While X-Men (or d groups) especially in her current role as, essentially, a mutant pirate captain in the Marauders, there is one power within her arsenal that has gone completely forgotten–one that would make Kate and her crew truly untouchable.
Kitty Pryde aka Shadowcat has a mutant power that could match even the strongest X-Men villain: phasing and intangibility. Pryde (along with anything or anyone she touches) can make things through her with a thought, meaning it didn’t matter how strong her opponent was, Kitty couldn’t be hurt. When Kitty Pryde first ed the X-Men, her role was as a meta proxy for younger readers. As she learned about the mutant team, so, too, did those who were entering the fictional world of the X-Men for the first time–though that isn’t to say she was void of an established character outside this meta narrative. Before long, Kitty Pryde grew out of her original role as the wide-eyed newcomer and became a seasoned member of the X-Men in her own right. However, Pryde wouldn’t fully come into her own until the establishment of the Mutant Nation, Krakoa, where she would become captain of the Marauders–and on these dangerous, sea-faring adventures, this secret power-in-question would definitely come in handy.
Kate Pryde’s Secret Mutant Power is Flight (Sort of)
In Generation Next #3 by Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo, Shadowcat and Colossus are infiltrating one of Apocalypse’s most heavily guarded mutant/human labor camps in search of Colossus’ sister, Illyana Rasputina aka Magik. This storyline is set within the alternate reality of Age of Apocalypse, so if they’re caught, there’s no one alive who can save them as En Sabah Nur is the ultimate ruler of most of the world. The infiltration mission is broken down into two parts: a few of the new X-Men recruits are to eliminate the mutants in charge of the camp while Colossus and Shadowcat are to sneak in unseen, locate Illyana, and extract her while the guards are too busy worrying about who is killing their bosses. To do this, Kitty Pryde has to use her forgotten power to get her and Colossus over the prison walls and past the outer-rim security: the power of flight.
Using her power to become intangible, Kitty Pryde can make herself (and whoever she’s touching, in this case Colossus) lighter than air. This allows her to float weightless through the sky, and she is able to control where she’s going by bringing her body back to normal and letting herself fall in the direction she is traveling, only to make herself intangible again to continue the flight pattern. It isn’t the fastest or most convenient form of flight in X-Men canon, but it certainly did the trick in this issue and could again in any future storyline.
Since Kate is essentially a pirate captain, fool-proof plans for quick escapes are things she’d need to think of on a fairly regular basis should any particular mission go south–and this power is the perfect solution for nearly every worst case scenario. Say her crew is being attacked by a more powerful foe, or her ship is being boarded unexpectedly, all Kate would have to do is grab hold of everyone on her ship and initiate her phasing ability. This way, she and her crew could make an escape while being literally untouchable the entire time. Kitty Pryde’s ‘phase-flying’ power is something that was used in this ‘90s X-Men issue and then was virtually forgotten, but given how useful it would be in her current stories, it definitely needs to make a comeback.
