X-23 Appreciation 2021

[BlackDragon98]

I honestly don't know. I don't think it's ever been said what happened to her after Secret Empire in the main 'verse.

We'll probably see her the next time we see Laura's alt universe sister Reine du Rien.

AKA over 9000 years later.

[Beaubier]

Been away from this forum for a while and I see I still haven’t missed anything. Marvel is so wasting X-23.

Re: the color debate, Laura always looked out of place in the yellow and blue, and I still feel like putting her as Wolverine is trying to shoehorn her into a role her creators never wanted for her.

[Beaubier]

Just found this forum, so here's my take on X-23 over the years.

Innocence Lost: Excellent, but sad as ****.

Target X: Excellent, and badass as hell (especially her fight with Logan where she uses tactics against him) but bittersweet

NYX: Depressing, but a logical stage in her character progression

Uncanny X-Men: Awful, but the most forgivable, given that she's only been around for a couple years at this point.

New X-Men: Excellent, especially the Helix and Kimura getting her memory wiped by Emma. I kinda hated Emma for what she did to Laura in the beginning though NGL.

X-Force: The High Water Mark of Excellence! Super Badass! Mike Choi's art was the cherry on top.

X-23 One Shot: Pretty nice, though I didn't really like the art. NYX squad reunion was cool.

X-23: Good, but Majorie sank the Helix ship in a pretty bad way and that pissed me off. Otherwise pretty good, especially her and Jubilee. Art kind of made Laura seem a bit older than she was though.

Avenger's Academy: Started out strong, but started going sour towards the end.

Avenger's Arena: This is where everything started going bad. Laura was OOC.

All New X-Men: Exponential drop in quality. I wish Prof. Xavier could show up at my door and purge all memory of ANXM from my mind.

Logan Legacy: Okay, confirmed something about Laura that we all pretty much knew.

Wolverines: Awful. It was hyped up so much but then it turned out to be a big "Subvert Expectations". Extremely convoluted plot, lots of OOC.

All New X-Men 2.0: Even worse than the Bendis dumpster fire. I wish Prof. Xavier, Jean Grey, and Emma Frost would all collectively show up at my door and purge all memory of ANXM 2.0 from my mind.

All-New Wolverine: great idea with terrible execution. It literally took all the pre-established stuff about Laura being super-tactical and a master military strategist and threw it out the airlock, into a sun. Orphans of X was a lame rip-off of the Red Right Hand. Laura gave off suburban soccer mom vibes at the very beginning, which was incredibly cringy. There was almost no background info on Old Woman Laura (I assumed it was like the supervillain collective mega-attack in Old Man Logan but the heroes had advanced intel and managed to avert disaster) so I was pretty confused about what the heck was going on.

X-Men Red: IMO it was a continuation of All-New Wolverine, but more meh.

X23 2018: It was render completely pointless by the whole Krakoa revival thing. As usual; good idea, terrible execution.

Fallen Angels: A dumpster fire on par with ANXM and ANXM 2.0. Need I say more?

So what do y'all think?

Agree or disagree?

I agree with your ranking. We basically share the same opinion, though I think Orphans of X was one of the better storylines in Taylor’s run. The idea of Laura going after the people who contracted her out from the Facility is also a great premise, which Tamaki should have followed up on and didn’t. Overall I didn’t really care for Taylor’s run, but I did like Orphans of X.

My rating of her more prominent writers:
Kyle/Yost > Liu > Tamaki > Gage > Taylor > Bendis > Hopeless

Tamaki and Gage were pretty mediocre, but Tamaki captured Laura’s personality better than Taylor IMO, and at least Gage didn’t try to handwave away chunks of Laura’s past with unsatisfying results.

[BlackDragon98]

Been away from this forum for a while and I see I still haven’t missed anything. Marvel is so wasting X-23.

Re: the color debate, Laura always looked out of place in the yellow and blue, and I still feel like putting her as Wolverine is trying to shoehorn her into a role her creators never wanted for her.

Laura becoming Wolverine should have been done better. Like anything but what they did, which was write Laura as Logan with ****.

Daken as Dark Wolverine was perfectly fine because underneath the brown and yellow, it was still good 'ole evil manipulative Daken.

Laura's character when she became Wolverine took a massive turn that was just too sudden and completely OOC in my opinion.

About the color scheme, Laura's best outfit was her X-Force one. IMO they should have kept it when she took on the mantle of Wolverine instead of yellow and blue.

[Havok83]

I didnt like it at first but her current Wolverine costume is growing on me

[Ambaryerno]

Laura becoming Wolverine should have been done better. Like anything but what they did, which was write Laura as Logan with ****.

Daken as Dark Wolverine was perfectly fine because underneath the brown and yellow, it was still good 'ole evil manipulative Daken.

Laura's character when she became Wolverine took a massive turn that was just too sudden and completely OOC in my opinion.

About the color scheme, Laura's best outfit was her X-Force one. IMO they should have kept it when she took on the mantle of Wolverine instead of yellow and blue.

The main problem with how they handled Laura becoming Wolverine was we didn't get to SEE the moment. Dumping her into the cowl after a time skip (which was a huge problem with ALL of the post-Secret Wars legacy characters) cheated us of what SHOULD have been something significant. They even had a great potential setup in Wolverines:

Destiny foresaw the world wouldn't survive without Wolverine, thus she tried to trick Mystique into resurrecting him. Mystique threw a tantrum and refused to do it. So all they needed to do was have Laura as one of the survivors of the Incursions, and at some critical moment she decides to take the Cowl and do whatever it was Destiny saw Logan doing. Laura earns the cowl, helps save the Multiverse, and heads into the post-SW status quo with some momentum.

Instead she gets ONE PANEL in the entire @#$%ing event and all it's tie-ins, as part of the AU army from the worlds Doom created, and the only Wolverine who got to play any sort of significant role in the event was Old Man Logan. Which is pretty much foreshadowing for how Laura was treated AFTER Secret Wars: Old Man got to do all the IMPORTANT stuff in the main books, while she was relegated to Hopeless' godawful shipping fic (and then she didn't even have THAT, while OML got THREE teams).

[BlackDragon98]

The main problem with how they handled Laura becoming Wolverine was we didn't get to SEE the moment. Dumping her into the cowl after a time skip (which was a huge problem with ALL of the post-Secret Wars legacy characters) cheated us of what SHOULD have been something significant. They even had a great potential setup in Wolverines:

Destiny foresaw the world wouldn't survive without Wolverine, thus she tried to trick Mystique into resurrecting him. Mystique threw a tantrum and refused to do it. So all they needed to do was have Laura as one of the survivors of the Incursions, and at some critical moment she decides to take the Cowl and do whatever it was Destiny saw Logan doing. Laura earns the cowl, helps save the Multiverse, and heads into the post-SW status quo with some momentum.

Instead she gets ONE PANEL in the entire @#$%ing event and all it's tie-ins, as part of the AU army from the worlds Doom created, and the only Wolverine who got to play any sort of significant role in the event was Old Man Logan. Which is pretty much foreshadowing for how Laura was treated AFTER Secret Wars: Old Man got to do all the IMPORTANT stuff in the main books, while she was relegated to Hopeless' godawful shipping fic (and then she didn't even have THAT, while OML got THREE teams).

Agreed.

I think they could have also tied the Enigma Force with her becoming Wolverine. Big massive Incursion war and the heroes are losing because they have no Wolverine. At the darkest moment, the Enigma Force shows up and bonds with Laura again, turning the tide. At the end of the war, it tells her that she must become Wolverine or the world wouldn't survive. Obviously she's going to be hesitant about taking up the mantle, feeling that she's unworthy. But she ultimately chooses to accept it, knowing that she's making her father proud by doing so.

And looking back, I feel like Laura's story suffers a lot time-skips and big massive plot gaps.
How did she go from being alone at the end of Target X to a child prostitute in NYX?
And what was she doing between Uncanny X-Men and New X-Men aside from hanging out in San Francisco?
I feel like Marvel should have addressed these gaps in one-shots (or some other comic) before proceeding on with the main storyline.

[MarvelMaster616]

I didnt like it at first but her current Wolverine costume is growing on me

I agree. This is a good look for her.

[Jackraow21]

I didnt like it at first but her current Wolverine costume is growing on me

Love it! It’s even got the new X design in the belt. That looks badass. Where is it from? Is it an actual cover or comic image, or just fan art?

[Havok83]

Love it! It’s even got the new X design in the belt. That looks badass. Where is it from? Is it an actual cover or comic image, or just fan art?

I found it from a Google image search. I think its fanart. I didnt like the way Silva drew it so Im looking forward to seeing others tackle it

[Rakurai]

Love it! It’s even got the new X design in the belt. That looks badass. Where is it from? Is it an actual cover or comic image, or just fan art?

I believe this one is a fanart of her X-Men 5 aka the Vault uniform.
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[Ambaryerno]

Agreed.

I think they could have also tied the Enigma Force with her becoming Wolverine. Big massive Incursion war and the heroes are losing because they have no Wolverine. At the darkest moment, the Enigma Force shows up and bonds with Laura again, turning the tide. At the end of the war, it tells her that she must become Wolverine or the world wouldn't survive. Obviously she's going to be hesitant about taking up the mantle, feeling that she's unworthy. But she ultimately chooses to accept it, knowing that she's making her father proud by doing so.

And looking back, I feel like Laura's story suffers a lot time-skips and big massive plot gaps.
How did she go from being alone at the end of Target X to a child prostitute in NYX?
And what was she doing between Uncanny X-Men and New X-Men aside from hanging out in San Francisco?
I feel like Marvel should have addressed these gaps in one-shots (or some other comic) before proceeding on with the main storyline.

The problem with the gap between Target X and NYX is that it's something Marvel seems to not WANT to touch. Which is unfortunate because there's a big opportunity to address something that's a very real issue in the world today.

The most likely sequence of events is that she ended up in NY after sending her aunt and cousin into hiding and trying to get as far from them as she could, fell into (an even deeper) depression, and when Zebra Daddy found her he preyed on her poor self-esteem and sense of self, inclination to submit to authority, and quick response to acts of kindness to manipulate her into working for him (basically, butter her up by taking her in, offering her food, generally being nice, etc. And then becoming violent if she tried to refuse him. This fits both Daddy's personality we see in NYX, works with Laura's own behavior patterns, and is a form of abuse and coercion that is how men like Daddy ACTUALLY operate IRL).

[WebLurker]

Just found this forum, so here's my take on X-23 over the years...So what do y'all think?

Agree or disagree?

Def. a fan of Kyle/Yost and Liu stuff (although I'm an odd one out in that I'm not a fan of Laura and Hellion as a couple).

I did really like All-New Wolverine and Tamaki's X-23 run (and I guess, given how character-driven it was, I don't really hold it "not mattering" after the Hickman hijacked the whole franchise for his Krakaoa thing). Seem to recall Tom Taylor stating that the Orphans of X being a retread of the Red Right Hand was happenstance (although I would point out that throwing Logan and Laura in a similar scenario does highlight their differences, given how each of them resolves the problem). I think "Old Woman Laura" was essentially just an out of continuity story that acted as something of a thematic conclusion to the series (gathered that it was canceled, so maybe Taylor had more in mind with it).

I'm weird in that I liked Fallen Angels (although I will concede it's more of a Psylocke story then anything.

The problem with the gap between Target X and NYX is that it's something Marvel seems to not WANT to touch. Which is unfortunate because there's a big opportunity to address something that's a very real issue in the world today.

The most likely sequence of events is that she ended up in NY after sending her aunt and cousin into hiding and trying to get as far from them as she could, fell into (an even deeper) depression, and when Zebra Daddy found her he preyed on her poor self-esteem and sense of self, inclination to submit to authority, and quick response to acts of kindness to manipulate her into working for him (basically, butter her up by taking her in, offering her food, generally being nice, etc. And then becoming violent if she tried to refuse him. This fits both Daddy's personality we see in NYX, works with Laura's own behavior patterns, and is a form of abuse and coercion that is how men like Daddy ACTUALLY operate IRL).

That's more or less how that gap was bridged in with added exposition in the X-23: The Complete Collection Volume 1.

[BlackDragon98]

Seem to recall Tom Taylor stating that the Orphans of X being a retread of the Red Right Hand was happenstance

IMO it was a deliberate attempt and a lackluster one at that.
The Red Right Hand was both well written and impactful.
The Orphans of X were literally a support and counseling group that Henry Sutter hijacked for his own purposes.
They also never revealed Henry's true parentage in front of the Orphans of X and the role his father Zander Rice played in making the trigger scent, which made it all the less interesting.

I think "Old Woman Laura" was essentially just an out of continuity story that acted as something of a thematic conclusion to the series (gathered that it was canceled, so maybe Taylor had more in mind with it).

There's a website that tracks comic books sales (Comichron) where I took at look at ANW's sales numbers.
After the first issue, sales started decreasing. Steadily.
Little wonder why they chose to cancel the series.

[Celgress]

I didnt like it at first but her current Wolverine costume is growing on me

I prefer her grey one but to each their own.