'Why does everyone crush on Kitty so hard?'

Writing in Forward, a weekly Jewish newspaper, screenwriter Michael Green considers the place and importance of Kitty Pryde, "the Marvel Universe's first unabashedly Jewish citizen":

... On paper she's marginal. Her power is limited, passive. While all her female teammates were busting at the bustline, Kitty had a figure skater's slightness. Her friend Phoenix's costume was painted on and bared it all; Kitty wore a puffy shirt.

Yet despite all this, she shined.

So why did she shine? Why did — who are we kidding? — why does everyone crush on Kitty so hard?

Well... because she was pretty, but attainably so. She was descended from Holocaust victims and survivors, and she fought evil in their memory. She was a genius with a computer; she was plucky in a fight. Also, she had a pet dragon.

She was drawn adoringly by artists who adored her as we did, rendered delicate and sylphlike in a world of globular breasted, fetish-wearing dominatrixes.

She was our fictional Natalie Portman, before we knew that girls like Natalie Portman could actually exist.

Related: "I wouldn't say that Bobby has wandering eyes, but Kitty Pryde is someone he can connect with ..."