dramatic possibilities they offer.
And even if the new Wolverine and Kitty Pryde doesn’t revitalize its heroes, it will at least serve as a reminder of how far the characters have come… for better or for worse.