Wolverine has always been pitted against formidable foes in the history of the X-Men mutants. But there is one supervillain who stands above them all because she is obsessed with destroying him. Her vengeance is so great that she is willing to go through the agonizing process of converting her body into Wolverines.
Lady Deathstrike is her name, and her past is as intriguing as her name. Lady Deathstrike is a great match for Wolverine, with a ruthless father, a deceased lover, and the difficulty of becoming her father’s daughter.
Her ten adamantium claws are enough to keep most mutants at bay. But why is she so determined to assassinate Wolverine? What was it that compelled her to transform her human body into a cyborg? These are some of the issues we’ll discuss in today’s video. So, without further ado, let’s jump straight into the video and learn about Lady Deathstrike’s origins.
The first comic book appearances and origins explored
Yuriko Oyama, the birthname of Lady Deathstrike, appeared as her pre villain version in Daredevil, Volume 1, Issue #197, which was published in August 1983. Yuriko Oyama was created by the versatile writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Larry Hama. Now, before getting into the story, let us recall a formidable enemy of Matt Murdock, also known to us as Daredevil, who goes by the name Bullseye.
Bullseye is Daredevil’s arch-enemy and he does not leave any opportunity to attack him. He is the one responsible for the death of Murdock’s college girlfriend Elektra. Since Bullseye can turn practically anything into a deadly weapon, he used Elektra’s own sai to stab her with it right in front of Daredevil.
Now let us get into Issue #197 which is titled, Journey. It begins with Matt Murdock taking a flight to Japan, hoping that the Japanese surgeons have not restored Bullseye back to health. As it turns out, Bullseye might actually be coming to Japan on a ship and Murdock is ready to do some detective work. The moment the ship Osama Maru docks, Daredevil gets into action.
He starts secretly exploring the ship in order to find where they could have hidden Bullseye. He soon stumbles upon a secluded room and upon opening it, he finds someone lying on a bed and thinks that he has finally found Bullseye. But to his surprise, it is actually a girl who is in chains. This is the first time we meet Yuriko Oyama. She tells Daredevil that she knows where the crippled American guy a.k.a. Bullseye is hiding.
But before Daredevil can get any information out of her, both of them are attacked by a swarm of guards, who obviously do not understand English. Daredevil shows off his moves very strategically since darkness is his element and the enemies are at quite a disadvantage. In the midst of fighting the guards, he notices that Yuriko is trying to escape by diving into the ocean.
He immediately follows her and is able to catch up to her because her chains were slowing her down. She ran, scared of getting caught again since her captors had some pretty bad things planned for her. They go inside a rice shop to talk and Yuriko tells Daredevil that before docking, the ship had stopped around ten kilometers off the shore, and there the American was taken off the boat.
Just then, we finally meet Bullseye near the coast of Hokkido. He is with a masked man whose identity is still a mystery. This mysterious doctor tells him that in order to fully restore him back to health, his damaged bones will have to be replaced with metal and he will be treated with herbs so that his body does not reject the artificial parts. Although there’s a reasonable risk that on undergoing this surgery, either he might die or recover within a week.
Given the fact that Bullseye is a villain at the end of the day, it does not seem likely for him to die just yet. Now, back to Yuriko and Daredevil, she tells him that this guy who is tending to Bullseye is known as Lord Dark Wind, a madman. He was actually a pilot of a kamikaze airplane during the great war. He also had a death wish so he purposely crashed his airplane into an American aircraft carrier. Unfortunately, he miraculously survived with a horribly scarred face and he has resented not dying ever since.
He considers his survival to be a great disgrace and apparently, he plans on using Bullseye for one of his schemes. The issue ends with a look at Yuriko Oyama’s full face, where the left side appears to have something written on it with a burn mark, as though someone carved it on her face.
The reality of Yuriko Oyama that Daredevil is unaware of is the fact that she is actually the daughter of Lord Dark Wind whose name is Kenji Oyama. He eventually became the wicked Lord Dark Wind after he got married and had Yuriko along with his two sons. He was so sadistic that he maimed his kids’ faces only so that they would match his mutilated face.
He later founded a criminal cult and had his two sons murdered in an effort to assassinate the prime minister of Japan. At the same time, Yuriko started hating her father even more so because a warrior named Kira, who she was in love with, blindly followed the brutal philosophies of Dark Wind.
Now, you are probably wondering what did he want with Bullseye. Well, as it turns out, Lord Dark Wind was the inventor of the adamantium bonding process where this indestructible metal is bonded to a human bone. He created this in order to build an army of super-soldiers for Japan and that is why he is trying to heal Bullseye, to recruit him into his army. Although his formulas and notes on the process of creation were stolen long ago, and it took him several years to recreate them, he succeeded in the end.
After meeting Daredevil in Japan, Yuriko knew he could help her in taking revenge on her father for destroying her face, killing her brothers, and basically ruining her life. She took Daredevil to her father’s location and the battle ended with Bullseye running away and Yuriko killing Lord Dark Wind.
Despite fulfilling her vengeance, Yuriko’s life did not become any happier. Her lover, Kira, committed suicide due to the death of Dark Wind, the man he considered to be his god. This changed her life drastically, and she started following in her father’s footsteps by trying to track down Bullseye since he never paid for her father’s service. Like father, like daughter?
Well, the first time we actually meet Yuriko Oyama as Lady Deathstrike is in Alpha Flight, Volume 1, Issue #33 which was released in April 1986. Before meeting her, let us first recall a little bit about the Alpha Flight. Alpha Flight is the top Canadian team of superheroes from the Department H, who deal with threats to the nation. James MacDonald Hudson, an engineer, helped create the Department H which is a top-secret research agency under the Canadian Ministry of Defense.
He was inspired by the formation of the Fantastic Four to form a squad of superhumanly powerful soldiers to embark on missions for the Canadian government. And that is how the Alpha Flight was born. James Hudson wore a special super-powered suit and came to be known as the Guardian, but he died a few issues ago. So, the Guardian that we meet in this issue, is his wife, Heather McNeil Hudson.
It turns out that her teammates try to keep her out of combat situations since she is still fairly new to the post. But she has the same drive and willpower as her husband and will not back down. She takes flight and seems to be in pursuit of someone. We are then taken to Jamarind Island off the coast of British Columbia where a single gothic structure stands. It is the headquarters of Alpha Flight.
We meet some of the members of the Alpha Flight, Aurora, Box, Northstar, Puck, and Madison Jeffries. They are discussing Heather’s sudden disappearance. As it turns out, Puck was the one whom Heather had asked for help in training her for combat. He refused because he was in love with her and did not want to see her get hurt. Northstar also holds Heather responsible for endangering them and being useless to the team.
However, Jeffries strongly disagrees and believes that the team should help her instead. Fortunately, Box rebuilt Guardian’s battle suit for Heather so he will not have a difficult time finding her location. Heather, on the other hand, is traveling to the upstate. She is hoping to find the headquarters of the Uncanny X Men so that her friend, Logan, can teach her how to control and utilize her powers.
She arrives without any notice and naturally, the X Men assume her to be an enemy. Before Logan can tell them that it is a friend and not a foe, Magneto attacks her while she is still in the air and Heather takes a heavy blow. Upon noticing her battle suit, they realize that it is the Guardian, the X Men are even more surprised since James Hudson was dead, so they wonder who this could be?
Rogue rushes to catch her before she falls and then the entire X Men team realizes it is Heather Hudson. While she is still out cold, Logan puts her in his car and drives away. Meanwhile, we are taken to a strange boat. It looks like it belongs to some Japanese people. The captain of the ship is referring to some woman as “our mistress”. At last, the moment we have all been waiting for.
For the first time in this issue, we finally meet Yuriko Oyama who now calls herself Lady Deathstrike. She is in a get-up similar to that of a modern samurai carrying a sword. She has traveled to Canada along with her father’s warriors and they seem to be going after a target but we are still in the dark as to who that is. Probably someone with adamantium? Now, back in Logan’s car, Heather is awake and she asks Logan the dreadful question of helping her with her deceased husband’s powers.
Although hesitant it looks like Logan has a promise to keep so he might be of use to Heather. He tells her “I swore I would help you anywhere, anytime, with no questions asked, just like you helped me a long, long time ago.” In a flashback of memories, we are told that apparently on their honeymoon, Heather and James came across a man-beast, who was none other than Wolverine.
The only difference was that, at that point, he did not understand who he was and was not aware that he was a mutant. So, he attacked the couple and Heather shot him with the intent of killing him. Luckily, he was only wounded and James immediately got obsessed with researching him for his Department H. After gaining consciousness, Wolverine saw his own claws for the first time and Heather felt sympathetic for him.
The two spent a lot of time together when James and Heather basically adopted him and they eventually discovered that his bones were laced with unbreakable adamantium with no knowledge of who did that to him. In a way, Heather and James made him “Logan”, a man different from the beast Wolverine. But he eventually left Department H because he knew Heather was happily married and he could never have her. Although he understands Heather’s need to become a hero, he is still in a dilemma. If he refuses to train her, she would hate him forever. But if he does help her and she ends up getting herself killed, that would also personally feel like a loss to him.
He sees it as a lose-lose situation but it looks like at that moment, he has no other option but to let Heather fight. In an instant, both of them are surrounded by soldiers and we find out that Lady Deathstrike’s target was Wolverine after all. The issue ends with a powerful look at Lady Deathstrike, who by the way is very different from the feeble Yuriko Oyama, as she stands tall before Wolverine and says “Wolverine san! You battle with misappropriated power! That which was stolen must now be returned!”
Clearly, she is referring to the adamantium parts inside his body and how he received them through the process that was once stolen from her father. She is after his adamantium skeleton. But in an interesting turn of events, Heather once again saves Wolverine’s life as she defeats Lady Deathstrike. Obviously, she could not bear the thought of losing to Wolverine, so she wanted to be on his level.
She went to Spiral, an enemy of the X Men who had the power to turn people into cyborgs. And Lady Deathstrike chose to become a cyborg with no humanity, a strong machine body, and Adamantium claws just like Wolverines. She transformed herself into a living weapon, all because of her pride.
Lady Deathstrike in animated movies and live-action appearances
Lady Deathstrike appears in a 2003 movie titled X2 which was directed by Bryan Singer and written by Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris, and David Hayter, from a story by Singer, Hayter, and Zak Penn. The role of her character was portrayed by the phenomenal actor Kelly Ann Hu. This movie is the sequel to X Men which was released in 2000.
Although not exactly appearing as a cyborg in this version, Lady Deathstrike still possesses the regenerative abilities that are similar to those of Wolverine while being portrayed as William Stryker’s brainwashed mutant assistant. There are similarities between her and Wolverine because she was also a part of the same government program called Weapon X. It gave her the adamantium claws but unlike Wolverine, her claws extend from the tips of her fingernails rather than her knuckles. So, she has the added advantage of having 10 claws in total as opposed to Wolverine’s 6.
She also gained superhuman abilities as a result of these adamantium experiments. Since William Stryker is basically mind-controlling her, he gets to use her as his puppet and makes her do a lot of his dirty work. He also orders her to capture Cyclops and Professor Xavier and she obeys without a single thought. Her end obviously comes through the hands of Wolverine.
Logan defeated Deathstrike with a fluid adamantium injection while they were fighting each other in the facility where Wolverine had his own mutation. This fluid most definitely ended the supervillain for good.
Lady Deathstrike also appeared in a Marvel Animated Features movie titled “Hulk vs” which was released in 2009 and was directed by Sam Liu. In this movie, her character was voiced by the Canadian actor Janyse Jaud. Here, she is a cyborg but she is presented as a member of Weapon X’s Team X, along with Sabretooth, Omega Red, and Deadpool. Professor Thornton dispatches them to capture former brainwashed members Wolverine and the Hulk.
But Deathstrike has a vendetta against Wolverine, as is shown to be her true nature. When Logan discovers the true agenda of Team X, he tries to use Deathstrike’s urge to kill him to his advantage and Deathstrike plays right into his hand by attacking him. Logan’s trickery is revealed as Deathstrike accidentally ends up stabbing Sabertooth.
Logan then escapes and rescues the Hulk. In the Weapon X facility, during their final face-off, Hulk pulls off Lady Deathstrike’s cybernetic arms, and unable to move, she is left inside the facility as it self-destructs.
What makes her so powerful?
While being fluent in both Japanese and English, Lady Deathstrike possesses extreme knowledge and skill in martial arts. She is an expert in the art of Kenjutsu and a gifted pilot of several kinds of aircraft and seacrafts. When she allowed herself to be altered into a cyborg, she gained immense superhuman abilities in the process.
It made her so strong that she is now able to lift and carry over one tonne effortlessly. She also gained superhuman speed that surpasses even the most excellent human athletes. Her agility, balance, and physiological dexterity have all been boosted to levels that exceed even her natural physical capabilities. On top of that, her reflexes have also significantly increased.
Lady Deathstrike has the ability to quickly heal the damage done to both her cybernetic and biological components. During her fight with Wolverine, she demonstrated the ability to entirely mend damaged or destroyed cybernetic and biological tissue that was caused by Wolverine’s Adamantium claws. But at the same time, if the damage is considerably more severe, it takes her reconfiguration program even longer to heal her body.
Deathstrike is also highly immune to telepathy and brainwashing tactics that exclusively target her human side because her consciousness is part computer and can be stored up in non-organic databanks. However, Deathstrike’s primary mode of attack is her ten extended razor-sharp fingernails, which she can expand to 12 inches in length in order to defeat her enemies.
And since her claws as well as her cybernetic skeleton are all laced with Adamantium, it allows her to tear and slice through any surface or material. With the exception of adamantium and Captain America’s Shield, her capacity to rip through a material is proportional to the magnitude of her blows. She is also able to cybernetically link her mind with external computer systems, which gives her direct data access via her brain’s memory receptors and grants her the power to remotely control digital and computerized systems.
Lady Deathstrike’s inner struggles stem from deep daddy issues which makes her a rather complex villain in the X-Men universe. Throughout her life, it was as if she tried her best to never become like her father but after his death, tragically became exactly like him. Her pride also often gets the best of her when it comes to fighting Wolverine which ends up being fatal for her. But if there is one thing we know about her core, it is that she was so mentally and emotionally scarred that she could never let things go.
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