Early life in Japan
Yuriko Oyama was born in Osaka, Japan. Her father was Lord Dark Wind (Kenji Oyama), a Japanese crime lord and criminal scientist who created the process by which adamantium can be bonded to bone. Kenji was a former Japanese kamikaze pilot during World War II. His face was horribly scarred in a failed suicide attack on an American battleship. Feeling ashamed by his failure decades earlier, he scarred the faces of Yuriko, her brother Kazuo, and her unnamed brother in a ritual design. Her two brothers later died while in their father's service.
Yuriko teamed up with Daredevil to free her lover Kira from her father's servitude and to take vengeance on her father for her scarring and the death of her two brothers. She guided Daredevil to Lord Dark Wind's private island in search of Bullseye. [5] When Yuriko killed Lord Dark Wind, the devoted Kira chose suicide to honor his master. [6] [7]
Wolverine, X-Men, and Alpha Flight
Distraught, Yuriko belatedly embraced her father's ideals and sought to track down whoever dishonored him and restore Japan's honor. She adopted a costumed identity as a samurai warrior. She attempted to find Bullseye with an adamantium tracking device, intending to get revenge on him for betraying her father and retrieve the adamantium in his bones for study. Instead, the device led to Wolverine whose skeleton had also been bonded with adamantium. Deathstrike sought to kill him to right the wrong of the theft of her father's theories and to restore her family's honor; however, she and her followers were defeated by Wolverine and Vindicator of Alpha Flight. [6] She went to the Mojoverse and sought Spiral's "body shoppe" where she received extensive cybernetic enhancements including adamantium bones and claws. As a cyborg, she became a professional criminal, and joined forces with former Hellfire Club mercenaries-turned-cyborgs Cole, Macon, and Reese. [8] The four go on to join the Reavers, a team of cyborgs led by Donald Pierce. [9]
Lady Deathstrike encounters Wolverine shortly after Magneto removed the adamantium from his skeleton. As Logan no longer possesses the adamantium stolen from her father, Deathstrike concludes that there is no honor to be gained by killing him and leaves the premises peacefully. [10]
Rejoining the Reavers
Lady Deathstrike's consciousness is uploaded in the body of Colombian teenager Ana Cortes, establishing a symbiotic relationship with Ana's consciousness. Deathstrike attacks Karima Shapandar to retrieve the Omega Sentinel technology, but is shot by Shapandar and retreats. [20] Deathstrike and Typhoid Mary argue with Sublime about his sister Arkea and learn that there is more than one living piece of Arkea, as the one they had was dead and not viable. Mary knocks Sublime unconscious and escapes with Deathstrike. Deathstrike and Mary makes their way to Norway, where they find a powerless Amora. [21]
Amora brings Deathstrike and Mary to where the Arkea meteorite is located when Mary wants to renegotiate the terms of her hire and want to become partners. Deathstrike says it was not just a partnership, but the formation of a new Sisterhood of Mutants. With the live Arkea taking possession of Ana's friend Reiko, she empowers Deathstrike, Mary, and Amora. Deathstrike and her Sisterhood manage to escape the X-Men and Monet, with Arkea activating several Sentinels under the ocean. [22] The mental conflict between Ana and Yuriko makes Lady Deathstrike increasingly unstable. Ana tells the X-Men the Sisterhood's location after becoming increasingly concerned about Arkea's bold moves such as having Amora resurrect Selene. [23]
Ana tries to get Typhoid Mary to kill her, but Mary refuses. After Arkea asks Ana to participate in the procedure to resurrect Madelyne Pryor, Ana kills herself to prevent Arkea from using her further. [23] In response, Arkea removes Yuriko's consciousness from Ana's body and places it in Reiko's body along with Arkea's own. After the X-Men's confrontation with the Sisterhood, Karima Shapandar leaves the X-Men to team up with Sabra and investigate the Cortes crime family. Though Arkea is destroyed by the X-Men, Lady Deathstrike's consciousness survives in Reiko's body. [24]
The Reavers later arrive in Killhorn Falls with Lady Deathstrike and attempt to hunt down Logan for good. [25] As the Reavers attack Killhorn Falls, Old Man Logan single-handedly kills all the Reaver soldiers and confronts Lady Deathstrike before saving Maureen. After being wounded multiple times, Logan manages to defeat Lady Deathstrike, as she started limping away when Logan blacked out. Thinking that he failed to protect Maureen from the chaos, Logan decided to set off to find Lady Deathstrike. [26]
While in hiding during the "Weapons of Mutant Destruction" storyline, Lady Deathstrike is discovered and captured by the new Weapon X. While held in their captivity, she is experimented on. [27] This experiment led to her nanotechnology being used in the creation of Weapon H. [28]
During the "Hunt for Wolverine" storyline, Lady Deathstrike is seen at Chester's Bar, where she tells Daken and Sabretooth about what the Reavers discovered when they went after Wolverine and that he has recently been sighted alive. The three of them go on the trail of Wolverine, eventually arriving in Maybelle, Arizona. There, there are attacked by zombified versions of Lord Dark Wind and Graydon Creed, with Dark Wind cutting off Lady Deathstrike's left hand. [29]
Lady Deathstrike is later attacked by an Adamantine-possessed Cyber and possessed by the Adamantine. [30] Then she assists Cyber in having the Adamantine possess Constrictor. [31]
Lady Deathstrike wanted to join the elite assassin group Atilier, which Lord Deathstrike was a part of. She is partnered up with Deadpool and sent to target Doctor Octopus. Because of the failure of her mission, Lady Deathstrike is rejected from Atilier and seeks revenge on Deadpool. She later finds him in battle against Doctor Octopus and Harrower. Lady Deathstrike tries to attack Deadpool only to be impaled on one of the spikes she tried to use on him. Valentine Vuong uses a formula to heal Lady Deathstrike as she is then instructed to help Deadpool. She reluctantly complies, as the formula contained a heavy dose of poison and she would receive the antidote if she did what Atilier demanded. [32]
