Lady Deathstrike
Lady Deathstrike is a female comic book supervillain who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Yuriko Oyama was the daughter and one of three children of Kenji Oyama with her two other siblings being her brothers. Her father Kenji was a former Japanese kamikaze pilot that was part of a failed suicide attack on an American battleship and though he survived he suffered horrible scars as a result. (Daredevil v1 #198) Upon returning to Japan, he created Oyama Heavy Industries and Yuriko along with her brothers tutored by Marcy Stryker who was the wife of American soldier William Stryker. (X-Treme X-Men v1 #27) The elder Oyama felt a great deal of shame over his failure during World War II that led him to scarring the faces of his children in a ritual design whereupon he became a criminal scientist known as Lord Dark Wind. (Daredevil v1 #198) During this time, he began studying Adamantium and discovered the process of bonding this virtually indestructible metal to human bone. He intended to use this procedure to create an entire army of super-soldier for Japan. (Alpha Flight v1 #34) However, his notes on the process were stolen which took him years to rediscover. At some point, the two Oyama brothers were killed in service to their father thus fuelling Yuriko's desire for vengeance against Lord Dark Wind for not only their deaths but the scarring they had all faced due to him. By this time, Yuriko had fallen in love with a man in Kenji Oyama'a private army who went by the name of Kira and she sought to protect him from harm. Lord Dark Wind in this point of his life grew disgusted with Japanese society after the war and sought to shape it to his will. He hired the services of the crippled assassin Bullseye who was brought to Lord Dark Wind's private island and replaced some of the bones in his broken body with Adamantium substitutes. This was with the express purpose of gaining the services of Bullseyes and getting him to assassinate the Japanese Minister of Trader. At the same time, the blind crime fighter Daredevil had arrived in pursuit of Bullseye and was assisted by Yuriko. Bullseye would escape leading to Lord Dark Wind nearly killing Daredevil but Yuriko would kill her father. (Daredevil v1 #199) The death of his master Lord Dark Wind saw Yuriko's love Kira commit suicide in despair. Kira's death would radically change Yuriko's life as her hatred for her father ended and she had a desire to complete his life's work. (Alpha Flight v1 #34) Despite the seeming death of her siblings, she had a surviving brother who became an assassin named Lord Deathstrike. (Wolverine v2 #304)
She would come to learn of a Mutant by the name of Wolverine who had his skeleton coated in Adamantium in a process similar to that researched by Lord Dark Wind. Oyama would become convinced that this was based of her father's stolen research and that Wolverine was the perpetrator of the act. She would garb herself as a female samurai where she began calling herself Lady Deathstrike whereupon she took several of her father's warriors to Canada to track down Wolverine and capture him so that the Adamantium in his body could be retrieved for study. She along with her team would ambush him in Canada but their plan was thwarted by his long-time friend Heather Hudson who had adopted the identity of Vindicator and the head of the Canadian superhero team known as Alpha Flight. (Alpha Flight v1 #34)
Reavers
Oyama approached Spiral's Body Shop where she paid money for them to transform her body into a powerful cyborg to give her the power to kill Wolverine in the belief that after completing her mission that she would be transformed back to her human form. With the Reavers, she staged an attack on Wolverine who managed to badly injure the mercenaries leading to Lady Deathstrike personally intervening in the fight, This saw her battle Wlverine where she managed to gain the upper hand over him but he turned the tide due to his healing factor and slashed her body to pieces. Barely alive, she accepted defeat and urged Wolverine to kill her but he instead decided to dishonour her by leaving her alive telling her that she would have to earn the death. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #205)
Messiah Complex
She later gathered the Reavers and forced the cooperation of Gateway in order to use his powers to teleport to Utopia so that they could massacre its population. They were confronted by Wolverine's X-Force team with Yuriko's frame being damaged and forcing her to send her consciousness into a new body. (Uncanny X-Force v1 #5.1)
Afterwards, she came to work for Doctor Octopus for world domination where she guarded the site of one of his machines in Australia where she ended up killing the Kangaroo who attempted to shut it down. (Amazing Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth v1 #1)
The Yuriko consciousness was later purchased by Ana Cortes on her 18th birthday allowing her to become the new Lady Deathstrike as she wanted a taste of power. This exchange was given by Yuriko's old friend Reiko leading to Cortes and Oyama forming a symbiotic partnership with nanites reshaping her body giving her superhuman abilities. She led the resources of her Cortes Syndicate in an operation against the X-Men. (X-Men v4 #7)
Logan Legacy
Yuriko later learnt that Wolverine had returned and quickly assembled the Reavers in order to reach him first to kill him before any of his others enemies reached him. In reality, this was not Wolverine but rather an alternate reality version of him who was forced to battle Lady Deathstrike and left her seriously damaged. (Old Man Logan v1 #7)
In the aftermath, she went into hiding but was captured by a reborn Weapon X program who used her in their efforts to refine their Mutant-hunting cyborgs. (X-Men Prime v2 #1)
House of X
Later on, Lady Deathstrike came to find that the Adamantium within her body was slowly killing her. In desperation, she sought out Doctor Stasis for aid but he came to change his mind as he deemed her more machine than human. This led to him leaving her in stasis where she was passed along numerous scientists in Orchis. This eventually saw her being taken to Feilong's facility on Phobos that had been turned into an Orchis stronghold. The Adamantium within her body was registered by Krakoa with Laura Kinney believing that a captive Mutant was being held on the scene leading to her engaging in a rescue mission. After freeing her, Yuriko and Laura worked together to escape where they later went to Krakoa to heal. After her injuries were fixed, Lady Deathstrike departed the living island and returned to Earth. (X-Men v6 #10)
Overview
Personality and attributes
She prided herself as a Deathstrike who had many talents one of which was separating business from pleasure. (Wolverine v2 #304)
Yuriko came to hate her father for his treatment of her and the abuse he also did to her brothers. (Daredevil v1 #198) This viewpoint shifted dramatically after his death as she began to re-examine his life and saw his devotion to his ideals as something to admire. As a result, she embraced his goal of restoring Japan's honour and fulfil his dream which was why she sought revenge against Wolverine as she believed he had stolen the Adamantium from Lord Dark Wind. (Alpha Flight v1 #34) In fact, she claimed to be her father's daughter and thus bound by his dreams with her being honoured by his name. Yuriko said that a child was but a shadow of their parent with this being more so the case after their death. With his dreams unfulfilled, she considered herself a pale reflection of her father with her unable to begin her own life as a result until his desire was fulfilled. Thus, she claimed that her desire to hunt down and kill Wolverine was an attempt at securing her own freedom from the duty she had to her father. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #205)
A person she knew fondly was William Stryker who she had known all her life since she was born. (X-Treme X-Men v1 #26)
As a young girl, she fell in love with a man named Kira who was an enforcer in her fathers private army. (Daredevil v1 #198)
Her resolve to defeat Wolverine led to her transforming herself into a cyborg with her feeling that this was a necessary act in order for her to get the power she needed to complete her task. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #205) According to Logan, there were few people he feared with Lady Deathstrike being among that small number of people. (Uncanny X-Force v1 #5.1) To Yuriko, Wolverine was many things that she despised but she never believed him to be a liar. (Wolverine v2 #114)
One of her old friends was a Japanese woman by the name of Reiko. (X-Men v4 #7)
Powers and abilities
It was shown that she was capable of speaking her native Japanese and English. (Alpha Flight v1 #34)
Originally, she had no powers beyond her training and was a skilled swordswoman. She had a set of specially crafted armour and wielded an electromagnetically tempered blade that could match Adamantium in a fight. (Alpha Flight v1 #34)
After her transformation into a cyborg, she was described as being a living weapon and the ultimate woman of war. Her powers were thus the result of technology where she claimed to be faster and stronger than Wolverine. This included being given claws that were capable of cutting through almost anything. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #205) She was later upgraded with a self-repair and reconfiguration program that afforded her a cybernetic healing factor. (Wolverine v2 #114) Her healing factor relied upon nanobots reconstructing individual cells on a molecular level. (Weapon X v3 #2)
It was second nature for her to morph parts of her body into other tools such as changing her fingers into I/O plugs allowing her to link her consciousness to the internet directly. (X-Treme X-Men v1 #26)
Her consciousness could be placed into a willing subject where she formed a symbiotic partnership with the individual. Such actions were only done so as an exchange with people paying large sums of money for the privilege of gaining he power of Lady Deathstrike. This involved an injection of nanites where billions of the microscopic machines created trillions more in the host. They began to engage in body modification of the host allowing them to gain superhuman feats that included the repair of any damage. This ability allowed Yuriko to be reborn in new bodies following her death and other people to adopt her mantle as Lady Deathstrike. Within the body, she advised and guided them whilst the host gave her access to the resources of their organization. (X-Men v4 #7)
She was the head of the Oyama Design Group. (X-Men Annual v2 2000) The Oyama family were said to knew more about Adamantium than anyone else. (X-Treme X-Men v1 #27) Lady Deathstrike was shown to having the resources to maintain an army of followers that were loyal to her. (Alpha Flight v1 #34)
Alternate Versions
Notes
- The character was created by Dennis O'Neil and Larry Hama where she made her first appearance as Yuriko Oyama in Dardevil v1 #197 (April 1986) but appeared as Lady Deathstrike in Alpha Flight v1 #33 (April 1986).
- In 2009, IGN cameo to rank the character 78th in their Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.
In other media
Television
- In X-Men: the Animated Series, the character made an appearance in the two part Episode "Out of the Past" where she was voiced by Jane Luk. Yuriko Oyama was the daughter of the distinguished Professor Oyama and she was romantically involved with Logan. He was assigned a black-ops mission and promised to return to Yuriko once he had completed the task but he was captured for the Weapon X Project. Wolverine would break free from the experiment that bonded Adamantium to his bones with his rampage killing Professor Oyama. When he returned to Yuriko's home, she was long gone though in truth she had learnt of her fathers demise and swore revenge against Logan. She would travel to the Reavers who transformed her into a cyborg where she called herself Lady Deathstrike in order to seek vengeance for her slain father as Logan did not realize that the scientist involved was Yuriko's parent.
Films
- In X2: X-Men United, Lady Deathstrike made an appearance where she was portrayed by actress Kelly Hu. She was shown as being a brainwashed Mutant with a regenerative healing factor similar to Wolverine along with superhuman strength. Known only as Deathstrike, she served as the personal enforcer of William Stryker who drugged her with a chemical extracted from his own son Jason Stryker. As part of Weapon X, she was enhanced with Adamantium claws that extended from her nails. She was dispatched by Stryker to ambush and capture both Cyclops along with Professor Xavier. She later fought Wolverine at the government black ops facility at Alkali Lake where Logan managed to disable her by injecting her with fluid Adamantium seemingly killing her.
Video games
- In X-Men: Next Dimension, Lady Deathstrike was a playable character in the video game where she was voiced by actor Gwendoline Yeo.
- In Wolverine: Adamantium Rage, the character appeared as a boss villain in the video game. She was stated to be 5'9 who had cybernetic implants with Adamantium laced on her body. A weakness of her character was said to be her mental instability.
Appearances
- Daredevil v1: (1986)
- Alpha Flight v1: (1986)
- Wolverine:
- Uncanny X-Men:
- X-Men:
- X-Treme X-Men:
- New X-Men:
- Uncanny X-Force v1:
- Secret Avengers v1:
- Wolverines v1:
- Weapon X:
- X-Men v6: (2022)
External Links
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