Sidenote, as distracting from main point: actually, the cute teenage girl in AXM isn't Kitty, it's Hisako. Who along with Joss other OCs - Dr. Rao, Wing, Blindfold, etc - gets fleshed out neatly in the course of those three arcs but never at the expense of the established cast. But if you're looking for the teenage girl finding her power through various crisis and kicking butt, that would be her. Kitty (who used to be a teenager in ye olde Claremont days, of course) is presented as an adult. A young one, sure, but definitely in the group of the adult folk, not rebelling against authority but being a part of it. (Which is most drastically made clear, imo, when she tries to counsel one of the students after news of the Cure broke out and tries the "we're all a community" line, and the student in question - Wing - says "With respect, Miss Pryde, are you a fucking retard?")

it sounds as if Kitty versus Emma is rather more two-sided and less minimising of past crimes.

That was where I was going with a lot of the entire post, yeah. Kitty's in the Holtz/Wood position, only she's not a bad guy. (Perhaps Xander position vis a vis Angel in s3 would be a better comparison?) And Emma is definitely Angel there.

Oh, and another thing, re: evil tart accusations: this is one of the most glaring cases of people projecting. Because at no point does either Kitty nor anyone else insult Emma with sexual slander. At no point is Emma presented as promiscuos. (Including when Sebastian Shaw shows up via manifestation - if you read just AXM, you wouldn't know the two had a sexual past, they never touch nor allude to it.) Emma and Scott having sex is presented as a part of their relationship, but by no means the main part. (Another reason why I like it better here than in Morrison's run.) Meanwhile, Kitty is presented as a young woman with an active sex life. Definitely no virginal heroine. So we're about as far from even the slightest insinuation of madonna versus whore as we can get.