X-23 #1 – Review

by Marjorie Liu (writer), Will Conrad (artist)

The Story: X-23, the teenaged and female clone of Wolverine, struggles with disapproving former teammates and her own conscience after her secret career as a member of the murderous X-Force is revealed.  As she begins to bond with senior X-Man Storm, she turns away just as quickly from former mentor Wolverine after suffering nightmares concerning a demonic version of the mutant.  Sensing the discontent within our protagonist, Cyclops assigns X-23 to a half-way house for former mutants where he hopes she’ll discover new ways to help people.

What’s Good: There are some great moments for fans of the franchise and the X-23 character to be found here.  Liu smartly mines X’s past relationships and previous status quo before launching her into a new adventure, which serves to remind us of why the character is in so much need of a change in her life and what she’s doing with it.  During the whole X-Force run, where X-23 was a major cast member, never once did I wonder how her former New X-Men classmates would react to the secrets she’d been keeping and the missions she was undertaking as Cyclops’ secret assassin.  Despite that lack of curiosity, I’m glad that Liu decided to answer the question regardless, because the students’ reactions served up a strong scene that made many nods to past continuity that made this reviewer very happy.  Not only did we get a nice confrontation between Surge and X, but a somewhat touching encounter with Hellion, and a laugh-out loud comment from the innocent Dust.  The writer shows, in this scene alone, that she’s done her homework, not only remembering X’s hinted at mutual attraction with Hellion, but also the fact that she and Dust were roommates back at Xavier’s.  The decision to involve Storm in the heroine’s life was also a nice, unexpected touch in the script.  Of the many X-Men hanging their hats on Utopia, Storm was the last one I’d assume to play a mentor role to X-23 but as their conversation continued, I realized that she was a perfect fit for the role.  I’m curious to see where this new relationship takes them.