Spike Spiegel
Member
You've seen the trailers or commercials for 'LOGAN', starring Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart in their final turns as Wolverine and Professor X. Or maybe you're one of the lucky few to have already seen the film (no spoilers!) Or, maybe you've listened to your friends (lucky you!) talk about wanting to see it, and you just want to prove you're the biggest nerd of them all. In any case, you may have found yourself wondering: what's the deal with that girl? The little murder girl with the claws like Logan's, the blank stares, the angry yelling at gas station clerks, and the extremely disproportional to her size violence?
Well that little murder girl's name is Laura, and wonder no more friend because your old buddy Spike is here to enlighten you. I've been following X-23's exploits since her debut on a kids' cartoon (more on that below) roughly fourteen years ago, and in anticipation of next week's release of 'LOGAN' in theaters I am here to give you the lowdown on her history. I also come bearing recommendations on what comics to read for those so inclined, since I've pretty much read all of them.
In fact, y'see this?
That's the promotional image from when X-23 was first revealed in 2003. I remember seeing it on Comics Continuum way back when and, although I'd play hell trying to prove it, I'm fairly certain that I posted it on GAF when it was released. That's how long I've been following X-23's exploits, and I couldn't be happier that Hugh Jackman's last outing as Wolverine is a story that introduces X-23. Super-pumped!
So strap in kiddies, and bring your reading glasses!
VITAL SNIKT-ISTICS (Ah hah hah hah hah hah hah... hah... haaaaa. *cough*)
Real Name: Laura Kinney (or Laura Howlett)
Codenames: X-23, Talon, Wolverine
Height: 155cm (5ft 1in)
Weight: 50kg (110lbs)
Hair Color: Black (Brown in X-Men Evolution)
Eye Color: Green
Place of Birth: The Facility, somewhere in North America
Powers and Abilities: As a clone X-23 posesses all of Wolverine's mutant abilities including a regenerative healing factor, slowed aging, immunity to disease, superior poison/drug resistance, enhanced animalistic senses, and superhuman stamina, reflexes and agility. X-23 also posesses six retractable bone claws like Wolverine; in her case however, two claws are located in each forearm while a third claw extends from each foot. X-23's claws have been sharpened and laced with adamantium making them indestructible and capable of cutting through virtually anything; the rest of her skeleton however was not enhanced with the metal, making her less durable than Wolverine.
Raised entirely in captivity by a government program to become a living weapon, X-23 has received extensive training in martial arts, firearms and explosives, military tactics and strategy, assassination techniques, tracking and surveillance, disguise and infiltration, interrogation and torture. She speaks a wide variety of languages with expert fluency, and has extensive knowledge of human anatomy. The Facility also conditioned her to respond violently to a chemical smell referred to as "trigger scent;" upon exposure to this chemical X-23 enters a berserker rage similar to Wolverine's, and will kill anything covered in the scent.
In addition to her training X-23 has considerable field experience in combat situations, from working as an assassin since the age of ten, and as an active member of various mutant teams since joining the X-Men.
First Appearance: X-Men Evolution (cartoon, 2003); NYX #3 (comics, 2004)
MADE FOR TELEVISION: X-Men Evolution (2003)
Question: other than gender, what does X-23 have in common with DC's Harley Quinn? Well like Harley, X-23 first appeared not in the pages of a comic book but on television screens, in a Saturday morning cartoon. She was created for the KidsWB series X-Men Evolution by writer/producer Craig Kyle, debuting in 2003 during the show's third season in an episode titled "X23." Introduced as a clone of Wolverine created by HYDRA, X-23 was intended to be the perfect living weapon in their war against S.H.I.E.L.D. When she learned of Wolverine's existence however, X-23 went rogue and later attacked him at the X-Mansion, blaming Logan for her tortured existence. After an action-packed and emotional confrontation with the X-Men, ending in a tearful hug between donor (father? brother?) and clone (daughter? sister?), X-23 evaded capture by S.H.I.E.L.D. and began hunting the villains who created her.
X-23 would reappear during the show's fourth and final season, in the episode "Target X." In that story Wolverine reunites with X-23 to battle Omega Red and Madame Hydra who was responsible for X-23's creation, and now seeks to recapture her and complete X-23's transformation into an emotionless killing machine. X-23 seemingly sacrifices herself to kill Madame Hydra and destroy her flying base in a fiery explosion, but at the end is revealed to have survived the blast and escaped, at last free to live on her own terms.
The 2009 animated series Wolverine and the X-Men would also feature X-23 in several episodes, including two episodes set in the show's future where X-23 would fight alongside Wolverine and her identical clone sisters.
SuggestedReading Viewing: Watch X-Men Evolution on Hulu, Amazon Video or iTunes
PERSONALITY SPLIT: NYX (2004) and Uncanny X-Men (2004-2005)
Though only appearing in two episodes X-23 made quite the impression on fans, and on the folks at Marvel Comics; so much so that the decision was quickly made to introduce her into the pages of X-Men comics. In 2004, X-23 would make her comic book debut in NYX, a spinoff series written by Joe Quesada and illustrated by Joshua Middleton. NYX told the story of a group of a group of homeless young mutants led by runaway Kiden Nixon, as they struggled to survive and protect each other on the streets of New York City. In the third issue their group meets X-23, introduced as a nameless underage prostitute working for the ruthless pimp known as "Zebra Daddy." X-23 tags along with the NYX teens after one of her johns kills himself during a session; when Zebra Daddy comes looking to reclaim her, X-23 chooses to kill her pimp to save the others from his wrath. Pale and dressed in goth-punk clothing, emotionally withdrawn and of few words, the X-23 of NYX is rather unlike her tanned, angry, almost feral cartoon counterpart, and virtually nothing was revealed of her past before Marvel announced the series was canceled.
NYX may have lasted only seven issues before Marvel pulled the plug, but X-23 would not share its fate and quickly found herself in a new series that was much closer to home -- and closer to a certain hirsute, clawed mutant. For the landmark 450th issue of Uncanny X-Men, the legendary creative team of writer Chris Claremont and artist Alan Davis introduced X-23 to Wolverine and the X-Men, in a story titled "The Cruelest Cut." On the hunt for a killer in New York City the team encounters X-23 working as a waitress and, after a brief and violent misunderstanding, she joins the X-Men to save one of her friends and becomes an unofficial member of the team, sharing a room at the X-Mansion with Kitty Pryde and Rachel Summers. Wearing a costume borrowed from Wolverine (who himself borrowed it from Imperial Guardsman Fang) and bearing a protective attitude towards him as she tagged along on the X-Men's adventures, Claremont's version of X-23 was markedly different from her NYX iteration, and aligned more closely with her X-Men Evolution characterization. X-23 continued to appear in the pages of Uncanny X-Men for the next year before fading into the background, but since then this period of her life and Claremont's interpretation as a whole has largely been ignored by both writers and fans.
Suggested Reading: NYX: The Complete Collection (collects NYX #1-7 and NYX: No Way Home #1-6); Uncanny X-Men #450-451; 455-460
AN EARLY START: X-23: Innocence Lost (2005) and X-23: Target X (2007)
In developing the character of X-23 for X-Men Evolution, Craig Kyle didn't simiply write "female clone of Wolverine with claws in her feet too" and call it a day. Instead he crafted a lengthy and elaborate backstory for her; an origin rich with history, emotion and tragedy, that tied her inextricably to the story of Wolverine. In 2005 Marvel gave Kyle the chance to tell that story in full, announcing that X-23 would star in her first limited solo series. Written by Kyle and his Evolution collaborator Christopher Yost, with artwork by Billy Tan, X-23 (later retitled X-23: Innocence Lost for clarity) would reveal X-23's origin in greater detail than ever before attempted, resulting after two abortive attempts in a singular and definitive comic interpretation that would cement her position in the world of Marvel's X-Men.
When Weapon X (aka Logan, aka Wolverine) escaped from the government program that transformed him into an unstoppable killing machine, the agencies behind that program tasked new researchers with recreating their greatest success by any means necessary. Decades later work on the project under Dr. Zander Rice had stalled due to a lack of viable test subjects, until geneticist Sarah Kinney approached program director Martin Sutter with an ambitious proposal: clone the original test subject, Logan, rather than continue using inferior substitutes. When her attempts at creating a male speciment continued to fail, Sarah disobeyed orders and produced a viable female clone embryo; the experiment could proceed but as punishment for her unauthorized ambition, Dr. Rice forced Sarah to serve as the surrogate for her creation. Nine months later Sarah gave birth to a healthy, X-gene positive baby girl designated X-23 (the successful 23rd attempt at cloning Weapon X), and the Facility at last had its perfect test subject. Kept on board as an advisor Sarah watched with growing concern and helpless horror as over the years her creation, her daughter, was subjected to painful testing, brutal conditioning, and medical procedures performed by an increasingly sadistic Dr. Rice, before being sent on global missions of assassination by the Facility. Unable to bear her guilt any longer, and sensing her eminently expendable nature, Sarah began hatching a desperate plan to bring down the Facility and escape with X-23.
In 2007, Marvel and the writing team of Kyle and Yost would revisit X-23's origins once again, with a follow-up limited series featuring artwork by Mike Choi. Titled X-23: Target X, the sequel picked up in the immediate aftermath of X-23's (now Laura Kinney, as named by her mother) escape from the Facility where she was created, and chronicled her efforts to evade recapture while seeking family in a new and unfamiliar world. In addition to revealing X-23's real first encounter with Wolverine (a retcon that would further complicate her earlier appearances in Uncanny), Target also introduced an arch-enemy for X-23 in Kimura, her abusive handler. Genetically modified by the Facility to possess regenerative and density-modifying powers, Kimura was the ideal counter to X-23's abilities as well as a brutal tormentor of the young girl, and following the escape was tasked by the Facility's backers with recapturing X-23 and killing anyone she came in contact with.
Suggested Reading: X-23: Innocence Lost; X-23: Target X
WOLF AMONG SHEEP: New X-Men: Childhood's End (2006-2008)
"No more mutants." With those three words, the course of mutant history was drastically altered in the 2005 Avengers/X-Men crossover event House of M. On what would come to be known as "M-Day," mutants around the world suddenly found themselves mutants no longer, irrevocably depowered by the Scarlet Witch's chaos magic. Where once their numbers ranged in the millions, with more joining the ranks each day, after M-Day the mutant population was reduced to fewer than two hundred, and no new X-gene positive children were being born to replace the fallen. Homo superior was a species suddenly on the brink of extinction, and among the surviving examples of their race was X-23.
M-Day's aftermath, chronicled in the subsequent Decimation event, necessitated a complete overhaul of the family of X-Men titles Marvel published, to reflect the dire reality mutants now faced. When Craig Kyle and Chris Yost took over as writers for New X-Men, a series about mutant students enrolled at the Xavier Institute, they wasted no time in sparking immediate controversy and even outrage by killing off many of the book's young cast members. Capitalizing on the X-Men's vulnerable state following M-Day, an anti-mutant fundamentalist group led by William Stryker launched a rocket attack on the X-Mansion, blowing up a bus full of depowered students as they departed the school. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled following Stryker's attack, more than forty students were dead and many more injured, and the book's cast had been reduced to roughly a dozen active members, to be trained by the X-Men as the next, possibly last, generation of mutant heroes.
It's in this time of uncertain futures and impending doom that X-23 is introduced to the X-Men for the second time. After M-Day a concerned Logan contacts Laura and asks her to join the school again, for her protection but also to interact with mutants her own age, and perhaps begin adjusting to a "normal" life. Reluctantly X-23 agreed and joined the other students despite the disapproval of headmistress Emma Frost, who knew telepathically what X-23 had done and the potential threat she posed to the other students. Initially fearful and distrusting of Laura, her classmates began to accept her as one of their own following Stryker's attack. She befriended her roommates Dust, Pixie, and Armor, and later Mercury after she is captured by the Facility that created X-23. Laura also developed a crush on telekinetic Hellion, perhaps the unluckiest mutant to ever mutate (won't someone give that poor boy a hand?). Alongside her classmates X-23 battled anti-mutant extremists, killer robots from the future, liquid metal monsters, and inter-dimensional demons. And her remarkable skill in combat situations, coupled with her penchant for self-sacrifice, would draw the attention of X-Men leader Cyclops, who saw a use for such qualities in the days to come...
Suggested Reading: New X-Men #20-46
RUNNING WITH THE PACK: X-Force (2008-2010)
Hope continued to dwindle for the mutant race, labeled as an endangered species by the US government following M-Day. For the X-Men, now guarded by the Sentinels that once hunted them, the mission of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants became secondary to the paramount fight for survival. Every X-Man, every student, every mutant lost in battle brought them one step closer to extinction; for Cyclops -- the de facto leader of mutantkind -- that meant no action to protect the species would be off the table, no matter how unthinkable prior to M-Day. And when the first and only X-gene positive child born since M-Day was nearly assassinated by an anti-mutant group, Cyclops deemed it necessary to fight the enemies of mutantkind on their own brutal, merciless terms.
In Kyle and Yost's X-Force, Cyclops recruits a team of X-Men to act as a covert death squad, tasked with hunting and eliminating the human enemies of mutantkind before their genocidal plans succeed. Initially consisting of X-23, Warpath and Wolfsbane, the team is later joined by Archangel, Domino, Elixir and Vanisher; Cyclops would ask Wolverine to lead the team, after informing him of its existence. Unhappy at this development, and especially with Laura's early involvement, Logan accepted the job to lead but also protect the team as best he could. So when Wolverine witnessed X-23 lapsing into her Facility conditioning on their first mission, jeopardizing the lives of her teammates, he sharply rebuked the young girl causing her to become confused. As they battled religious extremists, militant hate groups, rogue mutants, would-be conquerors and armies of the undead, X-23's mental and emotional state continued to deteriorate, as her Weapon X training conflicted with her newly awakening humanity.
Following an especially difficult mission to the future in the X-Force/Cable crossover Messiah War, X-23 was kidnapped and returned to the Facility where she endured brutal torture at the hands of Kimura before being rescued. Upon returning to Utopia the X-Men's island base, Logan suspended X-23 from future missions citing its adverse effect on her personal development; after the Second Coming event he removes her from X-Force permanently, advising Laura to stop letting others use her, and to start making her own choices about the life she wants for herself.
Suggested Reading: X-Men Messiah Complex; X-Force #1-28; X-Force/Cable: Messiah War, X-Necrosha; X-Men Second Coming
Well that little murder girl's name is Laura, and wonder no more friend because your old buddy Spike is here to enlighten you. I've been following X-23's exploits since her debut on a kids' cartoon (more on that below) roughly fourteen years ago, and in anticipation of next week's release of 'LOGAN' in theaters I am here to give you the lowdown on her history. I also come bearing recommendations on what comics to read for those so inclined, since I've pretty much read all of them.
In fact, y'see this?
That's the promotional image from when X-23 was first revealed in 2003. I remember seeing it on Comics Continuum way back when and, although I'd play hell trying to prove it, I'm fairly certain that I posted it on GAF when it was released. That's how long I've been following X-23's exploits, and I couldn't be happier that Hugh Jackman's last outing as Wolverine is a story that introduces X-23. Super-pumped!
So strap in kiddies, and bring your reading glasses!
VITAL SNIKT-ISTICS (Ah hah hah hah hah hah hah... hah... haaaaa. *cough*)
Real Name: Laura Kinney (or Laura Howlett)
Codenames: X-23, Talon, Wolverine
Height: 155cm (5ft 1in)
Weight: 50kg (110lbs)
Hair Color: Black (Brown in X-Men Evolution)
Eye Color: Green
Place of Birth: The Facility, somewhere in North America
Powers and Abilities: As a clone X-23 posesses all of Wolverine's mutant abilities including a regenerative healing factor, slowed aging, immunity to disease, superior poison/drug resistance, enhanced animalistic senses, and superhuman stamina, reflexes and agility. X-23 also posesses six retractable bone claws like Wolverine; in her case however, two claws are located in each forearm while a third claw extends from each foot. X-23's claws have been sharpened and laced with adamantium making them indestructible and capable of cutting through virtually anything; the rest of her skeleton however was not enhanced with the metal, making her less durable than Wolverine.
Raised entirely in captivity by a government program to become a living weapon, X-23 has received extensive training in martial arts, firearms and explosives, military tactics and strategy, assassination techniques, tracking and surveillance, disguise and infiltration, interrogation and torture. She speaks a wide variety of languages with expert fluency, and has extensive knowledge of human anatomy. The Facility also conditioned her to respond violently to a chemical smell referred to as "trigger scent;" upon exposure to this chemical X-23 enters a berserker rage similar to Wolverine's, and will kill anything covered in the scent.
In addition to her training X-23 has considerable field experience in combat situations, from working as an assassin since the age of ten, and as an active member of various mutant teams since joining the X-Men.
First Appearance: X-Men Evolution (cartoon, 2003); NYX #3 (comics, 2004)
MADE FOR TELEVISION: X-Men Evolution (2003)
Question: other than gender, what does X-23 have in common with DC's Harley Quinn? Well like Harley, X-23 first appeared not in the pages of a comic book but on television screens, in a Saturday morning cartoon. She was created for the KidsWB series X-Men Evolution by writer/producer Craig Kyle, debuting in 2003 during the show's third season in an episode titled "X23." Introduced as a clone of Wolverine created by HYDRA, X-23 was intended to be the perfect living weapon in their war against S.H.I.E.L.D. When she learned of Wolverine's existence however, X-23 went rogue and later attacked him at the X-Mansion, blaming Logan for her tortured existence. After an action-packed and emotional confrontation with the X-Men, ending in a tearful hug between donor (father? brother?) and clone (daughter? sister?), X-23 evaded capture by S.H.I.E.L.D. and began hunting the villains who created her.
X-23 would reappear during the show's fourth and final season, in the episode "Target X." In that story Wolverine reunites with X-23 to battle Omega Red and Madame Hydra who was responsible for X-23's creation, and now seeks to recapture her and complete X-23's transformation into an emotionless killing machine. X-23 seemingly sacrifices herself to kill Madame Hydra and destroy her flying base in a fiery explosion, but at the end is revealed to have survived the blast and escaped, at last free to live on her own terms.
The 2009 animated series Wolverine and the X-Men would also feature X-23 in several episodes, including two episodes set in the show's future where X-23 would fight alongside Wolverine and her identical clone sisters.
Suggested
PERSONALITY SPLIT: NYX (2004) and Uncanny X-Men (2004-2005)
Though only appearing in two episodes X-23 made quite the impression on fans, and on the folks at Marvel Comics; so much so that the decision was quickly made to introduce her into the pages of X-Men comics. In 2004, X-23 would make her comic book debut in NYX, a spinoff series written by Joe Quesada and illustrated by Joshua Middleton. NYX told the story of a group of a group of homeless young mutants led by runaway Kiden Nixon, as they struggled to survive and protect each other on the streets of New York City. In the third issue their group meets X-23, introduced as a nameless underage prostitute working for the ruthless pimp known as "Zebra Daddy." X-23 tags along with the NYX teens after one of her johns kills himself during a session; when Zebra Daddy comes looking to reclaim her, X-23 chooses to kill her pimp to save the others from his wrath. Pale and dressed in goth-punk clothing, emotionally withdrawn and of few words, the X-23 of NYX is rather unlike her tanned, angry, almost feral cartoon counterpart, and virtually nothing was revealed of her past before Marvel announced the series was canceled.
NYX may have lasted only seven issues before Marvel pulled the plug, but X-23 would not share its fate and quickly found herself in a new series that was much closer to home -- and closer to a certain hirsute, clawed mutant. For the landmark 450th issue of Uncanny X-Men, the legendary creative team of writer Chris Claremont and artist Alan Davis introduced X-23 to Wolverine and the X-Men, in a story titled "The Cruelest Cut." On the hunt for a killer in New York City the team encounters X-23 working as a waitress and, after a brief and violent misunderstanding, she joins the X-Men to save one of her friends and becomes an unofficial member of the team, sharing a room at the X-Mansion with Kitty Pryde and Rachel Summers. Wearing a costume borrowed from Wolverine (who himself borrowed it from Imperial Guardsman Fang) and bearing a protective attitude towards him as she tagged along on the X-Men's adventures, Claremont's version of X-23 was markedly different from her NYX iteration, and aligned more closely with her X-Men Evolution characterization. X-23 continued to appear in the pages of Uncanny X-Men for the next year before fading into the background, but since then this period of her life and Claremont's interpretation as a whole has largely been ignored by both writers and fans.
Suggested Reading: NYX: The Complete Collection (collects NYX #1-7 and NYX: No Way Home #1-6); Uncanny X-Men #450-451; 455-460
AN EARLY START: X-23: Innocence Lost (2005) and X-23: Target X (2007)
In developing the character of X-23 for X-Men Evolution, Craig Kyle didn't simiply write "female clone of Wolverine with claws in her feet too" and call it a day. Instead he crafted a lengthy and elaborate backstory for her; an origin rich with history, emotion and tragedy, that tied her inextricably to the story of Wolverine. In 2005 Marvel gave Kyle the chance to tell that story in full, announcing that X-23 would star in her first limited solo series. Written by Kyle and his Evolution collaborator Christopher Yost, with artwork by Billy Tan, X-23 (later retitled X-23: Innocence Lost for clarity) would reveal X-23's origin in greater detail than ever before attempted, resulting after two abortive attempts in a singular and definitive comic interpretation that would cement her position in the world of Marvel's X-Men.
When Weapon X (aka Logan, aka Wolverine) escaped from the government program that transformed him into an unstoppable killing machine, the agencies behind that program tasked new researchers with recreating their greatest success by any means necessary. Decades later work on the project under Dr. Zander Rice had stalled due to a lack of viable test subjects, until geneticist Sarah Kinney approached program director Martin Sutter with an ambitious proposal: clone the original test subject, Logan, rather than continue using inferior substitutes. When her attempts at creating a male speciment continued to fail, Sarah disobeyed orders and produced a viable female clone embryo; the experiment could proceed but as punishment for her unauthorized ambition, Dr. Rice forced Sarah to serve as the surrogate for her creation. Nine months later Sarah gave birth to a healthy, X-gene positive baby girl designated X-23 (the successful 23rd attempt at cloning Weapon X), and the Facility at last had its perfect test subject. Kept on board as an advisor Sarah watched with growing concern and helpless horror as over the years her creation, her daughter, was subjected to painful testing, brutal conditioning, and medical procedures performed by an increasingly sadistic Dr. Rice, before being sent on global missions of assassination by the Facility. Unable to bear her guilt any longer, and sensing her eminently expendable nature, Sarah began hatching a desperate plan to bring down the Facility and escape with X-23.
In 2007, Marvel and the writing team of Kyle and Yost would revisit X-23's origins once again, with a follow-up limited series featuring artwork by Mike Choi. Titled X-23: Target X, the sequel picked up in the immediate aftermath of X-23's (now Laura Kinney, as named by her mother) escape from the Facility where she was created, and chronicled her efforts to evade recapture while seeking family in a new and unfamiliar world. In addition to revealing X-23's real first encounter with Wolverine (a retcon that would further complicate her earlier appearances in Uncanny), Target also introduced an arch-enemy for X-23 in Kimura, her abusive handler. Genetically modified by the Facility to possess regenerative and density-modifying powers, Kimura was the ideal counter to X-23's abilities as well as a brutal tormentor of the young girl, and following the escape was tasked by the Facility's backers with recapturing X-23 and killing anyone she came in contact with.
Suggested Reading: X-23: Innocence Lost; X-23: Target X
WOLF AMONG SHEEP: New X-Men: Childhood's End (2006-2008)
"No more mutants." With those three words, the course of mutant history was drastically altered in the 2005 Avengers/X-Men crossover event House of M. On what would come to be known as "M-Day," mutants around the world suddenly found themselves mutants no longer, irrevocably depowered by the Scarlet Witch's chaos magic. Where once their numbers ranged in the millions, with more joining the ranks each day, after M-Day the mutant population was reduced to fewer than two hundred, and no new X-gene positive children were being born to replace the fallen. Homo superior was a species suddenly on the brink of extinction, and among the surviving examples of their race was X-23.
M-Day's aftermath, chronicled in the subsequent Decimation event, necessitated a complete overhaul of the family of X-Men titles Marvel published, to reflect the dire reality mutants now faced. When Craig Kyle and Chris Yost took over as writers for New X-Men, a series about mutant students enrolled at the Xavier Institute, they wasted no time in sparking immediate controversy and even outrage by killing off many of the book's young cast members. Capitalizing on the X-Men's vulnerable state following M-Day, an anti-mutant fundamentalist group led by William Stryker launched a rocket attack on the X-Mansion, blowing up a bus full of depowered students as they departed the school. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled following Stryker's attack, more than forty students were dead and many more injured, and the book's cast had been reduced to roughly a dozen active members, to be trained by the X-Men as the next, possibly last, generation of mutant heroes.
It's in this time of uncertain futures and impending doom that X-23 is introduced to the X-Men for the second time. After M-Day a concerned Logan contacts Laura and asks her to join the school again, for her protection but also to interact with mutants her own age, and perhaps begin adjusting to a "normal" life. Reluctantly X-23 agreed and joined the other students despite the disapproval of headmistress Emma Frost, who knew telepathically what X-23 had done and the potential threat she posed to the other students. Initially fearful and distrusting of Laura, her classmates began to accept her as one of their own following Stryker's attack. She befriended her roommates Dust, Pixie, and Armor, and later Mercury after she is captured by the Facility that created X-23. Laura also developed a crush on telekinetic Hellion, perhaps the unluckiest mutant to ever mutate (won't someone give that poor boy a hand?). Alongside her classmates X-23 battled anti-mutant extremists, killer robots from the future, liquid metal monsters, and inter-dimensional demons. And her remarkable skill in combat situations, coupled with her penchant for self-sacrifice, would draw the attention of X-Men leader Cyclops, who saw a use for such qualities in the days to come...
Suggested Reading: New X-Men #20-46
RUNNING WITH THE PACK: X-Force (2008-2010)
Hope continued to dwindle for the mutant race, labeled as an endangered species by the US government following M-Day. For the X-Men, now guarded by the Sentinels that once hunted them, the mission of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants became secondary to the paramount fight for survival. Every X-Man, every student, every mutant lost in battle brought them one step closer to extinction; for Cyclops -- the de facto leader of mutantkind -- that meant no action to protect the species would be off the table, no matter how unthinkable prior to M-Day. And when the first and only X-gene positive child born since M-Day was nearly assassinated by an anti-mutant group, Cyclops deemed it necessary to fight the enemies of mutantkind on their own brutal, merciless terms.
In Kyle and Yost's X-Force, Cyclops recruits a team of X-Men to act as a covert death squad, tasked with hunting and eliminating the human enemies of mutantkind before their genocidal plans succeed. Initially consisting of X-23, Warpath and Wolfsbane, the team is later joined by Archangel, Domino, Elixir and Vanisher; Cyclops would ask Wolverine to lead the team, after informing him of its existence. Unhappy at this development, and especially with Laura's early involvement, Logan accepted the job to lead but also protect the team as best he could. So when Wolverine witnessed X-23 lapsing into her Facility conditioning on their first mission, jeopardizing the lives of her teammates, he sharply rebuked the young girl causing her to become confused. As they battled religious extremists, militant hate groups, rogue mutants, would-be conquerors and armies of the undead, X-23's mental and emotional state continued to deteriorate, as her Weapon X training conflicted with her newly awakening humanity.
Following an especially difficult mission to the future in the X-Force/Cable crossover Messiah War, X-23 was kidnapped and returned to the Facility where she endured brutal torture at the hands of Kimura before being rescued. Upon returning to Utopia the X-Men's island base, Logan suspended X-23 from future missions citing its adverse effect on her personal development; after the Second Coming event he removes her from X-Force permanently, advising Laura to stop letting others use her, and to start making her own choices about the life she wants for herself.
Suggested Reading: X-Men Messiah Complex; X-Force #1-28; X-Force/Cable: Messiah War, X-Necrosha; X-Men Second Coming
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