“Spanning the Universes” spotlights a different comic book character every week and suggests stories featuring those characters for you to seek out and gleefully devour. Want to see your favorite character featured in this column? Make suggestions in the comments and let us know who you’re passionate about!
WHO are they?
X-23.
Simply put, X-23 is Wolverine’s clone—a teenaged girl bred for death and carnage. She was originally created for the X-Men: Evolution cartoon by Craig Kyle in 2003. A year later, she transitioned into the Marvel Universe proper when she appeared as a teenage prostitute in the 2004 miniseries NYX.
X-23, also known as Laura Kinney, was created during a secret attempt to recreate Weapon X—the project that brought Wolverine into the world. Using damaged Wolverine DNA, the process repeatedly fails, but on the 23rd attempt geneticist Sarah Kinney finally convinces the project to create a cloned female twin. She carries the clone to birth, thus becoming X-23’s mother.
An effective assassin through most of her young life, the project eventually falls apart and leads to X-23’s bloody escape. She ends up on the streets of New York and becomes a prostitute. Later, she finds her way to San Francisco, looking for family while her former handler looks for her. Eventually she’s delivered into the hands of Wolverine and becomes an X-Man.
X-23 begins to grow as a character once she’s paired with the New X-Men. However, post-Messiah Complex, Cyclops puts her back into the role of assassin on his secret X-Force team. After Second Coming, Wolverine frees X-23 from X-Force, wanting her to experience an existence where she’s not following orders. This leads to a series of adventures and soul searching, allowing her to take up residence in the Avengers Academy. Of late, X-23 has been trapped in Arcade’s new Hunger Games styled Murderworld.
WHY should I care?
New X-Men #43. Art by Skottie Young.
X-23 is a heartbreaking character. In the wrong hands she could have ended up an unemotional comic book cliché. Instead, we get to watch her try to grow, and the journey has been heartfelt no matter which writers’ hands X-23 has found herself in.
The character won’t be for everyone. There’s a lot of teenage angst. A lot. It’s a bad idea to give a troubled teenager who self-mutilates a healing factor and Adamantium claws. But X-23’s pain relates to so many personal experiences her readers may share—be it depression, loneliness, being an outsider, or shyness to name a few—it makes it easy for those readers to love X-23 and cheer her on.
Marvel has some of the best teenage characters in all of comics, and many of them are mutants, but they most often get overshadowed by the core X-Men characters. When Marvel’s teens get to shine it’s in a book where they are all trying to kill each other. X-23 is one of the few teens who has repeatedly had her potential tapped. The teens are a blank slate. They aren’t burdened with decades of continuity. They are a true chance for writers and artists to have a defining impact on a character. And so far those who have taken the helm of X-23 have done just that. They’ve built a complicated comic character and allowed readers to observe as they’ve slowly nudge her forward into adulthood, offering a little bit of healing along the way.
WHAT should I read?
Innocence Lost
X-23: Innocence Lost by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost.
Innocence Lost explores X-23’s origins and details the traumatic process of turning her into a killing machine. Sarah Kinney becomes attached to X-23, mothering her while fellow project scientist Dr. Zander Rice wants to torment the child as a means to avenge his father, who was killed by Wolverine when he made his escape from the Weapon X program. The story is a claustrophobic nightmare as an innocent child is broken down and reconstructed into a deadly weapon.
Target X
X-23: Target X by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost.
Target X follows X-23 on the outside world as she tries to make contact with her mother’s sister. Told in flashback as a captured X-23 is interrogated by Matt Murdock and Captain America, readers get to see Laura Kinney begin to grow and adjust to life. The book offers some humorous moments when X-23 begins to attend high school with her cousin and her training kicks in, allowing her to out French the French teacher and tell another teacher the many ways to kill a man. Meanwhile, X-23’s former handler is hunting her down, and when she finds the rogue killing machine it puts X-23’s new family in immediate danger. Target X works on several levels. It’s a basic action story but also triggers important character development. It brings X-23 further into the Marvel Universe, showing readers her first interactions with S.H.I.E.L.D. and heroes such as Cap and Daredevil. Most importantly, it sets Laura on her way to being an X-Man, leading to her first meeting with Wolverine.
X-23 #1-21
X-23 by Marjorie Liu.
Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost did a great job with X-23’s early years, telling strong stories and putting Laura Kinney into new situations that allowed her to grow, and then reinserting her into typical X-23 areas like X-Force and showing readers how she’s handled the growth. But for all the good they did, Marjorie Liu showed an undeniable ownership of the character during her 21 issue run with X-23’s solo title. Liu showed an understanding of X-23 that most writers can only wish of having with their characters. Liu’s Kinney was often monosyllabic, an outside wanting to be one of the crowd. She’s had countless volumes of knowledge ingrained into her mind, but being human was never included. In later issues, Gambit and Jubilee act as her guides. Jubilee makes a perfect mentor for X-23. She’s outgoing and also now has her vampiric side to contend with. She’s able to help X-23 bridge the gap between killing machine and human being. Liu’s X-23 is at its best when the character encounters the likes of Spider-Man and the Future Foundation. The meet up puts X-23 into the traditional role of teenage babysitter, only for Franklin and Valeria Richards. Of course, only trouble can ensue. Liu’s series came to an early end with only 21 issues (though for a Marvel book focused on a female it’s quite an accomplishment) but thankfully writers have honored her work on the character since the series ended, building off of what she left them and demonstrating the lessons X-23 learned in Liu’s hands in their own stories.
