X-23 Appreciation 2021

[Starfish]

There was also that Manifest Destiny short story where Laura got to return the favor and be emotionally supportive for Cessily when she was struggling with her insecurities about her humanity. Laura was even considerate enough to let Cess beat up all of those Hellfire idiots that came after them.

It's nice to know that at least Cebulski seems to like their friendship, so maybe there's some hope they'll eventually be allowed to interact again. I think Cess could really use a close friend who can relate to what's troubling her without being judgemental about it.

The only reason I brought it up was because it was a nice moment between the two characters. (Also should point out that I think the question of whether X-23 and Mercury could've made a good couple if the writers had gone that way is a different topic than whether she and Hellion would've; generally, we're all compatible with more than one person. She could've well clicked with both. My only point for tying them together was the overlapping plots ("Hellion isn't working for me; too bad Mercury wasn't in the running") happened to be in the same series.

I feel like had New X-Men been allowed to continue or hadn't Marvel separated Laura from the friends she had already made, their relationship could have easily developed into something more and probably led to an interesting dynamic between Laura, Cessily, and Julian.

Also, there was this moment in Pixie Strikes Back where the girls ended up under the influence of Pixie's magic dust and hallucinated being back in high school, giving the impression that Laura might have some undisclosed feelings for Cessily:

[Paragon]

Going back to the issue WebLurker posted a page from, this will always be one of my favorite panels from New X-Men, both because I love Skottie Young's art and because it was such a fun, little character moment getting to see Laura, Dust, and Mercury together for each other like this:

Cess Friends.jpg

[Starfish]

Gosh I love that moment!

[Ambaryerno]

Flipped through my copy of the series. It was their first positive interaction, after most of their other ones had basically been him bullying her. Could've worked as a set up, but, the thing is, I don't think it was ever really that well-written in the first place. I mean, from X-23's perspective, all we get is that she has a crush on him because he saved her life, and that's about it (nothing really from Hellion's perspective, either). That's pretty flimsy. All things considered, the messy breakup actually seems like a pretty logical conclusion (beyond how they weren't exactly dealing with life that well, the relationship hadn't grown any from where it started).

I will freely concede that I did see the later materials first, where things really went off the rails, but I remember comparing notes with someone who'd read it all the way and they agreed with me that Hellion was a jerk and that Laura could've done a lot better for herself (forget if they had an alternative significant other in mind or just that Laura was okay single, but there it is).

See, this is something that is constantly being cited, but frankly has been seriously exaggerated. Their first interactions were:

1) Their first meeting Julian snapped at her for staring at him after his big blow-up with Wind Dancer. I don't think it mattered much who was there, he would have lashed out at anyone under those circumstances. She just happened to be the first one he saw.

2) Second, in the Danger Room, he was teasing her about not getting to play Wolverine all the time in their LARP session. This seems to fall in with how Hellion jokes around with Santo and other friends. His reaction to Laura popping his claws short of his groin suggests he was just (in his mind) messing around. So crossing a line with someone? Sure. But honestly a stretch to call it bullying.

3) Third, also in the Danger Room, he's getting frustrated because Laura keeps saving his ass every time he's about to get blindsided by one of the projections. Again, there's not much bullying in here, just annoyance with constantly being helped when he didn't want it (even if he needed it).

4) Julian covers Laura in the Recruitment Brawl after Emma tries to screw her over.

Also, Julian saving her from Nimrod is only part of the equation. Mercury Falling is what actually laid the groundwork and started to show their chemistry. Julian is the first one who actually tried to show her there's another way than killing. Logan brought her to the school after talking big in Target X, but he pretty much just dumped her there and left her to her own devices. It didn't help that his introduction to the other kids was pretty much, "She can kill you if she wants to. Don't make her want to." Emma tossed her into the Recruitment Brawl where she had to fight the other kids for a spot on the team (after trying to torment her into leaving by trying to dismiss her as just a killer) and then trying to have her taken out. And then Cyclops forced the issue to place her on the team, where he knew full well she would have to fight (with it only getting worse when he placed her on X-Force).

[WebLurker]

I feel like had New X-Men been allowed to continue or hadn't Marvel separated Laura from the friends she had already made, their relationship could have easily developed into something more and probably led to an interesting dynamic between Laura, Cessily, and Julian.

While, as noted, I doubt that was the official intent (although see below), it could've and certainly would've been an interesting setup. Kind of like a new spin on the old Cyclops/Jean/Wolverine triangle (both Mercury and Jean even have red hair).

I do have very mixed feelings about Laura striking off on her own and her ties to the New X-Men getting swept under the rug; as a story, showing Laura making her own way in life was a solid concept, but forgetting about the characters she had or would've connected with was a huge loss (think Hellion was the only one who popped up again in All-New Wolverine as a cameo at the funeral, despite it being a plot point that he and Laura had broken off their friendship and there being other New X-Men she had been friends with and hadn't had a falling out with.)

Also, there was this moment in Pixie Strikes Back where the girls ended up under the influence of Pixie's magic dust and hallucinated being back in high school, giving the impression that Laura might have some undisclosed feelings for Cessily:

Did remember that, although I had assumed that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. On the other hand, I do remember the guy who created Laura and wrote the New X-Men comics (thus wrote her having a crush on Hellion) has retroactively claimed that she was supposed to be lesbian. If that was "always" the intent (big if there), it is an interesting set of coincidences; Mercury is canonically LGTBQ, Laura has been claimed to be LGBTQ by a creator involved in the stories in question, they were shown to be emotionally bonding in the series in question on a deeper level than casual friends, and another series around the time suggested (seriously or otherwise) that Laura was in love with Mercury on some level. Shipping has been built on way less than that.

See, this is something that is constantly being cited, but frankly has been seriously exaggerated. Their first interactions were:

1) Their first meeting Julian snapped at her for staring at him after his big blow-up with Wind Dancer. I don't think it mattered much who was there, he would have lashed out at anyone under those circumstances. She just happened to be the first one he saw.

"What are you looking at, clone?" is pretty dehumanizing (even if he wouldn't be expected to know all the traumatic details of her birth and past, it's not a good first impression, to put it lightly).

2) Second, in the Danger Room, he was teasing her about not getting to play Wolverine all the time in their LARP session. This seems to fall in with how Hellion jokes around with Santo and other friends. His reaction to Laura popping his claws short of his groin suggests he was just (in his mind) messing around. So crossing a line with someone? Sure. But honestly a stretch to call it bullying.

3) Third, also in the Danger Room, he's getting frustrated because Laura keeps saving his ass every time he's about to get blindsided by one of the projections. Again, there's not much bullying in here, just annoyance with constantly being helped when he didn't want it (even if he needed it).

Was more thinking about the "clone" line r.e. the bullying. There's also the bit where he tells her to go away after they're done, with his teammates calling him out on it. Milder, but still.

4) Julian covers Laura in the Recruitment Brawl after Emma tries to screw her over.

Like I said, first positive interaction (and seems more from Hellion wanting to play by the rules than anything else, given that the series had, to this point, hammered home that he doesn't like her that much).

Also, Julian saving her from Nimrod is only part of the equation. Mercury Falling is what actually laid the groundwork and started to show their chemistry. Julian is the first one who actually tried to show her there's another way than killing. Logan brought her to the school after talking big in Target X, but he pretty much just dumped her there and left her to her own devices. It didn't help that his introduction to the other kids was pretty much, "She can kill you if she wants to. Don't make her want to." Emma tossed her into the Recruitment Brawl where she had to fight the other kids for a spot on the team (after trying to torment her into leaving by trying to dismiss her as just a killer) and then trying to have her taken out. And then Cyclops forced the issue to place her on the team, where he knew full well she would have to fight (with it only getting worse when he placed her on X-Force).

Dunno if they ever had chemistry (but that's subjective). Really wonder if New X-Men ending after Messiah CompleX kinda doomed the relationship; there hadn't been much time for things to develop by the time the writers started pulling the characters different directions (they hardly interact during the Messiah trilogy era -- complete with Hellion hitting on another woman during the Kyle/Yoast X-Force series, e.g. the same people who're trying to make a Hellion/X-23 relationship in the first place) and then the X-23 solo series had Laura not only striking off on her own, but also establishing that she'd fallen out of whatever she'd felt for Hellion initially, which put the kibosh on it all.

Beyond how toxic a situation it turned out to be in the end, I just don't think what we got went much of anywhere and seemed pretty superficial (Spider-Man and Mary Jane this ain't). Heck, I kinda think the solo series was where it was interesting, given that we actually see "progress" and them actually trying to sort things out (it falls apart, but the dynamics are actually shown and can be examined beyond "teen crush," if that makes any sense). Obviously, people are free to ship what they like and all that, but does it at least make sense why some of us don't think Hellion and Laura were either a good fit for each other, and/or that the writing didn't live up to the intent?

[Ambaryerno]

Did remember that, although I had assumed that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. On the other hand, I do remember the guy who created Laura and wrote the New X-Men comics (thus wrote her having a crush on Hellion) has retroactively claimed that she was supposed to be lesbian. If that was "always" the intent (big if there), it is an interesting set of coincidences; Mercury is canonically LGTBQ, Laura has been claimed to be LGBTQ by a creator involved in the stories in question, they were shown to be emotionally bonding in the series in question on a deeper level than casual friends, and another series around the time suggested (seriously or otherwise) that Laura was in love with Mercury on some level. Shipping has been built on way less than that.

TBH, I'm suspicious about Kyle's motivations with that remark. He has a history of being rather vocally defensive about what Marvel does with Laura (IE, he responded to someone asking him on Twitter what he thought about her becoming Wolverine after Secret Wars with a scan of one of Dave Simm's scathing critiques from Cerebus about how the major studios take characters away from their creators. IIRC, it was the one that shows caricatures of famous characters like Batman and Wolverine being tortured in a dungeon by avatars for DC, Marvel, etc.). And the WAY he said it, as if it was the "One True History," comes across as him trying to exert any sort of creative control he can.

It's especially muddied given his relationship with Yost. While Yost I believe gives sole credit to Kyle for creating her, Kyle himself I recall has said that Yost was very important to her conception as well and considers him his partner in creating her. And at least as of 2014/2015 when Kyle and Yost were working on Amazing X-Men, Yost mentioned in an X-Men Monday that he still shipped Laura with Hellion. This would seem to contradict Kyle's remarks that she was "always" planned to be LGBT.

[Paragon]

Did remember that, although I had assumed that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. On the other hand, I do remember the guy who created Laura and wrote the New X-Men comics (thus wrote her having a crush on Hellion) has retroactively claimed that she was supposed to be lesbian. If that was "always" the intent (big if there), it is an interesting set of coincidences; Mercury is canonically LGTBQ, Laura has been claimed to be LGBTQ by a creator involved in the stories in question, they were shown to be emotionally bonding in the series in question on a deeper level than casual friends, and another series around the time suggested (seriously or otherwise) that Laura was in love with Mercury on some level. Shipping has been built on way less than that.

While there was some subtext that could be interpreted that way, like the Pixie Strikes Back panel, Mercury's LGTBQ status didn't become canonical until the X-Men storyline with Bling! in 2014 (I don't think I'm forgetting something before that).

It is weird to think about a storyline where Julian and Cessily, two characters that acted essentially as brother/sister, come into a romantic conflict over Laura; it sounds interesting enough to me anyway. But I also just miss those three interacting with each other in any combination.

[mesjarch]

Laura being bisexual would make sense for the character. As for Craig Kyle comment I think that this was a new idea rather than something he really planned from the beginning. He and Yost during their runs with Laura always went for her with Julian, which led other writers to go with Laura having relationships with other men in later stories.

[Dthirds3]

Lover her hair in this varient
20210811_125812.jpg20210811_125812.jpg20210811_125812.jpg20210811_125812.jpg

Also she could use a girlfriend. They guys shes been with really hasn't ended well

[Devaishwarya]

Technically speaking...she's had a very good very long and apparently loving relationship with Synch...none of which she remembers of course, but still...the potential is there.

[WebLurker]

TBH, I'm suspicious about Kyle's motivations with that remark. He has a history of being rather vocally defensive about what Marvel does with Laura (IE, he responded to someone asking him on Twitter what he thought about her becoming Wolverine after Secret Wars with a scan of one of Dave Simm's scathing critiques from Cerebus about how the major studios take characters away from their creators. IIRC, it was the one that shows caricatures of famous characters like Batman and Wolverine being tortured in a dungeon by avatars for DC, Marvel, etc.). And the WAY he said it, as if it was the "One True History," comes across as him trying to exert any sort of creative control he can.

It's especially muddied given his relationship with Yost. While Yost I believe gives sole credit to Kyle for creating her, Kyle himself I recall has said that Yost was very important to her conception as well and considers him his partner in creating her. And at least as of 2014/2015 when Kyle and Yost were working on Amazing X-Men, Yost mentioned in an X-Men Monday that he still shipped Laura with Hellion. This would seem to contradict Kyle's remarks that she was "always" planned to be LGBT.

Like I said, "very big if."

While there was some subtext that could be interpreted that way, like the Pixie Strikes Back panel, Mercury's LGTBQ status didn't become canonical until the X-Men storyline with Bling! in 2014 (I don't think I'm forgetting something before that).

Didn't know that. Sounds like the Pixie comic wasn't originally meant to be taken literally, even if one of the characters did turn out to be LGBTQ in the end.

It is weird to think about a storyline where Julian and Cessily, two characters that acted essentially as brother/sister, come into a romantic conflict over Laura; it sounds interesting enough to me anyway. But I also just miss those three interacting with each other in any combination.

Sure. Might be tempted to see it happen if I ever run a campaign with that upcoming Marvel RPG or something.

[Mercury]

X-Men #3 variant by David Nakayama:

[seccruz]

X-Men #3 variant by David Nakayama:

This is awesome! She looks powerful, fierce and strong! So gorge!

[Mercury]

Lover her hair in this varient
20210811_125812.jpg

I totally missed that you had already posted this!

This is awesome! She looks powerful, fierce and strong! So gorge!

She looks amazing.

[seccruz]

I totally missed that you had already posted this!



She looks amazing.

She does! I want one for everyone on the team!