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"we should help him.................." - X23 to Sabertooth

Seriously, this girl from one of my favorite X-teens has turned into an unbearable, self-sicking near sociopath.

@adamtrmm: i for one, have never been a x-23 fan.......:/

@hopesummersforthefuture:

She was very good when K/Y were writing here.

Honestly I thought that the writer on her last solo is where the damage started.

What was supposed to be the character finding herself and her place in the world turned into pretty much labeling everything and everyone around her as bad people who don't understand her character.

Cyclops was a bad guy for accepting her help in X-Force (100% True, but ignoring alot of oppurtunities for her to leave)
Wolverine was bad for not letting her be free enough (because looking out for her is bad)
The New X-Men weren't real friends because they got mad she didn't her she drafted to X-Force (because saying "We would've went to Cyclops and stop him" is bad)
Hellion was silly for thinking they'd formed a bond. (silly boy)
And the entire X-Men camp were a bunch of users who only wanted her as a killing machine (despite the laundry list of people including Psylocke, Emma, Storm, Wolverine and the New X-Men who tried to show or guide her to a new way)

And after all of that was done the book ends with her supposedly finding out that the place she belongs isnt with the X-Men who seemingly only want to use her to further their own feuds but the Avengers Academy....where despite being her escape from all the negative influences she was delegated once again as the teams dark loner that everyone saw as a killer even though the place was filled with dark characters. Truly she found her place in that book!

It's now a firmly established character trait of hers that she inbeds herself within a group,forms seemingly close attachments and then rights them off as unimportant users who she was never really close too. So nothing surprises me.

@koays:

Cyclops was a bad guy for accepting her help in X-Force

Absolutely OOC move for Cyclops, it's just K/Y were so desperate to use their baby girl they absolutely didn't care haha

Hellion was silly for thinking they'd formed a bond. (silly boy)

How bad it was in continuity that he wasn't that into her as much as she was into him before that instance?

Wrong though, it's a near perfect (you know excluding Nimrods and Purifiers) reflection of my own experiences haha That girl messed my mind as the result.

Did you read AA? I just saw that scan from there and it was the final nail for me.

Glad you basically see it the way I do. Apparently they have no idea what they're doing with her.

Honestly every character i like go through this so i know she will come back to being great again.

She is one of my favourite comic book characters and Lui's run is excellent and can understand where you're coming from. I read Avengers Academy and enjoyed it, I enjoyed the more flawed Avengers Arena more but I will agree both series were somewhat of a step back for some of the characters that both series stared.

That's the problem with mainstream characters like this, the reset button is ALWAYS pressed and they're NEVER allowed to truly develop. Spider-Man is the perfect example of this. A more recent example is Carnage, he had his morality changed in AXIS, died, and now as seen in Nova he's alive and back to his old self.

@adamtrmm: Hey neither Cyke nor K/Y are perfect...(K&Y can get close though). Lol it probably is closer to reality that she short hanged her Hellion....but it wasn't JUST Hellion and by the time she put the nail in that coffin she had wrote everyone else off as annoyances....and thats not just cruel reality, its...unlikeable.

I sadly sat through Avengers Academy....it sucks hard especially after the team increased. But the writer pretty much took ques from the solo and wrote X-23 as someone who'd never had a real friend until she met those characters who showed her a bit of humanity. The X-Men were seen as petty and judgmental infighters with nothing but fighting on their mind. Even the kids.... If you look at nothing else just check out when the Extinction team visits Avengers Academy or AvX tie ins where the kids from Utopia are dropped off by Wolverine because they might "poison the minds" of his students or something. X-23 basically no-sells any connection with her old team in AvX, and both times the X-Men are treated like the bad guys for not being accepting of the friendly neighborhood Sentinel. If that scan was the final nail then those crossovers were a rock concert on the grave that is X-23's likability....though still more in character then Bendis (shots fired).

Lol also I like to think that my "Hellion/23 like" experiences involve Nimrod....that way it seems less crazy after the fact.

In my opinion X23 was and could be a great character. In fact along with her the only other students I ever felt were worth a damn was Surge, Hellion, Dust, Rockslide, Armor, Oya, Blindfold, Gentle, Cipher and Pixie and I guess Hijack and Tempus. The rest can go. In fact I wish we could focus on those I mentioned like the books use to when it was New Mutants or Generation X as opposed to this huge school thing that has not been done right

I guess all we can is to agree that this is the curse of comic books.

@koays:

In Gage's defense, he acknowledged Dust's and Laura's previous "friendship", but yeah that's all I can defend here... Oh also, she promised Emma next time they see face to face, she will kill her. So yea, Bendis-23 at her very forgetful best. (shots backfired)

Lol also I like to think that my "Hellion/23 like" experiences involve Nimrod....that way it seems less crazy after the fact.

1-0 mon ami... Now I feel immature :(

@hawk2916:

In my opinion X23 was and could be a great character.

Even Hope Summers can be a good character with the right writer (unimaginable!), but it's just becoming hopeless to really expect that... But X23 just dismantled her X-connections so easily she has become kinda unworthy =\ I liked her too, but recent showing with Elixir made almost despise her. Soule is sh!tty writer, but continuity... I just can't overlook it.

@adamtrmm: She has been rised as an assassin.
Nothing better to turn an human being as a sociopath.

I may be mixing Lui's solo up with the X-Force bits but:

1. Sorry for asking this, but wasn't it given that Cyke asked for her help and that it was her inability to say no to people like him (friends/leaders) that had her stay?
2. Wasn't it also him that 'sorta' booted her off both Utopia and Westchester with the collapse of X-Force and after Schism with the 'go find your own mission'?
5. The problem is getting her to stay on the path and not disappear back into the comforts of her old Facility-bred personality. Leading a horse to water and all that.
6. I have to point out that Finess was considered worse than Laura in the dark-loner department because that girl was completely without feelings, more machine than Jocasta really.

Elixir has saved her life like three times at least, so she just watches him get murdered while mumbling that someone should probably help him. Meanwhile, she weeps by the side of Daken's hospital bed. Priorities, Laura

Really? When I fought her to a stalemate (after kicking the asses of the rest of the Avengers Academy) she was pretty much like this.

@outside_85: partially right...

1. The reason Wolverine joined the team and one of the first things he did when he got on it had to do with getting her off the team the way I remember. It just took till the book ended to go through with it...so if she had an inability to say no to she would've left when Logan first joined. My beef isn't that she blamed Cyke(he was full d-bag in X-Force) but that it was altered into her having zero responsibility for staying on the team when we've seen she'll do what she wants both before and after.

2. Is pretty much my point. He'd been kicking her off X-force since she got there supposedly. So why'd it take so long to leave?

5. So that justifies labeling them users? Liu's portrayal as well as the Avengers Academy referenced them as though they were all either using her or never understood her. It sort of under cuts any prior development for the sake of leaving her as alone and lost as she was after NYX when she first came there. Its like saying "remember all those character relationships she formed? They don't count anymore, she's always been alone haha!"

6. Well Yea Finesse is definitely worst off in the emotionless department. But considering one of the supposed reason 23 came to AA was the way the X-Men saw her I don't see how starting all over with this group feeling the same way as the X-Men did when she first got there is progress.

@koays:

1. Well, that was really only one of the many holes in the books logic. The team wore specific outfits, noone noticed. There was always blood on it when it went to the cleaners, didn't seem to bother that many. The team was supposed to be secret, yet had a constant comings and goings by non-members like the Cuckoos. And so on. The bit about Logan, I would imagine that was explained away with him not being Scott, as in not the boss of anyone cept in the field.

2. Cyke wanting otherwise, and him being the one she followed.

5. Well, the X-Force end was explained (by Wolverine... to Gambit I think) that it went in that direction from the grownups. Scott used/needed her expertise for the X-Force, Logan blamed himself because it took so long for him to put his foot down (because he wanted to respect that she appeared to choose to do it on some level). AA... in regards to NXM, I think that has mostly to do with how Surge (who is bossy) blew up in her face about the X-Force.

6. I imagine it isn't. But on the other hand, I also imagine that putting Laura anywhere, X-related or not, is difficult since many see her as nothing but 'girl Wolverine' and is kinda being forced onto them because Wolverine is super-popular but doesnt fit the group. Also she does have the inbuilt problem of not having been created with a group around her (like say Storm) so she always appears to be the odd one out.

Eh, I have never liked her. I always have a hard time enjoying "spin off characters".

In something like the Bat family it works because they are just normal people that are taught martial arts or whatever by their mentor. I just find it silly when a character is given the same gimmick or set of powers but has the ultra unique difference of being a *shudder* different gender or teenage version.

Sure, she has been written well at times but I would have rather seen a new, unique character in that role or even someone like Marrow....who also falls into the Wolverine-esque archetype.

@outside_85:

1&2 They both sort of understate Logan's sway over the character and over state Cyclops' while completely ignoring her free will. She'd worked hard and come a long way from when she first showed up and even had her own friends and priorities. Really the idea that she was helplessly swayed has some marrit but at the same time Laura has left a lot of teams on her own.

5-A lot of my major problems come from that moment with Surge. Surge yells at her not about how wrong killing is but about how she didn't turn to her friends for help and how they would've stood by her. But again Liu (despite writing it) and later AA make it seem like no one was there for her or understood her which is the opposite of what her previous group were mad at. It just doesn't connect.

6. Well that's sort of the thing. She debut in NYX which was a fringe X-title. And they went through a big process of phasing her into the main X-books and giving her relationships with the characters. Even after New X-Men she had her own dynamics with characters (Emma,Cyke, Storm, Gambit, Jubilee..etc). She sort of had a place in the books that was unique from Logan but they put her in a position after the solo where she was basically put on a team to boost its sales and the narrative was warped so it made sense. My thing isn't that it would be better if she was with her old X-Pals or that they shouldn't have put her in AA....Its that the way they justified it in story makes it seem like the X-Men failed this kid which isn't accurate.

@adamtrmm: Dude I think the shots we fired killed Bendis' run!

@koays:

1,2 &5: I think we may be underestimating a bit the psychological aspect of Laura's upbringing. She was born and raised with little to no will of her own (not enough to push back against her superiors at least), then she trained to play parts in order to be able to insinuate her for missions. During all of that, she was brought up with the notion of other people's displeasure with her, would mean she got hurt, alot more when Kimura was added. And then she was further stunted when she had to kill her own puppy. Now, while I am not a head-shrink of any proessional sort, but a person raised like that is not someone you can just say: "It's over kid, you are free." And then expect her to gradually adapt and be normal.

Plus, you really have the problem of no one (save Logan) understanding what she went through, the others had difficulties, she had hell itself. As sad as it is, Laura is damaged goods, and it's sadly going to take alot more than whats currently been done for her to truly break what the Facility did.

6: I'd have to say the X-Men tried to help her, with whatever means they were willing to use. But ultimately... they did fail, what progress Laura had achieved by the end of NXM was quite frankly nuked back to zero by Cyclops when he asked her to basically go back and do her old job again... which lead to her getting caught by the Facility and had her arm taken off by Kimura, again. Doing that was like asking those miners from a couple of years ago that were resecued from deep underground to go back down, most of them couldn't, Laura however has the inbuilt trouble of refusing requests and orders from people she recognizes as superiors.

What was built, was smashed, and Laura was basically back to square one. Logan realized that, so thats why he told her to go somewhere where people wouldn't be forced to use her like the X-Men would.

People always say that, and by "that" I mean people say that she is nothing like Wolverine......objectively however, she is.

Same powers, same overall gimmick, same kind of background (even had to fight a bear in the Weapon X program), has black ops training, also an excellent fighter struggling with inner nature etc. Even though she may be a younger character with different relationships with different characters she is still ultimately a teenage girl version of Logan that was created for the X-Men Evolution show because Wolverine wasn't doing well with the young girl demographic.

@adamtrmm: X-23 was actually written well at a point in time and should be written that way again. Who knows what the deal was with Hope. Its like they just hit a wall and ran out of things to do with her

Yeah, X-23 has really taken a turn for the worst since Kyle/Yost stopped writing her. I'm not a fan of Liu's X-23, but I still think it's better than what's been happening with her as of late.

@realitywarper:

I don't get it, so you say her turning into a sociopath is a part of her way to become a human being?

I think our crossfires also dealt with HIS Post-Eliminating Agent. *fingers crossed*

I just don't see anything good for her in the horizon. Charles Soule despite all geek-praise he receives is nothing but mediocrity at best, the whole Wolverine-related feud recently is a well known gimmick and I don't expect (and won't follow for this) any proper character development from there that either will stick or will be definitive.

Nope.

She was rised as a sociopath.

It is hard to change your habits when you kill people since you can walk.

@realitywarper:

She was rised as a sociopath.

She was raised as a killer, sociopath is a psychological cliche (in this instance) that has nothing to do with what they tried to do with her. Empathy is not something she doesn't possess.

It is hard to change your habits when you kill people since you can walk.

Yes, but it wasn't given to her naturally, they were breaking her piece by piece to turn into a killer.

Right.

Quiet you. I'm trying to start a movement to reduce or at least stop making Robins/Batsomethings. :p

Agree on everything else.

Ok, I'll reiterate....while I acknowledged that X-23 does have her own personality, and character traits that are exclusive to her, she at the same time has the same gimmick, gets blood lusted, has a power set including senses and healing and all, background, including an innate and extraordinary fighting ability and even usually fulfills the the Wolverine archetype on the junior X-Men teams she is placed on--basically, objectively, in complete rudiment, she is little Wolverine.

Someone like She Hulk is different because she doesn't really have anything in common with Hulk at all aside from being green and being strong. Her origin is different, occupation was different, attitude is different, power set is different as she doesn't gain any strength with emotional state, she is in control when she is Hulked out, and overall has never really fulfilled any character archetypes exclusive to Hulk...

I would argue that a characters abilities do help define a character, that is why someone like Human Torch and Sunspot or Sunfire whose abilities are related to the sun and heat are usually depicted as "hot headed". That is why Wolverine, who was in creation given powers and a code name that were similar to animals abilities, was also given a feral, animalistic nature. I mean, it would be weird if Wolverines clone was just some hippy girl that ran around with flowers popping out her hands......she is given Wolverines abilities as his clone because she is a little Wolverine.....and again, before you set out to dispute what I said let me again say that I fully understand that Laura has her own personality and character, but what I am saying is that I would have just rather seen a more unique character rise to prominence in the younger generation of X-Men, not just a young kid with Wolverines MO.

Numerous Robins and Batgirls make sense though. Why wouldn't Batman, who lives in a city so exaggeratedly crime ridden, train a lots of people to help in his crusade?? I just hate it when there is supposed to be a character that has had a unique or freak accident happen to them that gives them powers, or just a sequence of random incidents gives them skill or ability.....and then a character comes along later with their moniker and similar origin with a similar power set and says "yeah, me too!"

It reminds of back in the day how they used to tout that Superman was supposed to be "The Last son of Krypton" but yet he would keep uncovering all these other characters that also survived Krypton, even a dog and a monkey :(. It gets a little silly and lessens the originality of a character.

@cattlebattle:

Numerous Robins and Batgirls make sense though. Why wouldn't Batman, who lives in a city so exaggeratedly crime ridden, train a lots of people to help in his crusade?? I just hate it when there is supposed to be a character that has had a unique or freak accident happen to them that gives them powers, or just a sequence of random incidents gives them skill or ability.....and then a character comes along later with their moniker and similar origin with a similar power set and says "yeah, me too!"

I don't mind Batman having agents it just depends on how it's done or how connected they are. Take Huntress or Azrael. Those are examples of good ways to do it. They're characters in their own right that you could really put them out on their own with their own unique name. Not Batgirl, Batwing, Batwoman, etcetera You could argue that Batwoman is her own person but she still takes his name and image. They should have come up with something else for her. Batgirl as a concept should have been dumped for the 52 and they should have stayed with Oracle. Don't get me started on Robins especially in 52's short time span. It just bugs me. yes those other things you mentioned make it all the more worse.

It reminds of back in the day how they used to tout that Superman was supposed to be "The Last son of Krypton" but yet he would keep uncoering all these other characters that also survived Krypton, even a dog and a monkey :(. It gets a little silly and lessens the originality of a character.

That still bugs me. I'm looking at you, yes you Supergirl and others.

I see....also, I can't actually remember the last time I actually saw someone spell out "etcetera".

I always thought Batgirl worked because she is sometimes written to be a Batman fan when she starts out so, she decided to adopt his image, but yeah, she should change into something else when she gets older.

I still find her awesome ^_^

Two words. Avengers Disassembled.

Fifteen words: One story line or series doesn't outweigh her depiction for most of the characters existence

@cattlebattle:

Contractions are word count cheating. :p

@cattlebattle: The point is that their were events with both she and Red She-Hulk when in very intense rage gained more strength, more muscule mass and far less control. In typical situation they of course control transformation and themselfs, but explanations can vary from better control to not beign fully hulk-out or enraged enough for this. So your argument is invalid.