u/Plenty_Square_420

Give how this is described as being in a flashback there's a descent chance something horrible happens to her.

Link: https://www.raremarq.com/u/EricChen/pieces/arttrober-day-6-kitty-pryde

With this page from almost a year and a half ago still being the last time we saw Nina as well as Ewing soon leaving United with a new writer stepping in I think we can pretty safely say that this plotline has been abandoned. Which is so disappointing that elaborating on exactly all the reasons it's disappointing would end up understating the fact unless we had like a 10,000+ word post specifically about how the Nina relationship is a huge disappointment.

But how would you have handled this storyline? What would you like to have seen from Kittys first queer relationship?

If we assume that all the circumstances are the same I would have liked to see the way Kitty pursued a relationship in a quest for normalcy explored in more depth. While that has always been obvious to the reader at this point it remains kind of ambiguous to what extent Kitty herself is aware of this. I think we needed significantly more of Kittys own inner thoughts, both at the beginning of the relationship and also towards the end of the relationship. Where we see her reflect on why she did the things she did and where things might have gone wrong.

If she's going to have a normal human girlfriend I think it would have been nice if she had a least two characters traits. While her being normal and the relationship being half-assed was part of the point it would have been nice if that wasn't so obvious. Where we could get an of their dynamic, what they did as a couple and what they thought was fun.

There is of course also the obvious option of simply having her first queer relationship be kissing Illyana, which lets us sidestep this conversation entirely.

Image source: Exceptional X-Men #11

Kitty and Emma have always had a connection, going all the way back the Dark Phoenix saga where she was introduced and Emma was trying to recruit her to the school. After that we have Emma capturing her a few times like in Uncanny X-Men #151 and New Mutants #15

Their relationship is also a keystone of Astonishing X-Men, they also share a lot of interactions during the Utopia era and of course we can't forget about the Quiet Council and the Marauders. They were basically the only two council members that were actually doing a good job.

So what if they took this connection further in the MCU and made Kitty start as a character that's being taught by Emma? I think this could have a few advantages. Like with the X-Men being a bunch of new characters we might not get to see Kitty for quite a while. Introducing her via Emma might give her character room to breathe so she might be able to be introduced earlier then she otherwise would be. It might also help Kitty from a marketing perspective since at this point Emma is probably the more popular character, especially amongst the mainstream. So as long as we eventually get some of her important relationships with characters like Kurt and Illyana I think this could be a fun idea.

Image source: Special Edition X-Men

Do you think Lockheed should always be present whenever Kitty is in a book. Do you think this is something that should be retained in adaptations of the X-Men.

I know it probably makes sense since it's a Storm spray. The focus is meant to be on Storm. But still. The audacity.

Basically all the potential Kitty left the Krakoa era with was just squandered with us never really getting an in depth exploration of her new life in Chicago.

Her new girlfriend hasn't been seen for a year. Even if the point was for Kitty to rush into a half baked relationship because she wanted normalcy we don't even get an exploration into that aspect.

Now she's technically in X-Men United but she's such a non-entity she might as well not be there at all. She fully wasn't in it for two issues and even when she's showing back up she just has like two lines.

I've now seen a theory that Felicia Hardy will get bodyswapped into Kitty in the Black Cat comic. Which honestly, if it happened, would probably be the most interesting thing they've done with her since the Krakoa era ended.

They have matching trunks

Since she was stuck intangible she couldn't change clothes. So when you see her in her normal costume here after passing through the robot that's still the costume she was wearing in Giant Size X-Men. She had not taken it off since then. Probably a good thing that she most likely didn't sweat...