Friday, April 19, 2019

Flashback Friday: X-23

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: X-23!


Marvel doesn't have the culture of canon immigrants that DC does. If I had to speculate why, I'd guess it's because Marvel has had fewer adaptations and the adaptations they have had are generally made by them, so they're more likely to use characters from the comics (especially after Toy Biz bought them, so they could make toys out of as many comic book characters as possible).

X-23 was perhaps the first Marvel canon foreigner I knew of. She debuted in an episode of X-Men: Evolution called "X-23" (August 2003). As X-Men : Evolution re-interpreted the X-Men as high school students, but kept some of them like Wolverine and Storm adults to be teachers at Xavier's school, the creators wanted to have a version of Wolverine that could connect more to the teens. But they also wanted to keep her interesting by making her the complete opposite of Wolverine - instead of an old man with no memories, she was a teenage girl who remembers all too well the things she's done and she's trying to escape them.


She made the jump to comics VERY quickly, appearing in NYX #3 (December 2003). Maybe they should've waited a little bit. In the early 2000s, the X-Men franchise greatly expanded to explore different facets of mutant culture. NYX was part of that effort and told stories about teenage mutants trying to get by on the streets. Not a bad idea for a book, and arguably not even a bad place to introduce X-23. Making her a prostitute, on the other hand, and one who specializes in cutting her clients...maybe not such the best idea (keep in mind she's also a minor, so there's that too).


She joined the cast of Uncanny X-Men the next year in #450 (October 2004) that unfortunately continued - though downplayed - her plot from NYX. Luckily, she received a miniseries beginning in January 2005 that put her more in line with her X-Men: Evolution self. Notably, the miniseries was written by Craig Kyle, who created the character.


And from there, she's taken off like a rocket. She's been a member of both the X-Men and X-Force, has had several ongoing series - under both her original name and as the All-New Wolverine - and has even gotten her own sidekick/clone, who goes by the name Honey Badger.


And she was faithfully adapted in Logan (2017), as well as having cameos in numerous other projects, including Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) and many video games such as Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011).


I would say she's Marvel's most successful canon immigrant, no question (Who would even be her competition? I mean, have you seen Firestar in a movie lately?).

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