The Monstrefact: Marvel’s Lady Deathstrike

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses Lady Deathstrike from Marvel Comics…

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and This is the
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.
Wolverine Enemy Lady death Strike has long been one of
my favorite characters in X Men comics. While I was
never much of a comic book reader as a kid,

(00:32):
I of course encountered her on X Men, the animated series,
and in the nineteen ninety four video game Wolverine Atamantium Rage.
A decade later, Kelly Hugh played a modified version of
Lady death Strike in the film X two. The character's
physical appearance is that of a Japanese woman with long,
reddish hair, a form fitting samurai inspired costume, and long,

(00:56):
razor sharp adamantium talons that extend from hands that are
themselves sometimes depicted as relatively human, other times oversized, elongated,
and truly monstrous. Her biography makes things even more complicated, however,
Born Eurico Oyama, Lady death Strike's father is said to
have originated the adamantium skeletal bonding process that so famously

(01:19):
enhanced Wolverine. Death Strike, however, obtained her own adamantium claws
and bones after her father's death. In the Mojo verse,
this is where the character Spiral not only gave her
the full adamantium treatment, but also transformed her into a
full blown cyborg. As such, depictions of Lady death Strike
often include circuit like glyphs on her skin and other

(01:42):
cybernetic flourishous so coming back to her monstrous hands. Part
of this is the fact that she can extend her
forearms via her cybernetic enhancements. But we also might conjecture
that additional musculature in the hands and forearms is simply
necessary to house the additional retractable adamantium talent, and, perhaps
more to the point, the muscles or some sort of

(02:03):
cybernetic mechanisms to retract and deploy them. Now, perhaps unwittingly,
her monstrous hands make Lady death Strike comparable to various
traditions in folklore and legend in which a demon takes
on the form of a beautiful woman but is betrayed
by monstrous hands or feet. This clues in central characters

(02:24):
or heroes to the demonic nature of the individual. More directly. However,
she certainly fits the femme fatale profile, and there are
aspects of her appearance in history that would almost allow
her to take her place alongside certain feminine yokai and
yuri in Japanese traditions, so various ghosts and vengeful ghosts.

(02:45):
This sometimes have a combination of the monstrous and the feminine. However,
it is unavoidable that while Asian comic book artists and
writers have subsequently depicted and developed the character, Lady death
Strike originates as a Western take on the Asian hotel trope.
Connections have been drawn between her signature nails and decorative
Chinese nail guards worn during the Ming dynasty. Also, I

(03:08):
was reminded of Lady Death Strike during a recent viewing
of the nineteen eighty three Hong Kong horror film The
Boxer's Omen, which features a resurrected sorceress who wears decorative
nail covers and also appears with elongated forearms that turn
out to be animate skeleton hands. Her profile in one scene,
in particular, feels very Lady death Strike, though the Marvel

(03:30):
character of Yuriko Oyama, introduced the same year, wouldn't take
on the full mantle of Lady death Strike and the
various characteristics that we associate with her until nineteen eighty
six in Uncanny X Men number two five. Might her
creators have found some level of influence in the Boxer's
omen or merely in related imagery and ideas. I've found

(03:52):
nothing concrete on this matter, so maybe I'm drawing a
connection here where there is and one. Lady death Strike
continues to slice up the page of Marvel Comics as
both villain and anti hero, and she recently showed back
up in twenty twenty four's Deadpool and Wolverine as a minor,
almost easter egg character, but it was still fun to
see once more. She was not fully cyborg, but she

(04:14):
certainly embodied some of the features that have made her
such a popular character over the years. Tune in for
additional episodes of The Monster Fact The Artifact or Animalius
Stupendium each week. As always. You can email us at
contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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