X-23 Appreciation Post: My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel

[WebLurker]

People have mentioned other issues as well
1) Her dropping/reworking canon. Her interpretation of the trigger scent made zero sense and didn't fit with Kyle/Yost's.

I honestly never noticed that until people pointed that one out.

I believe she also stated when Laura went to the carnival with Logan it was her first time on a roller coaster, despite her going with Megan in 'Target X'.

Yeah, there was that. I assumed that that was just an honest mistake, given that the Target X ride was a brief part of a montage and small discrepancies like that do pop up in long-running franchises.

Also there being more survivors of Laura's assassinations, lessening the Henry Sutter moment.

Liu didn't invent that idea, Kyle and Yost did; in X-Force, it's mentioned that Laura had three outstanding cases from her X-23 days, so Innocence Lost was already being contradicted by its own creators long before Liu -- although it was implied that one case was Debbie and Megan Kinney, which would've been assigned after she escaped. (In fact, the three outstanding cases are all accounted for, between the Kinneys, the boy from X-23's "Chaos Theory," and the pirate from All-New Wolverine's "Enemy of the State II.")

2) The writing going downhill. Some people have mentioned disliking the 'Paris story arc' or the 'Fantastic4' arc, that those stories just weren't memorable/didn't feel like an X-book.

I thought Paris was fine, but agreed that the F4 stories didn't do much for me.

3) How Laura was represented. Some people do feel Liu represented Laura as less emotional or went overboard with the darker tone at times. While for the most part I liked Liu's writing of Laura, at times I felt like Liu played too much into the 'broken girl' trope that it felt a little manufactured; I think for characters like Laura you need a good balance of sadness without taking it too far.

Maybe? I did like that Liu did a relatively deeper dive into her head then prior stories had (Innocence Lost was told from her mom's perspective, while Target X has X-23 telling her own story, we don't get first-person insight, and New X-Men and X-Force had her as part of a larger cast.

4) Tying Laura more to Logan through her supporting cast and story arcs, when she had been more separated from Logan under Kyle and Yost.

Sue me, but I'm glad they did this.

So it's not just complaints against Hellion's representation in 'the Babysitters Arc', Surge's representation in the beginning, or the New X-Men characters not being utilized.

Yeah, I wish that more had been done with Mercury, given that she was one of the few kids to really made a point to reach out to her. Dust, too, for that matter. Surge always seemed prickly to me, but mileage may vary.

From what I've seen, most people are saying that while there was things they did like with Liu, there's also things they felt mixed on or didn't like in her writing.

I've yet to see a writer where I can't find anything I wish they did differently.

[The Dying Detective]

What I didn't like about the Liu run was the constant need to reset Laura's development after she left Madripoor she seemed happier and without warning she fell into depression in Paris I know that the kill list was the reason but it seemed odd but I guess again it came down to Liu not doing more showing than telling. The Hellion incident suffered from a similar issue especially right before that Laura was able to walk up to a boy who she traumatised and in all good conscience chose not to remind him of something he would rather forget. But weirder things have been done in the Silver Age this is no different.

[Ambaryerno]

Just a point of clarification, I never said the only issue was Hellion, I said the main issue and that was deliberate. There are clearly other issues however the Hellion issue seems to be one people who dislike Lui's run are most passionate about and as I stated it's one that didn't bother me as the Hellion relationship seemed relatively toxic to me anyway.

I don’t see any toxicity before Babysitting. Certainly nothing that comes close to the level of Warren’s abusive white knighting while diminishing her traumas with his self-inflicted “See? I’m dark too!” wangst!

[The Big G]

Welcome to the Eternal Fan Conflict that is Laura and Julian.

Which if you think about it...is pretty par the course for the X-Men. The cycle will not be broken.

[lucius121]

I don’t see any toxicity before Babysitting. Certainly nothing that comes close to the level of Warren’s abusive white knighting while diminishing her traumas with his self-inflicted “See? I’m dark too!” wangst!

I'm not sure what Warren had to do with my comment, but I agree Warren is an even worse match for Laura than Hellion.

[XCE]

That is very clumsy writing then because Laura came off as heartless and honestly the magic is in the journey and if the reader or viewer does not gets to see the journey then the story has failed in it's goal because I cannot buy into everything she said not when she didn't show Laura actually losing her interest in Julian off-panel is dangerous territory to use in comic book writing which is a visual medium and you have to rely more on the visuals than words to make the story work which means showing every aspect of the story even the process.

There's nothing really to show on the page as far as Laura losing interest goes. She decided she had to leave the X-Men to go on a journey of self-discovery and figure out what she wanted out of life. Keep in mind that every aspect of her life had been dictated pretty much up until that point. She grows and changes as a person and when she sees Hellion again after a long time apart, she just realizes that her feelings have changed. There's nothing not worth buying, if you ask me.

Don't know why you think that fiery turkey is better than Julian the young Warren has done nil to earn Laura's affections nor did he have any interest in her leaving writers very little to even work with while Julian did if only by accident.

I hate that kind of argument. Look, love and affection is not earned. That kind of bullshit thinking is what's behind the "friend zone" nonsense. Being nice to a girl does not entitle someone to anything in return.

[Ambaryerno]

There's nothing really to show on the page as far as Laura losing interest goes. She decided she had to leave the X-Men to go on a journey of self-discovery and figure out what she wanted out of life. Keep in mind that every aspect of her life had been dictated pretty much up until that point. She grows and changes as a person and when she sees Hellion again after a long time apart, she just realizes that her feelings have changed. There's nothing not worth buying, if you ask me.


I hate that kind of argument. Look, love and affection is not earned. That kind of bullshit thinking is what's behind the "friend zone" nonsense. Being nice to a girl does not entitle someone to anything in return.

The point he was making is that both failed to SHOW us these things. We had to rely on Liu TELLING us after the story was published that Laura's feelings changed to explain her radically different treatment of Julian in Babbysitting vs. their interactions in Killing Dream. Likewise, in ANXM it was just decided that Warren was into her even though they never interacted on-panel — or even TALKED about each other — up to that point. Those are two significant failures by the writers.

[The Dying Detective]

There's nothing really to show on the page as far as Laura losing interest goes. She decided she had to leave the X-Men to go on a journey of self-discovery and figure out what she wanted out of life. Keep in mind that every aspect of her life had been dictated pretty much up until that point. She grows and changes as a person and when she sees Hellion again after a long time apart, she just realizes that her feelings have changed. There's nothing not worth buying, if you ask me.

I hate that kind of argument. Look, love and affection is not earned. That kind of bullshit thinking is what's behind the "friend zone" nonsense. Being nice to a girl does not entitle someone to anything in return.

Honestly as far as I am concerned her disinterest in Julian needed more showing than telling the kill list thing is slightly forgivable if you can just picture how it coud have happened in your head but even then there certain logical leaps to it however the Julian one has a great deal of difficulty behind it. And the fact Laura came off as heartless when she saw Logan the man who went out of his way to help her mock Hellion was really a little too odd and the fact she saw that he was suffering the same way she was treated earlier in the first issue and she was indifferent to him. Fine love and affection is not earned but as a budding storyteller I know mutual interest has to be shown to get the idea that these two particular people are into each other or hate each other to make sure that everything is made clear to simply pull something out of nowhere is a dangerous thing and derails the romance.

[RoamingGnome8]

I honestly never noticed that until people pointed that one out.



Yeah, there was that. I assumed that that was just an honest mistake, given that the Target X ride was a brief part of a montage and small discrepancies like that do pop up in long-running franchises.



Liu didn't invent that idea, Kyle and Yost did; in X-Force, it's mentioned that Laura had three outstanding cases from her X-23 days, so Innocence Lost was already being contradicted by its own creators long before Liu -- although it was implied that one case was Debbie and Megan Kinney, which would've been assigned after she escaped. (In fact, the three outstanding cases are all accounted for, between the Kinneys, the boy from X-23's "Chaos Theory," and the pirate from All-New Wolverine's "Enemy of the State II.")



I thought Paris was fine, but agreed that the F4 stories didn't do much for me.



Maybe? I did like that Liu did a relatively deeper dive into her head then prior stories had (Innocence Lost was told from her mom's perspective, while Target X has X-23 telling her own story, we don't get first-person insight, and New X-Men and X-Force had her as part of a larger cast.



Sue me, but I'm glad they did this.



Yeah, I wish that more had been done with Mercury, given that she was one of the few kids to really made a point to reach out to her. Dust, too, for that matter. Surge always seemed prickly to me, but mileage may vary.



I've yet to see a writer where I can't find anything I wish they did differently.

I do like that Liu examines Laura's perspective, (the reason I really like the Hellverine/Miss Sinister arc) and I really like the examination of Laura's trauma/mental health; but I did feel the Paris story arc went a little too overboard with the 'broken girl' trope.
It's also why I didn't like the Surge moment; I felt like it was there solely to manufacture more sadness to Laura's story-'Now she's being ostracized/bullied by some of her former X-Men friends; on top of being a clone, forced to kill at a young age, tortured, was a child prostitute to an abusive pimp, etc'. Plus it threw Surge under the bus, when in the past she's been showcased as being blunt or harsh towards others, but ultimately really caring about everyone.
I think Laura's at her best when there's a balance of sadness, drama, and happiness- I think Liu at times took it too far into sadness and Taylor took it too far into a lighter, happier tone. Personally, I can deal easier with it being too 'dark or sad' than I can 'happy' but that's just me. Even with X-Force, I felt like Kyle/Yost balanced it well, because despite all the horrors that happened to Laura she still has hope. There are still moments that make you smile, like when she explains how Rahne is pregnant.

With the other targets surviving, I always assumed it was Megan and Debbie.

While I liked the idea of dealing with Logan and her strained relationship- that while he didn't want her on X-Force, he didn't see her as ever being 'better'; I just wished Liu did more with it than she ultimately did. Same with Logan treating Rahne, Kitty, and Jubilee differently; I would have liked to see more done with it. Does Laura feel some jealousy over the fact?
Ultimately I think the issue with it, is I think clone characters ultimately do better when allowed to be their own character instead of a subset of another popular character.
It's like with DC's 'Superboy'; I think Conner was better off with his own secondary characters, a semi-different power set, on separate superhero teams from any of the other Superkids, living in Hawaii, with a very different personality from Clark. When people tied him more and more to Superman, he lost a lot of his personality and uniqueness.
Laura's kind of the same; I think it lead to a deterioration in her personality. Side characters from her books were replaced with characters from Logans. It's why in my opinion Carol Danvers is being pushed (she was close to Logan), why Megan hasn't had much of a part, and why Kiden and the New X-Men are forgotten. She's seen more as an offset of Logan than her own person.

[Beaubier]

I do like that Liu examines Laura's perspective, (the reason I really like the Hellverine/Miss Sinister arc) and I really like the examination of Laura's trauma/mental health; but I did feel the Paris story arc went a little too overboard with the 'broken girl' trope.
It's also why I didn't like the Surge moment; I felt like it was there solely to manufacture more sadness to Laura's story-'Now she's being ostracized/bullied by some of her former X-Men friends; on top of being a clone, forced to kill at a young age, tortured, was a child prostitute to an abusive pimp, etc'. Plus it threw Surge under the bus, when in the past she's been showcased as being blunt or harsh towards others, but ultimately really caring about everyone.
I think Laura's at her best when there's a balance of sadness, drama, and happiness- I think Liu at times took it too far into sadness and Taylor took it too far into a lighter, happier tone. Personally, I can deal easier with it being too 'dark or sad' than I can 'happy' but that's just me. Even with X-Force, I felt like Kyle/Yost balanced it well, because despite all the horrors that happened to Laura she still has hope. There are still moments that make you smile, like when she explains how Rahne is pregnant.

With the other targets surviving, I always assumed it was Megan and Debbie.

While I liked the idea of dealing with Logan and her strained relationship- that while he didn't want her on X-Force, he didn't see her as ever being 'better'; I just wished Liu did more with it than she ultimately did. Same with Logan treating Rahne, Kitty, and Jubilee differently; I would have liked to see more done with it. Does Laura feel some jealousy over the fact?
Ultimately I think the issue with it, is I think clone characters ultimately do better when allowed to be their own character instead of a subset of another popular character.
It's like with DC's 'Superboy'; I think Conner was better off with his own secondary characters, a semi-different power set, on separate superhero teams from any of the other Superkids, living in Hawaii, with a very different personality from Clark. When people tied him more and more to Superman, he lost a lot of his personality and uniqueness.
Laura's kind of the same; I think it lead to a deterioration in her personality. Side characters from her books were replaced with characters from Logans. It's why in my opinion Carol Danvers is being pushed (she was close to Logan), why Megan hasn't had much of a part, and why Kiden and the New X-Men are forgotten. She's seen more as an offset of Logan than her own person.

I concur on all points. Well said. I really hope a future writer, if not Tamaki, reconnects Laura with her old friendships. I want to see her in an espionage-thriller story with Mercury. I want to see her help Dust find her mother. I want her to team up with Kiden against that shadowy organization that was trying to capture her. But most importantly even if those specific things never happen, I want to see quality character beats between Laura and often ignored friendships. I’ve really enjoyed her interactions with Jubilee, Gambit and Daken and would like to see more of that, but Laura has plenty of characters that could and should be supporting cast for her.

When all is said done though, I never felt like Laura had lost a lot of what made her one of my favorite characters while under Liu’s pen. I’ve often felt like that over the course of Taylor’s book.

[The Big G]

Man its 1:30 PST and still no preview not even a farewell interview...man ANW seems to have dropped off of Marvel's radar

[WebLurker]

I do like that Liu examines Laura's perspective, (the reason I really like the Hellverine/Miss Sinister arc) and I really like the examination of Laura's trauma/mental health; but I did feel the Paris story arc went a little too overboard with the 'broken girl' trope.
It's also why I didn't like the Surge moment; I felt like it was there solely to manufacture more sadness to Laura's story-'Now she's being ostracized/bullied by some of her former X-Men friends; on top of being a clone, forced to kill at a young age, tortured, was a child prostitute to an abusive pimp, etc'. Plus it threw Surge under the bus, when in the past she's been showcased as being blunt or harsh towards others, but ultimately really caring about everyone.
I think Laura's at her best when there's a balance of sadness, drama, and happiness- I think Liu at times took it too far into sadness and Taylor took it too far into a lighter, happier tone. Personally, I can deal easier with it being too 'dark or sad' than I can 'happy' but that's just me. Even with X-Force, I felt like Kyle/Yost balanced it well, because despite all the horrors that happened to Laura she still has hope. There are still moments that make you smile, like when she explains how Rahne is pregnant.

Maybe Tamaki will have a better balance? She seems to want to do a more serious story but keep the All-New Wolverine cast intact.

With the other targets surviving, I always assumed it was Megan and Debbie.

It was three specifically three cases. If the Kinneys count as one, then X-23 and All-New Wolverine would account for the other two. However, I am just making an educated guess on all this.

While I liked the idea of dealing with Logan and her strained relationship- that while he didn't want her on X-Force, he didn't see her as ever being 'better'; I just wished Liu did more with it than she ultimately did. Same with Logan treating Rahne, Kitty, and Jubilee differently; I would have liked to see more done with it. Does Laura feel some jealousy over the fact?

She did in Liu's one-shot with the NYX kids.

Ultimately I think the issue with it, is I think clone characters ultimately do better when allowed to be their own character instead of a subset of another popular character.
It's like with DC's 'Superboy'; I think Conner was better off with his own secondary characters, a semi-different power set, on separate superhero teams from any of the other Superkids, living in Hawaii, with a very different personality from Clark. When people tied him more and more to Superman, he lost a lot of his personality and uniqueness.
Laura's kind of the same; I think it lead to a deterioration in her personality. Side characters from her books were replaced with characters from Logans. It's why in my opinion Carol Danvers is being pushed (she was close to Logan), why Megan hasn't had much of a part, and why Kiden and the New X-Men are forgotten. She's seen more as an offset of Logan than her own person.

Hmmm. Then what about Gabby being so closely associated with Laura?

[Wolvie valley]

To many Dafne Keen pro-posters in here. Lets discuss her

[RoamingGnome8]

Maybe Tamaki will have a better balance? She seems to want to do a more serious story but keep the All-New Wolverine cast intact.



It was three specifically three cases. If the Kinneys count as one, then X-23 and All-New Wolverine would account for the other two. However, I am just making an educated guess on all this.



She did in Liu's one-shot with the NYX kids.



Hmmm. Then what about Gabby being so closely associated with Laura?

In many ways Gabby is to Laura what Kitty or Jubilee were to Logan.

To many Dafne Keen pro-posters in here. Lets discuss her

What's wrong with Dafne Keen??
She did a stellar job in Logan.

[The Dying Detective]

In many ways Gabby is to Laura what Kitty or Jubilee were to Logan.

But Logan was still able to shine without Kitty or Jubilee getting in the way whereas Gabby has become something of a hindrance to Laura.