X23: A Dark Hero(ine)

The comic book that I have chosen to follow for the purposes of this superheroes class is X23. First, some background on the character: X23 (a.k.a. Laura Kinney) is a female clone of Wolverine who has made recurring appearances in the X-Men universe since 2004. Her abilities are exactly the same as Wolverine’s; she has superhuman strength, stamina, agility, and reflexes. She also has the ability to heal herself and claws enhanced with Adamantium that emerge from between her knuckles and toes. X23 was trained from a very young age to be a perfect killing machine and in this comic book (the first in a series devoted entirely to her character) she is struggling to overcome her conditioning and create a new purpose for her life.

The comic starts with X23 having a dream vision about running through a forest of corpses while being chased by a river of blood. Based on this and other comics I’ve read I can conclude that dream sequences play a key role in many superhero stories. For instance, in Astro City #1, the reader’s first image of the Samaritan is of him flying naked in a dream and in Batman: The Dark Night Returns Bruce Wayne has recurring dreams about his parent’s murder. Judging by these examples, it seems as though the dream motif is an important means of conveying information about the character’s psyche. The Samaritan’s dream reveals that he desperately needs a break from saving the world in order to indulge his own desires; Bruce Wayne’s dream reveals the motivation behind his relentless war against crime. By the same token, X23’s dream reveals her struggle to overcome her violent nature before it overcomes her. By using this dream sequence to start the comic, the author (Marjorie Liu) has provided the readers with a solid foundation upon which to build their understanding of the character.

Given this angst-ridden beginning, it should be no surprise that X23 is a dark and deeply disturbed character. In this way she bears resemblance to Batman, although her situation is more desperate since she doesn’t have the benefit of a moral compass to guide her actions (yet). Batman is tormented by the thought of all those whom he is unable to save and X23 is tormented by the thought that she cannot be redeemed. The darkness of her character is reflected in the dark color tones of the panels and her “gothic” appearance (combat boots, fishnet tights, short black skirt, long black hair that falls onto her face). Most close-up shots of her face show a tortured, brooding look, and when she talks with other characters her face is angled downward, as if in shame.

Unlike in Batman, the city does not play a major role in this comic, however; issues of place are thematically important. The X-Men compound (the perhaps ironically named Utopia) is the only structure on an otherwise forested island. When X23 wakes up from her dream it is night and she is alone in the wilderness. She walks towards the compound, where her fellow mutant students are having a bonfire. In a revealing sequence of panels, X23 approaches the lighted gathering but stays in the shadows among the bushes, ultimately opting not to join her peers. In a later scene we discover that she sleeps in the forest and not in the dormitories with the rest of the students. These scenes illustrate the idea that X23 is “wild” and that she operates outside the boundary of acceptable social behavior. There is an insurmountable chasm between her “darkness” and their “lightness.” Later we discover that her isolation is not purely self-imposed; her peers are afraid of her violent nature and reject her attempts to join their group. Her affinity for the forest allows them to position her as “the other,” but really it is her imperative to ignore societal conventions against killing which appalls them.

Considering all of her negative traits, it is perhaps strange to consider X23 as a superhero. “Super” she undoubtedly is (she certainly has the powers to prove it). But how about “hero?” As of this first issue she hasn’t saved anybody’s life, overthrown a corrupt government or thwarted an alien attack. There is a glimmer of heroism at the end of the comic when Cyclops suggests that she volunteer at a half-way house for mutants who have lost their powers. However, the last few panels suggest that while there she goes into a berserk rage and kills everyone inside. And yet there may be an explanation for this. According to the background information at the end of the issue, her version of kryptonite is a “trigger scent” which was created by scientists (the same ones who created her) to send her on a killing spree whenever she smells it. Whereas other superheroes have external villains who maliciously plot against them, X23 is her own villain; the biggest threat she faces is herself. So although there are no overt signs of heroism in this story, there is a general feeling that X23 is ready to atone for the sins of her past and that the X-Men are prepared to aid in her rehabilitation (or at least the female characters are, i.e. Storm and the White Queen, most of the male characters would be perfectly happy to continue to use her as a killing machine…).

I look forward to seeing what is next for this intriguing character in the second issue!