Generation X-23 is published by Marvel Comics with writing credits attributed to Jody Houser, artist credits attributed to Jacopo Camagni, and colours by Erick Arciniega
Who The Heck is Laura Kinney? My Relationship with X-23
Being born in the mid-90s, my first exposure to the X-Men and superhero media in general was the '90s X-Men animated series. Although I think I was too young to appreciate it fully at the time, my real first entry into becoming an X-Men fan was definitely the early 2000s cartoon, X-Men: Evolution. I really enjoyed that show, and it eventually led me to getting into the comic books. Regardless, one character X-Men: Evolution introduced was X-23. She is a clone of Wolverine raised by the same people behind the Weapon X program that tried to turn Wolverine into an assassin.
They failed in that and so decided to turn X-23, or Laura Kinney, as she is called, into his successor. They eventually failed again, and Laura was eventually de-brainwashed by the X-Men. Regardless, X-23 is a character for whom I feel I was there for her debut. I have always enjoyed following the evolution of the character in the comic books, even if the runs have not always been the greatest.
This brings us to 2026, where Laura Kinney has a brand new run in Generation X-23. Coming hot off the heels of her last run, Laura Kinney: Wolverine, which wrapped up at the end of last year alongside the massive X-Men title-wide event, "Age of Revelation," I found that series fun for the most part. However, a lot of its issues were quite forgettable.
Brainwashed Assassins Turned Mighty X-Men
Now onto Generation X-23 #1, which I had some fun with but also felt was mediocre in many ways. I have enjoyed the large majority of the new X-Men books under the Shadow of Tomorrow branding, some more than others, but unfortunately, I feel that Generation X-23 #1 falls into the unfortunate category.
Generation X-23 #1 follows Laura Kinney and her clone sister, Gabby Kinney, whose codename is Scout. That is a superhero name I have always found to be a bit lackluster. They are trying to liberate and aid fellow mutants. However, when an old friend from the past of Laura comes to warn her that she is being held captive along with other mutants at a facility run by the same program that created her and her sister, it is up to the two sisters to confront their past in order to free their kind.
I think the first big thing I want to praise is how Jody Houser does a pretty good job of writing the internal dialogue of Laura. In my opinion, her voice feels well-defined and like how I would want to see her written, even if her relationship with Scout does end up falling into the "Big Sister" archetype. I feel like I have seen that in media a bunch of times. Regardless, I feel like in this issue, Laura is a character I would like to read about, and I do not find her annoying or dislikable.
I cannot, however, really say the same about Gabby Kinney. In my opinion, her character seems extremely one-note and predictable, with her seemingly just being a brooding teen. I think this makes sense for her as a character because she is still relatively fresh with only a handful of appearances, so she has not had a lot of the same character development that Laura had. However, I feel like the angry, stubborn teen is quite an annoying character trope I have seen a billion times. Seeing some character growth in this run would really mark the character higher for me.
For me, at least, characters can really make or break the comic they are in. I mean, sometimes I can overlook a mediocre story if I am really into the characters. Conversely, even if the story is really good, I can get turned off by characters that are really unlikable or just outright extremely one-dimensional.
I think it is way too early to say how I am going to feel about Laura and Gabby after only the first issue, but so far, my first impressions are that they are maybe a little bit flat and unlikable. Although I can also see signs of improvement, I do not want to write them off immediately.
Clones, Clones, CLONES!: Talking About The Plot
I do, however, think the plot of the first issue and the plot direction of this series appeared to me to be quite predictable and formulaic. I feel like I have seen the rescue story with the reveal that not everything is as it seems at least a dozen times now, even in multiple X-Men comics I have read. Even the odd couple archetype Laura and Gabby shared did not really interest me that much. Honestly, the direction of the plot makes me quite disappointed, as I feel like many writers do not really want to do anything interesting or radical with Laura. Instead, they just reheat used storylines in which she revisits her past and maybe fights clones of herself. I am really hoping we see some surprises in store for us, but I am not really hopeful.
There was a fun moment in which Laura and Gabby were affected by the powers of time manipulation from another mutant, and we got to see past and future versions of Laura and Gabby. This had some callbacks to the history of the characters, which was fun to see, as well as the potential future of Gabby. In my opinion, this opened the door for future directions for the character.
I also felt like the fight scenes that happen a couple of times within this issue were quite lackluster. They did not really set themselves apart from the hundreds of action scenes I have seen in comic books before. It was hinted at some blood and gore early on, but they did not really follow that path as I expected. Instead, they chose to follow the very tame approach of depicting violence off-page unless it is against androids or sentinels.
I'm hopeful that in the next issue we get some cool new mutants that, in time, become regulars in the X-Men books. I feel that too many times in the past we've had cool new-looking mutants debut in a book and then never show up again, which really sucks because I want to find more characters to fall in love with and not just mutants to show up only as set dressing or plot devices. I think the last wave of new mutants that really stuck was in the Brian Michael Bendis era, which was at least 15 years ago now.
A Character Design That Can Take You Back: Talking About The Art
I found the art of the book to be a bit forgettable and not very inspiring, honestly. I liked how Laura and Gabby looked and felt their designs had a bit of a classic mid-2000s Marvel character look about them, especially with Gabby. This made me a little nostalgic. However, I do not really think my own nostalgia is justification to give something a good review. The characters and panels just largely felt quite flat and lifeless to me. It seemed like the least amount of effort or care went into all the sets, surrounding buildings, and background dressing, which made it harder for me to truly get invested.
A lot of the book, in my opinion, just had a very gray and white color palette that did not really make me want to linger on a page and admire the art for any length of time. In fact, as of writing, I have probably forgotten a lot of how the pages looked.
The Final Verdict
In conclusion, I do not think Generation X-23 #1 is a particularly bad comic, although any long-term Laura Kinney fans will have to wait a bit longer to get the run they want to see from the character.
Generation X-23 #1 shows signs of love and some understanding of Laura Kinney as a character, but in my opinion, it suffers from retreading old paths and plotlines seen in past X-23 stories. Maybe future issues will surprise me, but issue one really did not.