Kadabra may be coming back to the Pokemon Trading Card game
After more than two decades, Kadabra is returning to the Pokemon Trading Card Game in June 2023. The news comes from the folks at Pokemon fan site PokeBeach, who spotted a set of distributor listings that includes a pack called “Pokemon Card 151,” with the “151” referring to the original roster of Pokemon in the first two games. No set has included all 151 original Pokemon since the late 1990s, when a professed psychic sued Nintendo.
Spoonbender Uri Geller filed several lawsuits against the company around the world, claiming Game Freak and Nintendo used his likeness and name for Kadabra and made money at his expense. He also requested that they cease using Kadabra in the Pokemon franchise.
Kadabra, a Psychic type, is called Un-Geller in Japan and is always depicted with a spoon. Geller filed the first suit after seeing the Pokemon card in Tokyo, though one Nintendo representative said not long after that they doubted Geller had enough of a following in Japan to where the creators would consider using his likeness.
Whatever the case, Nintendo apparently took the suit and request seriously. Kadabra has since been unofficially banned from the card game and even stopped showing up in the Pokemon anime after 2006. It and its other forms continued appearing in Pokemon video games, though, and Game Freak even gave Alakazam a Mega Evolution form in Pokemon X and Y.
Geller dropped the ban in 2020 and said he apologized for what he had done, though there was still no sign of the psychic magician Pokemon showing up in the anime or card game until PokeBeach’s discovery.
