Bendis has the advantage of coming before at least some of the stories that tried to grow Laura as a character. FA stings so much because of what came immediately before.
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Context is king.
X-23's most basic surface level characteristic that any idiot should grasp: Stoicism.
I don't demand that her every minor appearance be a nuance in-depth examination of her character, but is it to much to ask she be written in Archetype?! This is storytelling 101! If you want people to stay invested in a character, you need to, at the bare minimum, write them such a way that they can plausibly be believed to be the same character!
Her dialogue, certainly. But at least the things she DID, like her dislike of being touched, (which I've got to credit Bendis for being one of the few writers that remembered and making use of that symptom of abuse) her breakdown over learning about the origin of mutants in that waste hole that is the Ultimate Universe, (given her own origins it certainly would hit a nerve) and even how she responded to Tyke.
Well in good comic news All new wolverine made comic beats top 100 of the decade
https://www.comicsbeat.com/the-100-b...of-the-decade/
Speaking of good and bad characterisation... Ambaryerno your fic probably has the best Laura in a fanfic I’ve seen to date, I’d nominate you to write her in a heartbeat.
And yeah Bendis did seem to have some inkling of her story and trauma... I just think he has trouble writing those introverted characters and writing Laura, who is kind of difficult to achieve balance with dialogue wise wasn’t a great combination.
Hopeless’s Laura in ANXM was hands down the worst. It seemed like he was writing her in the most inflammatory way possible to spite her fans. It felt like he was doing it on purpose to be mean spirited. It’s the only logical explanation because in no universe do I see a writer thinking THAT was a good idea. It downright diminished her character in every way possible.
Bendis’s Laura is unforgivable because the way he wrote her set a precedent that she still can’t get away from. With Bendis teenifying her, that tossed out her mannerisms that KYost and Liu established and Gage continued. It helped set the template that Taylor, Tamaki, and yes even Hopeless and pretty much every other writer that have butchered her since. She’s become a much less compelling and unique character thanks to the teenification of Bendis.
Hill’s Laura mostly suffers from a dumbing down of her abilities and the forced student relationship with Kwannon, along with the dumb “tame your rage” lessons. While it ignores prior characterization and feels patronizing and absurd, it’s less ridiculous than Hopeless and isnÂ’t likely to irrevocably damage her character like Bendis. It’ll likely end up being a forgotten foot note in her history.
Last edited by Beaubier; 12-13-2019 at 12:31 PM.