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| Lady Deathstrike skewering Wolverine's face. Art by Rafael Albuquerque |
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| My old nemeses, the positions of the "i" and "o" keys on a QWERTY keyboard Image Source: Wikipedia |
Debuting in Daredevil (1964) #197, Yuriko Oyama was the daughter of Kenji Oyama, the Japanese crime lord known as Lord Dark Wind, who also controlled the Oyama Heavy Industries company. He was instrumental in creating the process that allowed the super-metal, Adamantium, to bone matter, which he hoped would be used to create an army of super-soldiers for Japan.
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| Lady Deathstrike Art by Rahzzah |
During World War II, Lord Dark Wind was terribly scarred following a botched kamikaze attack. Decades later, still carrying the shame of failing his country, Lord Dark Wind had the faces of Yuriko and her two brothers scarred in kind. Years later, after her brothers had died serving her father, Yuriko resisted Lord Dark Wind by working with Daredevil to free Kiro, her lover, from suffering her brothers' own fates. Lord Dark Wind had targeted the assassin, Bullseye, to recover the Adamantium from his bones. Knowing this, Yuriko and Daredevil traveled to Lord Dark Wind's private island to confront him. During the battle, Yuriko killed her father, seemingly freeing Kiro from his servitude. But instead, Kiro killed himself out of loyalty to his fallen master. This shocking turn of events so shook Yuriko, that she ended up devoted herself to assuming her father's quest for Adamantium dominance.
Yuriko reinvented herself as a samurai taking the name, Lady Deathstrike and sought to track down Bullseye using a device that could detect Adamantium, but the device instead led her to Wolverine. After suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of Wolverine and Alpha Flight's Vindicator, Yuriko made her way to the so-called Mojoverse, to seek the services of Spiral. Spiral transformed Yuriko in her "Body Shoppe" into a cyborg complete with Adamantium bones, limbs, and extended, razor-sharp claws on all of her fingers. Though she took over Oyama Heavy Industries upon her father's death, she also operated as a professional assassin.
Still wanting to avenge her defeat at the hands of Wolverine, Lady Deathstrike turned to the Hellfire Club's White King, Donald Pierce, who formed a group made up of other cyborg soldiers called the Reavers. With the Reavers, Lady Deathstrike would take her revenge on Wolverine, going to far as to literally crucify the savage X-Man, leaving him to die. Lady Deathstrike has had an uneven record of fighting against Wolverine and the X-Men and in some cases fighting alongside them. She has also clashed with Captain America and was responsible for slicing off the legs of the former X-Man Sunfire. During the Marvel Superhero's Civil War, Lady Deathstrike even served in the United State government's legion of convicted criminals: The Thunderbolts. Her last clash with Wolverine, during the Death of Wolverine storyline, might have even been successful were it not for the interference of Kitty Pryde.
There you have it. I hope that the universe is satisfied with this look at Lady Deathstrike. Though to be honest, the universe needs to make up its mind about some things because I typed "Deathstroke" instead of "Deathstrike" about six times while putting together this post. In any event, before I get back to Deathstroke business tomorrow, posted below are both sides of Lady Deathstrike's entry in the loose-leaf Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Master Edition (1990) #17. As always, for best viewing results, open the images below into their own tabs to enlarge.
