20-Year Legal Battle Surrounding Kadabra Finally Ends

When Pokemon first came roaring on the scenes in the '90s, children all around the world very quickly fell in love with the colorful, combative creatures that Game Freak had created. Other people, mostly adults, were less than excited about the worldwide phenomenon, and as is often the case with incredibly popular media, accusations of witchcraft and bad influence came pouring in.

Game Freak, of course, escaped those accusations more or less unscathed. But it did lose one of its battles: spoon-bending magician and proven fraud psychic Uri Geller sued Nintendo twenty years ago, claiming that Kadabra, a spoon-bending psychic type in Generation 1, was not only based on him, but was a sort of "evil reflection" of his "iconic" brand and image. At the time, he said:
 

“Nintendo turned me into an evil, occult Pokémon character. Nintendo stole my identity by using my name and my signature image,”

The legal battle wasn't wildly successful for Uri Geller, but he did manage to prevent Kadabra from being printed on the Pokemon TCG, a compromise Nintendo was willing to offer to avoid complicated legal litigation. Kadabra wasn't exactly the most popular Pokemon anyway, and they worked around it by just having Abra evolve directly into an Alakazam in the TCG.

Well, twenty years later, the dude has done some reflecting, and, perhaps in an effort to be newsworthy one more time before falling into the fog of obscurity with the rest of us, has announced that he's willing to let Nintendo print Kadabra cards now. On Twitter:
 

“I am truly sorry for what I did 20 years ago. Kids and grownups I am releasing the ban. It’s now all up to #Nintendo to bring my #kadabra#pokemon card back. It will probably be one of the rarest cards now! Much energy and love to all!”

Pretty ballsy of him to call it "his" Kadabra card, but I guess this counts as good news? Sure. Let's call it good news.