Posted in: Comics | Tagged: marvel, x-23, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

X-ual Healing: Clone Power Fistbumps in X-23 #1

Published Sun, 15 Jul 2018 15:00:40 -0500

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities, but with a corporate merger on the way, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in comics.

Each week, armed with the joy, heartbreak, and frustration of 30+ years of reading X-Men comics, we crankily read every new X-book that comes out, recap the events, provide some back-links to Marvel Unlimited, and wonder when Marvel will let Chris Claremont write something again. Seriously, how do you have the greatest writer in the history of comics on the payroll and just not use him for anything?

It's the way X-Men comics were meant to be read! It's the column that can only be known as…

For more about the column, check out the reboot issue here.

X-23 #1
MARIKO TAMAKI (W) • JUANN CABAL (A)
Cover by MIKE CHOI
Variant cover by Rahzzah
Design Variant by Mike Choi
VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG
Blank Variant Cover Also Available
Cloned from a warrior, raised as a killer, Laura Kinney has gone through hell and come out the other side a hero. After a stint as the All-New Wolverine, she returns to her roots as X-23 to make sure no one ever has to go through the horrors she did. With her sister Gabby and their pet Jonathan in tow, X-23 forges her own destiny in this new series by Mariko Tamaki (HULK, HUNT FOR WOLVERINE: CLAWS OF A KILLER) and Juann Cabal (ALL-NEW WOLVERINE, ELEKTRA).
1- 40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

X-23 has a lot to live up to after the excellent All-New Wolverine, but if you have noticed from the half-dozen mini-series devoted to it, the original Wolverine is coming back, so he'll be needing his title. Since this is a new #1 issue, we get a basic recap of X-23's basic origin details. How she was cloned and raised in a lab as a killer, how she had more clones, one of them being her younger "sister" Honey Badger, who she lives with now. Then we get right into the action, with X-23 and Honey Badger assaulting some bad guys in flying metal suits who turn out to be green-skinned aliens. The battle spans lots of pages, but the girls come out victorious. Also, it's X-23's birthday, but she doesn't want anyone to know.

Next they visit the Xavier Institute to meet with Beast, who hands X-23 some information on a scientist who's gone missing. X-23's mission now is to destroy all the secret organizations who make Wolverines, because honestly there can only be so many Wolverine ongoings and they're going to cause the entire industry to collapse. Dr. Helen Marks was part of the X-23 program and later worked for Alchemax. X-23 agrees to look into it. Leaving the Institute, X-23 and Honey Badger run into the Stepford Cuckoos, who are back to sporting a uniform look. They're also acting creepier than usual. And they've got a birthday cake with them because today is the day they've chosen to be their birthday. Honey Badger bonds with them over being clones and scores a clone power fistbump:

But she's also jealous that other clones get to have birthdays. While eating lunch later at Marvel Falafel (The World's Greatest Falafal! Since 1961), Honey Badger complains about not having a birthday to X-23. X-23 doesn't get it. She doesn't care about her own birthday. Back home at their apartment with Jonathan the actual Wolverine (who by rights should get the main Wolverine title), X-23 drops some backstory on the Cuckoos to Honey Badger.

This turns out to be super relevant because it turns out it the Cuckoos who have kidnapped Dr. Marks. They're holding her captive in an abandoned church where they've been manipulating her into doing some kind of genetic work for them. That apparently consisted of cloning new bodies for Sophie and Esme. But they're not looking so good…

Sophie is faring worst of all. Esme orders Phoebe, Mindee, and Celeste to move forward some evil plan of which we receive very few details. The non-resurrected Cuckoos leave for the night, and Esme tells Sophie it will be her last day alive, injecting her with a vile of red liquid labeled "Weapon X." That's a good cliffhanger, so the issue ends here.

The Bottom Line

A very promising start to a book with tough shoes to fill. Psychic mutant clone drama is like catnip for X-Men fans, so it was a good choice to hook us for the first story arc. In fact, it's enough to earn X-23 the Wolverine's Weiner X-Pick of the Week!