X-23
At first glance, X-23 seems like the result of a lot of board meetings and focus groups. A sexier, deadlier Wolverine was probably requested by the Marvel board of directors, so the scientists of a secret government program in the Marvel Universe engineered X-23, triumphantly overlapping fiction and reality in a bloody whirlwind of meta-corporate synergy. Ta-da! Wolverine with girl parts! That said, let’s focus on some of the things that set X-23 apart from her cell-sample daddy. 1) She nails the creepy/cute thing. Between her monosyllabic responses and the funny angle she holds her head, she brings you back to high school where there was that girl you kinda wanted to get to know, but opted not to talk to after you saw her drawings of Santa being eviscerated. 2) She’s a wild card. That keeps things interesting. Wolverine used to be kind of wily, but nobody’s really sleeping with one eye open around him at the X-Mansion these days. On the other hand, X-23 was programmed to be “triggered” by a certain chemical scent. If she smells it, her world goes red and she basically kills everything that moves. Who wants to be her new roommate?! You?.. Anyone? 3) She makes uber-violence look REALLY good. I’ve got a theory that her real cell-sample daddy is Mikhail Baryshnikov. The way she can slice off an enemy’s head with an aerial roundhouse kick is pure gory poetry.
Keep up the good work, X-23. You’ve made the board of directors very happy.
