Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and This is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.
Speaker 2: Wolverine Enemy Lady death Strike has long been one of
Speaker 2: my favorite characters in X Men comics. While I was
Speaker 2: never much of a comic book reader as a kid,
Speaker 2: I of course encountered her on X Men, the animated series,
Speaker 2: and in the nineteen ninety four video game Wolverine Atamantium Rage.
Speaker 2: A decade later, Kelly Hugh played a modified version of
Speaker 2: Lady death Strike in the film X two. The character's
Speaker 2: physical appearance is that of a Japanese woman with long,
Speaker 2: reddish hair, a form fitting samurai inspired costume, and long,
Speaker 2: razor sharp adamantium talons that extend from hands that are
Speaker 2: themselves sometimes depicted as relatively human, other times oversized, elongated,
Speaker 2: and truly monstrous. Her biography makes things even more complicated, however,
Speaker 2: Born Eurico Oyama, Lady death Strike's father is said to
Speaker 2: have originated the adamantium skeletal bonding process that so famously
Speaker 2: enhanced Wolverine. Death Strike, however, obtained her own adamantium claws
Speaker 2: and bones after her father's death. In the Mojo verse,
Speaker 2: this is where the character Spiral not only gave her
Speaker 2: the full adamantium treatment, but also transformed her into a
Speaker 2: full blown cyborg. As such, depictions of Lady death Strike
Speaker 2: often include circuit like glyphs on her skin and other
Speaker 2: cybernetic flourishous so coming back to her monstrous hands. Part
Speaker 2: of this is the fact that she can extend her
Speaker 2: forearms via her cybernetic enhancements. But we also might conjecture
Speaker 2: that additional musculature in the hands and forearms is simply
Speaker 2: necessary to house the additional retractable adamantium talent, and, perhaps
Speaker 2: more to the point, the muscles or some sort of
Speaker 2: cybernetic mechanisms to retract and deploy them. Now, perhaps unwittingly,
Speaker 2: her monstrous hands make Lady death Strike comparable to various
Speaker 2: traditions in folklore and legend in which a demon takes
Speaker 2: on the form of a beautiful woman but is betrayed
Speaker 2: by monstrous hands or feet. This clues in central characters
Speaker 2: or heroes to the demonic nature of the individual. More directly. However,
Speaker 2: she certainly fits the femme fatale profile, and there are
Speaker 2: aspects of her appearance in history that would almost allow
Speaker 2: her to take her place alongside certain feminine yokai and
Speaker 2: yuri in Japanese traditions, so various ghosts and vengeful ghosts.
Speaker 2: This sometimes have a combination of the monstrous and the feminine. However,
Speaker 2: it is unavoidable that while Asian comic book artists and
Speaker 2: writers have subsequently depicted and developed the character, Lady death
Speaker 2: Strike originates as a Western take on the Asian hotel trope.
Speaker 2: Connections have been drawn between her signature nails and decorative
Speaker 2: Chinese nail guards worn during the Ming dynasty. Also, I
Speaker 2: was reminded of Lady Death Strike during a recent viewing
Speaker 2: of the nineteen eighty three Hong Kong horror film The
Speaker 2: Boxer's Omen, which features a resurrected sorceress who wears decorative
Speaker 2: nail covers and also appears with elongated forearms that turn
Speaker 2: out to be animate skeleton hands. Her profile in one scene,
Speaker 2: in particular, feels very Lady death Strike, though the Marvel
Speaker 2: character of Yuriko Oyama, introduced the same year, wouldn't take
Speaker 2: on the full mantle of Lady death Strike and the
Speaker 2: various characteristics that we associate with her until nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: six in Uncanny X Men number two five. Might her
Speaker 2: creators have found some level of influence in the Boxer's
Speaker 2: omen or merely in related imagery and ideas. I've found
Speaker 2: nothing concrete on this matter, so maybe I'm drawing a
Speaker 2: connection here where there is and one. Lady death Strike
Speaker 2: continues to slice up the page of Marvel Comics as
Speaker 2: both villain and anti hero, and she recently showed back
Speaker 2: up in twenty twenty four's Deadpool and Wolverine as a minor,
Speaker 2: almost easter egg character, but it was still fun to
Speaker 2: see once more. She was not fully cyborg, but she
Speaker 2: certainly embodied some of the features that have made her
Speaker 2: such a popular character over the years. Tune in for
Speaker 2: additional episodes of The Monster Fact The Artifact or Animalius
Speaker 2: Stupendium each week. As always. You can email us at
Speaker 2: contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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