Woah Woah, What's new Kitty-cat?

Now, was that so hard?

Ultimate Kitty Pryde debuted her new sexy costume last week in Ultimate Spider-man #112, courtesy of new regular artist Stuart Immonen (the genius behind NEXTWAVE, Superman Secret Identity, Shockrockets and more)

Now, Kitty has been around for... how long? 25 years give or take.

And how many good costumes has she worn? And I mean something that is not derivative of the X-Men school uniform. UncannyX-Men.net has a nice rundown of her most significant costumes for a taste.

This on the other hand, this shows promise.

Let's do a list (we love lists!)

It's:
sexy, with the exposed shoulders and the choker,
feminine, with the sash,
low-key, with a distinctive color scheme (it's not the school colours for one, and not plain bland blue-black, but still indicative of shadows),
'feline' because of the mask design, suggesting 'Kitty' or Shadowcat
classy, what with the high gloves and all, which also bear a nice little touch with the zig-zag the pattern at their end

In the end though, the sheer coolness boils down to one thing: the mask. It's hard to come up with an original mask or headdress design these days. Think about Storm, Scarlet Witch, Mockingbird (one of the greatest designs, actually), or looking at the men: Wolverine, Cyclops, Ant-Man. ..

These are some of the most distinctive and recognizable designs in comics. They set the hero apart from the crowd and become a vital characteristic of them, much like hair or eye color. Let's face it, as many costumes as Storm and Scarlet Witch are likely to change through the years, the artists always eventually return to the classic head-dress design, since the character feels incomplete without them.

With Kitty, I could comfortably see this as her new trademark look. A superhero look, mature/grown-up yet still playful and fun.

Ironically, I would have preferred this costume on the '616' Kitty instead, who is an actual adult superhero at this point, than the teenager school-girl Ultimate Kitty, but I'm not one to gripe (sic). Adult Kitty also has the extra connection to the costume with her dancer-history, as the costume strongly reminds of the sort of dancer costumes made famous in Fame in the 80s ;)