Contributed by Mike McDermott
Kayla Kurasawa is a loud and sarcastic young woman, with a cynical and snarky sense of humour and a love of high fashion. She was one of four young women who were kidnapped and woke up in a gothic castle; one of her fellow abductees was Kate Bishop, aka Hawkeye of the Young Avengers.
One of the women compared them to a group of girls who gets killed by a psycho in a horror movie, and Kayla was designated the “popular mean girl”. After escaping from the dungeon the group was attacked by a mummy, which Kayla attempted to defeat by setting it on fire with a torch from one of the walls. This sadly backfired, since they now were being chased by an angry flaming mummy! During their escape, the ladies found their way into an arsenal and armed themselves. Kate suggested that Kayla take the katana blade, but Kayla shot down that suggestion as being racist and instead decided to take the bow and arrows since she took archery lessons as a kid. Kate’s arguments that as Hawkeye she should be the one to use the bow and arrow were meant with sarcastic scorn by Kayla.
Next the women encountered a one-eyed octopus-like monster! Kayla was grabbed in its tentacles but she managed to slow it down by shooting an arrow into its eye, giving Kate the distraction she needed to finish the monster off. Afterward, Kayla agreed to swap weapons with Kate.
They finally encountered their abductor–a vampire named Lord Griffon, who was lonely and decided to make these women into his harem for eternal love. Kayla promptly told him that she is gay and that this wasn’t going to work for her. “Sorry, you’re just not what I thrall for, champ.”
The other women also rejected Griffon for their own reasons–and then Kate taught him a painful lesson about not treating girls like objects that he can just take and possess.
Once the ladies had escaped from the castle, an impressed Kayla attempted to flirt with Kate but Kate was distracted with attempting to call in the Avengers to pick them up and remained oblivious.
Kayla Kurasawa was introduced in the Halloween-themed story of A Year Of Marvels: The Uncanny and was created by Jeremy Whitley and Laura Braga. Art by Braga,
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