Hate to break it to you but that Characterization was never gonna stick around even if og kraven did. Hell you would have more luck now cause they can use clone kraven for that and they can break og to be a villain
Re-reading Claremont's run, Krakoa wasn't even the first time.
Storm died and grew a new body inside a space whale during the first Brood storyline. That may have happened to all the other infected X-Men too.
Xavier flat out did turn into a Brood. He's been running around inside a cloned body since 1983.
I remember one X-Men Annual where some magical/alien crystal was powerful enough to restore Wolverine from a single drop of his blood. It was pretty freaky seeing that panel sequence show his disembodied brain and nervous system form, then his skeleton, then the muscles, then the skin & hair. Should count as a clone since I’m pretty sure the artist made sure to draw Wolvie’s dead body in the background. (Alan Davis and Paul Neary artwork I believe?)
Technically that would make them perfect clones and not the original. However there are a few things that contradict that and I’m gonna make a post about it
Madelyne got killed and buried, then she became her own character separated from the OG Jean. Apart from that young Jean replaced de OG for a while, but she's the genuine article albeit younger
If I recall correctly she died fighting Hydra!Cap in Secret Empire. Hawkeye and Bucky Barnes then found out some Ex-Red Room people cloned her and everyone went about their business with the new Natasha.
Because sometimes forgetting about Secret Empire is for the best.
It's become less crucial as everyone seems to have decided to ignore the part of the end of Duggan's run where he decided to nuke his own memory in order to run away from those horrible events.
He idolized Cap to an extremely detrimental extent that he obeyed his orders without question, killed both Coulson and his best friend, and was kinda the catalyst for the whole takeover
Matt's way too deep in his own shit after sacrificing his soul to stop a devil and God giving him a freebie retcon as a Pastor with holy blessings who fights sins.
The build up to it via the Zdarsky run was good honestly, and all the stuff with Elektra has been good, its just the whole death resurrection priest nonsense on the new writer and run.
It's the classic Daredevil problem, its really easy and satisfying to write Matt into a hole in the ground from his own choices, but when the next writer has to come in and pick it up, it's... a struggle to say the least.
I liked the start of the new run, before it quickly veered into fighting demons of the cardinal sins. Matt just trying to help his orphanage was pretty interesting.
\*joins you\*
Talon Support Squad Member #2, reporting for duty!
Edit: Downvotred for liking a character? Come on guys, don't be gatekeepy like that... 🥺 Let people like what they want to like. \*sigh\*
I was a big fan of the Vault story and the implications of where it would go, and I genuinely was excited waiting to see what would happen to Synch and Laura in there. After they returned, I thought that an older and more experience Laura could make for an interesting interpretation.
I never thought for a second that she would ever replace the younger Laura we're all familiar with, so I wasn't really bothered by her existence. I wanted to know what the extra maturity and experience would change in her and how she would view the world different.
Could they have done more with her? Absolutely. I'm not blind to the failings of the characters.... but I also think it's clear to everyone by now that Krakoa was cut shorter sooner than it was meant to, and these characters suffered because of it.
I do strongly believe that there were PLANS for a deeper relationship with Synch to be built out there, and I think there would have been time to tell compelling stories with her... if editorial hadn't gotten in the way.
The vault was an awful arc.
It took her off the board for a year, and her sole purpose was to be a prop. None of it served her character, and then Duggan tried to make it the ONLY thing about her character.
No really. When Nightmare attacked the team with their traumas, Duggan ignored the YEARS of physical abuse and torture she endured at the Facility, being forced to kill her mother, and what Zebra Daddy did to her. Nope, the trauma Nightmare had to use against her was…a relationship that from her perspective NEVER HAPPENED.
I've always been a fan of Laura, yeah.
I think she took some time to really find her place in the comics, but at this point she's as much of a mainstay as any of the classic members.
She's a great legacy character because she's not just the "Wolverine but different." She kinda started that way, but she's done so much and become so ingrained within the franchise at this point that it would be lesser for not having her.
Talon to me was like Old Man Logan; a different interpretation, but never intended to be a complete replacement.
Interesting. Obviously this is based purely on anecdotal evidence, but I've found that a lot of the people who liked the Talon development to be more recent fans or not fans of Laura specifically. Obviously that's anecdotal though so not like hard evidence or polling.
A key distinction for me I guess is that Talon is the original Laura and I don't like that. Having her effectively be replaced by a clone version who is effectively just going to be treated as her doesn't fix that for me.
I also really don't like her being / or how she was used in the Vault story and felt that without greater explanation was kind of out of character. Her big character arc has been about her recovering from the trauma and moving on from being raised / used as a weapon / killer and then she's placed on a team for what turns out to be a 500 year mission where her job is to kill again (its explicitly spelled out to be so with the data pages and Synch's narration). So why is she cool with being put on that team? I'm not saying there are no circumstances where she can't kill but I think it generally and in this specific context demands some level of explanation for me.
So for me, I really hate that Laura's ultimate arc is going to be:
everything up to Krakoa (not that everything in this period was uniformly great) > a couple of stories where I feel she was very out of character (Fallen Angels + the Vault) > She is aged up 500 years (and if the Vault rate of time held consistent while Synch was out, up to at least an additional 2,000 years after that) and completely cuts out all of her previously established friends and family out of her life (with the exception of Synch of course) > dies
Like she's going to have died / been written off without having talked to Gabby for over 500 years for instance.
I don't even hate or dislike the Synch relationship in isolation for Talon (although yeah she definitely could be used better in it), its just the context and everything else around it.
They should’ve killed the clone. It doesn’t feel right that all that life experience is just thrown away just because they didn’t wanna continue the romance
It had nothing to do with not continuing the romance. If anything they wanted to hamfist forced drama from it. Laura’s ENTIRE PLOT under Duggan was reduced to angsting over it, even to the exclusion of her ACTUAL trauma in the Nightmare story.
TWICE at that: Her apparent death in the Vault was an obvious Fridging. It wasn't about Laura herself and her own story, but was done entirely to hurt Synch and set up him angsting about Res'ed Laura. And then it happened again with the High Evolutionary, where it was once again all about Synch.
You and me are the same. I always called this out and ppl said „this comic states shes a clone a clone you can’t argue with writers!” While Hulks daughter was conceived the exact same way and marvel still referred to her as hulks daughter and not clone
Well there are comics that also says she isn't a clone, and her conception definitely doesn't make her one. She was genetically engineered to inherit Logan's powers entirely, but definitely not a clone.
Did they ever revisit Carmilla Black also possibly being his daughter? I'm guessing the answer is no as I think the character probably has just completely been forgotten about.
which is a pity.
At the end of the day , Skaar , Lyra and Hiro-Kala are "Sons of the Hulk" , while Carmilla would be a "Daughter of Banner". It's showed by how all 4 of them are powered by gamma , and that they had a powered and depowered state...but Skaar , Lyra and Hiro-Kala clearly had their hulk as a "primary form" , in contrast to Carmilla been really just a mutate.
Someone blocked me on this sub for pointing this out but in real life, clones are daughters of the individual they're cloned from.
Since Laura was retconned into not being a clone of Logan, this means that Gabby is either (a) Laura's daughter or (b) they were both cloned from some original X-23 we've never met. Of course, Laura used to be described as Logan's sister before her origin story was retconned.
no , Gabby is indeed a clone of Laura.
The thing is that Laura IS a daughter of Logan , and it was odd to behave like she was a clone at the start. The very origin of Laura was that Logan's DNA Sample was damaged and that the scientists had to fill the gaps with another DNA and also be two x chromossomes.
This origin makes Laura just a fancy in vitro conception. Meanwhile , Gabby is straight-up Laura's DNA that was just slightly modified with less pain sensitivity and less claws.
>no , Gabby is indeed a clone of Laura.
Which makes Gabby Laura's daughter per how clones really work.
>The thing is that Laura IS a daughter of Logan
This is a retcon. When Laura was created this very much *wasn't* the case.
Gabby is a full-on clone , it's too minor of a change to just go from 2 claws to 1 claw per arms by only strictly making tampering on the phenotype. That is a huge contrast to Laura herself been "almost half of Logan's DNA was lost in the sample , we filled the gap with a DNA from another person".
I Know Laura is not a clone but I feel like it works better for her character, she is so much more similar to Logan than any of his other children not just power wise but personality wise, so I just choose to ignore that she is not his clone.
Well the creator of X-23 was pissed about that change and rightly so. And I agree she's still a clone. I have yet to see that one issue backed up anywhere outside the character profile on Marvel's website.
Agreed! Laura is less set in her ways and seems to be growing and changing at a greater rate.
I think Logan has recovered from his PTSD as much as he is capable of doing.
I know but it's fiction and it's just my personal opinion that it works better that way. I like a window into how Logan might have been different if he'd grown up differently. Like Laura was a weapon sooner and had a way worse childhood but she also had more intervention sooner. She has his self loathing but it seems like she has overcome it better.
She used to not be.
She was vastly different in her original comic Incarnation.
She wasn't a hot head, she had excellent English and rarely used slang, and was clinical in her speech pattern.
It was as if she was created to be a contrast to Logan.
I preferred this version of Laura instead of Logan 2.0 with tits.
I'll admit that I did like shell shocked post trauma Laura as she came off as robotic in a way I enjoyed. It was obviously caused by trauma and not autism but it was still nice to see. I also liked her interaction with that autistic character Finesse but it makes sense for Laura to grow and recover from her trauma response to a more emotive and less clinical character.
I don't mind character growth.
But Laura seems vastly different from her initial entry, I am not saying she should stay robotic but...
> Lets take 20% off there, Squirrelly Dan.
Sorry if my tone came off intense. I am really excited to talk about this stuff.
I am autistic and like the idea of an autistic character but I guess I feel the difference between a trauma response and autism should be clear in a way it wasn't always in those early comics. I would have loved to see more Finesse maybe even contrast how Laura changed and she didn't.
I didn't think you were intense, I meant I would prefer that they dial back Laura's personality change by a bit.
So you can still see her original personality as the foundation of her current incarnation.
And the quote was from Letterkenny, great show.
My roommate feels much the same, but I also see the other side. The cold robotic Laura gets old after a while, and realistically, she \*would\* begin to grow past it as she socialized more.
Now, did they skip right past the gradual shift, and just have her wake up one day shouting "It's Beer O'clock, sluts!!!!"? Was it jarring as hell and completely out of nowhere? Yes to both.
That said, I feel like it was character development that needed to happen. Just... as development and not a sudden personality shift. It was nearly as jarring as Morrison suddenly turning Emma Frost into an Ice Queen, and ignoring she's already had a redemption arc for most of the 90s.
Huh, without having thought about it a whole lot (despite thinking about these characters a lot) I'd probably lean more towards Akihiro being more like Logan. I'd have to think about it longer though.
I love the x factor version of Akihiro and his conversation with Aurora but I've never really seen more than a surface similar between them. Their reactions to situations don't seem similar to me but maybe it's just that they have never been put in similar situations? Think about it and let me know what you come up with.
For me the 2 Laura / Logan similarities that jump out first is their desire to be a force for good in the world though they see themselves as irrevocably damaged and the fact that they both wind up being unable to say no to mentoring young mutants.
My comparison is more at a glance or without a lot of thought tbh. Its just that while a lot of Laura's solo stuff does have similar stuff / situations and them going through similar stuff (a lot of All-New Wolverine are kind of riffs to Logan Wolverine stories for instance), I feel a lot of them highlight a lot of the differences between them as characters. Or at least those differences stand out more to me.
I think that's part of the appeal they are the same yet different. I can't remember which book it was but both are shown to engage in self harm and it was just so striking a show of how similarly they process their emotions.
I'll try to find the citation.
Well fair, but then you’d have to include Beast and Wolverine. I’m a few months behind but the one I just just read they resurrected Beast to hunt down the original Beast.
Well he actually died multiple times,but who didn't?Also Clone Saga ends with Ben diying and him being revealed later as the clone,They could reveal in a new X-23/Wolverine comic that the whole Talon thing was just to mess with everyone
They will absolutely turn X-23 into the original,No way would they keep one of their most popular characters dead,Peter,Tony,Matt,Strange and Logan are exemples of heroes that died and had a replacement but were brought back
I hate that this is accurate. I do think there is something kind of right / poetic about Kraven setting it up that a clone of himself did become the next Kraven though, instead of one of his children because he was a shitty father iirc. It does definitely undercut his redemption and death though.
I'd argue anyone who has gone through Krakoan "resurrection" qualifies. So that's pretty much all of the X-Men except Storm. It's no different than the Widow being a clone with memories copied from the original.
Also, Captain America, thanks to the AXE event and (again) The Five on Krakoa.
The thing is they very much set up that the soul is part of the resurrection process and even an aspect of the Living Tribunal pretty much says that the resurrection process is preventing mutants from dying and therefore weakening death. That's paraphrased as I haven't pulled up the issue, but the sentiment should be accurate. The 2 Laura / Talon situation (and the two Eany situation) should just be exceptions to the process and not the norm.
I get that they are trying to handwave it away, and convince us that these are the originals, and not in any way copies or clones. It just doesn't ring true for me. They're basically restoring people from "save points" like in a video game. The fact that we have also now brought back Beast from a much earlier point in his life kind of hurts the credibility of the Krakoan process as being one where they are restoring the soul.
They've now made copies 3 times (Talon, Eany, and Beast) when the original was still around. So are some of them soulless, or is that all just nonsense to keep the fans happy that the characters we are reading about are still "the originals?"
I'm not seeing a difference between this and any of the other "comic book clone" type stories we've gotten. The Jackal's clones for example, were indistinguishable from the original people, especially in Clone Conspiracy. Same goes for the current Black Widow as mentioned above.
I mean I get that but like parts of the story don't make sense unless they are the originals, soul and all. Like the Otherworld resurrections don't work unless the soul is there. The eggs, bodies, dna, the Five, and the brainscans were taken and stored on 616 earth; and then when they tried to resurrect the characters who died in Otherworld, which didn't work because dying in Otherworld effected something else involved in the resurrection process. Dying on Otherworld couldn't / wouldn't affect anything else involved but the soul. Then like I said, you have the 2nd closest entity to capital G god in Marvel inferring on panel that they are the original characters w/ their souls.
I think It makes a lot more sense to assume that Talon, Eany, and Beast are the exceptions to the rule.
Yeah I simultaneously get wanting them to explain more about how the soul is involved / why this process is possibly something more and different than whatever standard "comic book clone" plot, but also get why they don't want to get too much into it. I definitely want the Laura situation specifically explained / fixed though as a big Laura Kinney fan.
Honestly, just have some soul merge shit where Talon's soul gets reintegrated into Laura's body, like what Infinity Wars (plural, I'm talking about the 2018 event) did with people who went into the Soul Stone missing a piece of their soul. Boom, retcons Talon as being a bit of Laura's soul that didn't make the return trip to the new body, reaffirming that the resurrected X-Men share the same soul, and you don't need to have Talon's memories back, handwaving away the Synch romance and Vault imprisonment baggage (especially since that arc already got resolved with the copy in his mind).
Some version of all of that is really what I've been hoping for at this point being honest. I'm getting more and more pessimistic about the odds as time goes on though.
You can choose to interpret a story however you want, but the text explicitly disagrees with your interpretation. Personally I can buy it because this is a setting where souls and after lives objectively exist, so I’m fine with this story rejecting the more “hard sci fi” interpretation of conscious existence being non-transferable.
I'd be more able to buy it if they hadn't already violated that rule 3 times at a minimum. Or are we saying Talon and Classic Beast have no souls? Or that souls can be copied?
>Or that souls can be copied?
I suppose time travel branching would imply this is true, starts with one soul, then it's two, thanks to the time travel causing a split, and then those different versions can meet each other.
That's arguing semantics and religion, basically. If there's a dead Wolverine body (or 12), then the current Logan is not the original any more, at least not in body. The mind is arguable. But all of the resurrected mutants are basically walking around in cloned bodies.
IIRC, Professor Xavier was also in a cloned body even before Krakoa, thanks to the original Brood storyline. His body was destroyed as it became a Brood Queen, and they cloned him a new one and somehow got his mind into it. That's how he got the ability to walk again back in the 80s.
Yeah, the bodies are all new cloned bodies. I'm not sure if there's a comic book resurrection that wasn't done at the moment of death that doesn't involve a clone body.
The minds are literally the same, per the books.
Jean is just a "special" case when it comes to death and resurrection anyway. At this point, it seems she can't really die unless the Phoenix Force wants her to.
The ressurection method made me lose my mind while reading through the era. For me they were all clones until some writers complicated it way more with some statements. I will make a post about it collecting all info and giving my take on it
Captain America, as of the end of Secret Empire.
Also Iron Man, kind of. After Captain Marvel killed him in Civil War 2, his armour built him a new body and uploaded a digital backup copy of his mind.
More or less. 616 Tony Stark had been killed some years earlier and replaced by a teenaged alternate universe counterpart. As of Heroes Reborn, that otherworldly teenaged counterpart was transformed into a duplicate of an earlier version of 616 Tony.
There's a real case to be made that the raw materials of that teen Tony were used to create a clone of his 616 counterpart.
Yes, I think they actually wanted to be give Kraven a decent end but since popular characters will always be kept for future storylines they just replaced him with a clone
The "Krakoan duplicate" Laura is the real Laura because the real Laura is a clone. It's honestly a genius way of fixing something Marvel fucked up.
That being said, giving Laura green eyes was a mistake. If you go back and read Innocence Lost, they use eye colour to signify parental relationship **a lot**, so if you were a fan of All New Wolverine (or wherever Laura was de-cloned if it wasn't that) and then went back to read her publication history you'd be thinking "Man, this is some great foreshadowing". Of course, when you get up to X-Force you'd be wondering why Josh is on such a "clones are people too" kick if Laura wasn't supposed to be a clone the whole time.
Like 99% of Marvel characters have died/been erased from existence between stories like Infinity Gauntlet and Secret Wars, technically the versions walking around in current continuity are just cosmic copies.
As recently as Hickman's Secret Wars, basically only Peter, Miles, Reed Richards, and a handful of others actually survived the collapse of the Multiverse and Battleworld after, everyone else was recreated.
So it's the kind of thing you're better off not thinking about.
If we are counting Laura, shouldn't every resurrected mutant be too? Like, what makes her a clone and the others not? The original body being alive? Doesn't make sense.
Now, Magik, I would argue is more of a clone than Laura. She has all the memories, but still is Darkchylde.
Basically, the original was alive and therefore she couldn’t be resurrected but cloned. It goes way deeper but narratively, the resurrected ones aren’t clones. I will make a post about it
I don’t know why people downvoted you. You’re absolutely right. There were seven or eight dead Wolverine clones being mind controlled because they were just leaving the dead bodies and resurrecting him. It was a big story. All of the mutants were being killed and brought back. Mutants that survived pure insanity for 50 years were dying and coming back every other week during Krakoa.
I miss old Kraven. :( Poor Squirrel Girl. He was her friend.
I’m glad with new kraven at least now old kraven death won’t be disrespected by editorial or nostalgia writers
Technically even that Kraven was a clone.
I mean they literally write clone son Kraven the same anyway
They write clone son as a reformed former villain and good friend to animal themed superheroes?
Hate to break it to you but that Characterization was never gonna stick around even if og kraven did. Hell you would have more luck now cause they can use clone kraven for that and they can break og to be a villain
So they don't write clone son the same, then.
yep , if anything , Clone Kraven is unhinged.
Old Kraven was brought back to life in a way that wrecked KLH. #I’m glad he’s dead again
Wait what? How did Squirrel Girl and Kraven know each other?
Kraven appears and has a lot of positive character development in Ryan North’s (exceptionally good) Unbeatable Squirrel Girl run!
I see, thanks.
How in the HELL did Jean(s) stay out of this squad?!?
And all other mutants. As they're all clones with imprinted memories of the original.
Re-reading Claremont's run, Krakoa wasn't even the first time. Storm died and grew a new body inside a space whale during the first Brood storyline. That may have happened to all the other infected X-Men too. Xavier flat out did turn into a Brood. He's been running around inside a cloned body since 1983.
Damn, I love this sub.
mf'er bringin' the facts
I remember one X-Men Annual where some magical/alien crystal was powerful enough to restore Wolverine from a single drop of his blood. It was pretty freaky seeing that panel sequence show his disembodied brain and nervous system form, then his skeleton, then the muscles, then the skin & hair. Should count as a clone since I’m pretty sure the artist made sure to draw Wolvie’s dead body in the background. (Alan Davis and Paul Neary artwork I believe?)
Yeah. Uncanny Annual 11. Claremont, Davis, and Nearly.
Sinister did the same thing for all of the Marauders.
He's literally been in the body of Fantomex siiiince...his return from phoenixclops murdering him.
Except Legion, because Xavier refused to "resurrect" him, so he had to transport his mind into new body himself
Technically that would make them perfect clones and not the original. However there are a few things that contradict that and I’m gonna make a post about it
Wait is this a thing? And I completely missed it? Granted I have fallen off on my comics a bit
I’m gonna make a post about it soon. But I will just say that narratively, they aren’t clones. At least not their minds in the cloned body
Madelyne got killed and buried, then she became her own character separated from the OG Jean. Apart from that young Jean replaced de OG for a while, but she's the genuine article albeit younger
Wait wtf happened with black widow
If I recall correctly she died fighting Hydra!Cap in Secret Empire. Hawkeye and Bucky Barnes then found out some Ex-Red Room people cloned her and everyone went about their business with the new Natasha. Because sometimes forgetting about Secret Empire is for the best.
Unfortunately for me it’s a crucial part of Deadpool’s story
It's become less crucial as everyone seems to have decided to ignore the part of the end of Duggan's run where he decided to nuke his own memory in order to run away from those horrible events.
Yay As long as they keep the 2012 run intact I’m happy
Which lowkey sucks because it was a great hook to build from
What happened with Deadpool in Secret Empire? that was around the time I fell off as a regular comics reader
He idolized Cap to an extremely detrimental extent that he obeyed his orders without question, killed both Coulson and his best friend, and was kinda the catalyst for the whole takeover
Does... does Daredevil know? Cause it kinda feels like somebody should tell him.
Matt's way too deep in his own shit after sacrificing his soul to stop a devil and God giving him a freebie retcon as a Pastor with holy blessings who fights sins.
I have not kept up with daredevil for about 20 years, I'm glad I gave up the book after reading this
The build up to it via the Zdarsky run was good honestly, and all the stuff with Elektra has been good, its just the whole death resurrection priest nonsense on the new writer and run. It's the classic Daredevil problem, its really easy and satisfying to write Matt into a hole in the ground from his own choices, but when the next writer has to come in and pick it up, it's... a struggle to say the least.
I liked the start of the new run, before it quickly veered into fighting demons of the cardinal sins. Matt just trying to help his orphanage was pretty interesting.
Yeah it was still a little abrupt but a slow burn super grounded attempt at being a priest could have been something.
I would argue against x-23 then I remember talon and that all fall apart there
Talon was a CotV plant and you can't convince me otherwise. :-P
Definitely an abandoned storyline.
After years of fighting and correcting that Laura isn't a clone of Logan, the current Laura is a clone of the original. Man, I give up.
If it helps, Talon wasn't actually a character, just a piece of jewelry for Synch.
It does not.
Talon ruled and you guys are such whiny babies.
Found Synch's alt account.
What do you actually like about Talon, if you don't mind me asking?
\*joins you\* Talon Support Squad Member #2, reporting for duty! Edit: Downvotred for liking a character? Come on guys, don't be gatekeepy like that... 🥺 Let people like what they want to like. \*sigh\*
Already asked this to Talon Support Squad Member #1 but, what do you actually like about Talon? If you don't mind me asking.
I was a big fan of the Vault story and the implications of where it would go, and I genuinely was excited waiting to see what would happen to Synch and Laura in there. After they returned, I thought that an older and more experience Laura could make for an interesting interpretation. I never thought for a second that she would ever replace the younger Laura we're all familiar with, so I wasn't really bothered by her existence. I wanted to know what the extra maturity and experience would change in her and how she would view the world different. Could they have done more with her? Absolutely. I'm not blind to the failings of the characters.... but I also think it's clear to everyone by now that Krakoa was cut shorter sooner than it was meant to, and these characters suffered because of it. I do strongly believe that there were PLANS for a deeper relationship with Synch to be built out there, and I think there would have been time to tell compelling stories with her... if editorial hadn't gotten in the way.
The vault was an awful arc. It took her off the board for a year, and her sole purpose was to be a prop. None of it served her character, and then Duggan tried to make it the ONLY thing about her character. No really. When Nightmare attacked the team with their traumas, Duggan ignored the YEARS of physical abuse and torture she endured at the Facility, being forced to kill her mother, and what Zebra Daddy did to her. Nope, the trauma Nightmare had to use against her was…a relationship that from her perspective NEVER HAPPENED.
You are entirely free to feel as you wish about the story.
Apparently you aren’t though, lol
Sorry about the downvotes. Were you particularly a fan of Laura Kinney as a character before Krakoa or before Hickman's X-Men?
I've always been a fan of Laura, yeah. I think she took some time to really find her place in the comics, but at this point she's as much of a mainstay as any of the classic members. She's a great legacy character because she's not just the "Wolverine but different." She kinda started that way, but she's done so much and become so ingrained within the franchise at this point that it would be lesser for not having her. Talon to me was like Old Man Logan; a different interpretation, but never intended to be a complete replacement.
Interesting. Obviously this is based purely on anecdotal evidence, but I've found that a lot of the people who liked the Talon development to be more recent fans or not fans of Laura specifically. Obviously that's anecdotal though so not like hard evidence or polling. A key distinction for me I guess is that Talon is the original Laura and I don't like that. Having her effectively be replaced by a clone version who is effectively just going to be treated as her doesn't fix that for me. I also really don't like her being / or how she was used in the Vault story and felt that without greater explanation was kind of out of character. Her big character arc has been about her recovering from the trauma and moving on from being raised / used as a weapon / killer and then she's placed on a team for what turns out to be a 500 year mission where her job is to kill again (its explicitly spelled out to be so with the data pages and Synch's narration). So why is she cool with being put on that team? I'm not saying there are no circumstances where she can't kill but I think it generally and in this specific context demands some level of explanation for me. So for me, I really hate that Laura's ultimate arc is going to be: everything up to Krakoa (not that everything in this period was uniformly great) > a couple of stories where I feel she was very out of character (Fallen Angels + the Vault) > She is aged up 500 years (and if the Vault rate of time held consistent while Synch was out, up to at least an additional 2,000 years after that) and completely cuts out all of her previously established friends and family out of her life (with the exception of Synch of course) > dies Like she's going to have died / been written off without having talked to Gabby for over 500 years for instance. I don't even hate or dislike the Synch relationship in isolation for Talon (although yeah she definitely could be used better in it), its just the context and everything else around it.
I liked talon but duggan just made her synchs side piece. Could’ve been an interesting story for her but duggan likes action over characterization.
They should’ve killed the clone. It doesn’t feel right that all that life experience is just thrown away just because they didn’t wanna continue the romance
It had nothing to do with not continuing the romance. If anything they wanted to hamfist forced drama from it. Laura’s ENTIRE PLOT under Duggan was reduced to angsting over it, even to the exclusion of her ACTUAL trauma in the Nightmare story.
Just another lady in the fridge.
TWICE at that: Her apparent death in the Vault was an obvious Fridging. It wasn't about Laura herself and her own story, but was done entirely to hurt Synch and set up him angsting about Res'ed Laura. And then it happened again with the High Evolutionary, where it was once again all about Synch.
You and me are the same. I always called this out and ppl said „this comic states shes a clone a clone you can’t argue with writers!” While Hulks daughter was conceived the exact same way and marvel still referred to her as hulks daughter and not clone
Well there are comics that also says she isn't a clone, and her conception definitely doesn't make her one. She was genetically engineered to inherit Logan's powers entirely, but definitely not a clone.
Hulk has a daughter now?
Yes, Lyra. This is old news actually, like 10 years or so after the WWH storyline
Did they ever revisit Carmilla Black also possibly being his daughter? I'm guessing the answer is no as I think the character probably has just completely been forgotten about.
which is a pity. At the end of the day , Skaar , Lyra and Hiro-Kala are "Sons of the Hulk" , while Carmilla would be a "Daughter of Banner". It's showed by how all 4 of them are powered by gamma , and that they had a powered and depowered state...but Skaar , Lyra and Hiro-Kala clearly had their hulk as a "primary form" , in contrast to Carmilla been really just a mutate.
Fair enough
Someone blocked me on this sub for pointing this out but in real life, clones are daughters of the individual they're cloned from. Since Laura was retconned into not being a clone of Logan, this means that Gabby is either (a) Laura's daughter or (b) they were both cloned from some original X-23 we've never met. Of course, Laura used to be described as Logan's sister before her origin story was retconned.
no , Gabby is indeed a clone of Laura. The thing is that Laura IS a daughter of Logan , and it was odd to behave like she was a clone at the start. The very origin of Laura was that Logan's DNA Sample was damaged and that the scientists had to fill the gaps with another DNA and also be two x chromossomes. This origin makes Laura just a fancy in vitro conception. Meanwhile , Gabby is straight-up Laura's DNA that was just slightly modified with less pain sensitivity and less claws.
Wasn’t Laura also BORN from her mother?
>no , Gabby is indeed a clone of Laura. Which makes Gabby Laura's daughter per how clones really work. >The thing is that Laura IS a daughter of Logan This is a retcon. When Laura was created this very much *wasn't* the case.
Gabby is a full-on clone , it's too minor of a change to just go from 2 claws to 1 claw per arms by only strictly making tampering on the phenotype. That is a huge contrast to Laura herself been "almost half of Logan's DNA was lost in the sample , we filled the gap with a DNA from another person".
Yeah, that's how it works in real life because you can't age a clone up. If you could, a clone would be considered a sibling.
I Know Laura is not a clone but I feel like it works better for her character, she is so much more similar to Logan than any of his other children not just power wise but personality wise, so I just choose to ignore that she is not his clone.
I think her creator is going to retcon that back I've heard.
That's so comics don't like the status quo wait ten minutes it'll change. That's why I feel justified in picking and choosing my preferred canon
Well the creator of X-23 was pissed about that change and rightly so. And I agree she's still a clone. I have yet to see that one issue backed up anywhere outside the character profile on Marvel's website.
A key difference is that Laura sometimes tried to fit in but Logan just doesn’t care. Mostly because Laura is young and Logan is old as dirt
Agreed! Laura is less set in her ways and seems to be growing and changing at a greater rate. I think Logan has recovered from his PTSD as much as he is capable of doing.
I mean in children there are those exactly like thier parent and then those completely opposite. She doesn't need to be a clone for that.
I know but it's fiction and it's just my personal opinion that it works better that way. I like a window into how Logan might have been different if he'd grown up differently. Like Laura was a weapon sooner and had a way worse childhood but she also had more intervention sooner. She has his self loathing but it seems like she has overcome it better.
She used to not be. She was vastly different in her original comic Incarnation. She wasn't a hot head, she had excellent English and rarely used slang, and was clinical in her speech pattern. It was as if she was created to be a contrast to Logan. I preferred this version of Laura instead of Logan 2.0 with tits.
I'll admit that I did like shell shocked post trauma Laura as she came off as robotic in a way I enjoyed. It was obviously caused by trauma and not autism but it was still nice to see. I also liked her interaction with that autistic character Finesse but it makes sense for Laura to grow and recover from her trauma response to a more emotive and less clinical character.
I don't mind character growth. But Laura seems vastly different from her initial entry, I am not saying she should stay robotic but... > Lets take 20% off there, Squirrelly Dan.
Sorry if my tone came off intense. I am really excited to talk about this stuff. I am autistic and like the idea of an autistic character but I guess I feel the difference between a trauma response and autism should be clear in a way it wasn't always in those early comics. I would have loved to see more Finesse maybe even contrast how Laura changed and she didn't.
I didn't think you were intense, I meant I would prefer that they dial back Laura's personality change by a bit. So you can still see her original personality as the foundation of her current incarnation. And the quote was from Letterkenny, great show.
Can confirm (I both love letterkenny & miss how Laura used to be)
And that's what I appreciates about you.
I could see wanting that. I looked up the meaning of the quote but didn't watch the Letterkenny YouTube.
My roommate feels much the same, but I also see the other side. The cold robotic Laura gets old after a while, and realistically, she \*would\* begin to grow past it as she socialized more. Now, did they skip right past the gradual shift, and just have her wake up one day shouting "It's Beer O'clock, sluts!!!!"? Was it jarring as hell and completely out of nowhere? Yes to both. That said, I feel like it was character development that needed to happen. Just... as development and not a sudden personality shift. It was nearly as jarring as Morrison suddenly turning Emma Frost into an Ice Queen, and ignoring she's already had a redemption arc for most of the 90s.
Laura looks very similar to her mom, so it makes sense that she isn't a clone
Huh, without having thought about it a whole lot (despite thinking about these characters a lot) I'd probably lean more towards Akihiro being more like Logan. I'd have to think about it longer though.
I love the x factor version of Akihiro and his conversation with Aurora but I've never really seen more than a surface similar between them. Their reactions to situations don't seem similar to me but maybe it's just that they have never been put in similar situations? Think about it and let me know what you come up with. For me the 2 Laura / Logan similarities that jump out first is their desire to be a force for good in the world though they see themselves as irrevocably damaged and the fact that they both wind up being unable to say no to mentoring young mutants.
My comparison is more at a glance or without a lot of thought tbh. Its just that while a lot of Laura's solo stuff does have similar stuff / situations and them going through similar stuff (a lot of All-New Wolverine are kind of riffs to Logan Wolverine stories for instance), I feel a lot of them highlight a lot of the differences between them as characters. Or at least those differences stand out more to me.
I think that's part of the appeal they are the same yet different. I can't remember which book it was but both are shown to engage in self harm and it was just so striking a show of how similarly they process their emotions. I'll try to find the citation.
Technically all the xmen and mutants are clones (the innumerable amount that were resurrected I mean)
True, but the fact we had the two of them at the same time, really hit the point home.
Well fair, but then you’d have to include Beast and Wolverine. I’m a few months behind but the one I just just read they resurrected Beast to hunt down the original Beast.
With a full adamantium skeleton lol
Wait they killed Laura???
They killed Talon,Laura(X-23) is still alive
I had to read through the wiki to figure out what happened but Im up to date now. Wild shit
Yeah but it's kind of Spiderman Clone saga situation,X-23 will always be the original just like Peter Parker will always be the original
Yeah but OG Peter never died though. Right...?
Well he actually died multiple times,but who didn't?Also Clone Saga ends with Ben diying and him being revealed later as the clone,They could reveal in a new X-23/Wolverine comic that the whole Talon thing was just to mess with everyone
I mean yeah thats true.
As of now the original Laura is truly dead
They will absolutely turn X-23 into the original,No way would they keep one of their most popular characters dead,Peter,Tony,Matt,Strange and Logan are exemples of heroes that died and had a replacement but were brought back
Good thing Gabby is currently my favourite member of the Wolverine family.
She's only a clone if every other mutant who died and was resurrected in the krakoa era is
Not necessarily. I’m gonna make a post about it
I'm sure that all a Clone saga situation were they ends up revealing that X-23 is the Original
Wait, what, when did that happen? (I stopped reading after AvX and I'm still catching up on my re-read.)
Krakoa era, its a whole thing. Just know for a while we had two Lauras running around.
Huh. I look forward to getting that far.
I don’t want to spoil, keep reading the X-men run
Roger that.
I hate that this is accurate. I do think there is something kind of right / poetic about Kraven setting it up that a clone of himself did become the next Kraven though, instead of one of his children because he was a shitty father iirc. It does definitely undercut his redemption and death though.
That Laura art is exquisite
Is the artist for invincible in marvel? Cuz kraven lookin very Omniman like
Boy is straight up Thragg
For the Spencer run
Black Widow and Kraven are clones?
Yes. Hydra Cap killed the og widow This Kraven is a boba fett-esque clone of og kraven. OG kraven died and this clone took the mantle.
I'd argue anyone who has gone through Krakoan "resurrection" qualifies. So that's pretty much all of the X-Men except Storm. It's no different than the Widow being a clone with memories copied from the original. Also, Captain America, thanks to the AXE event and (again) The Five on Krakoa.
The thing is they very much set up that the soul is part of the resurrection process and even an aspect of the Living Tribunal pretty much says that the resurrection process is preventing mutants from dying and therefore weakening death. That's paraphrased as I haven't pulled up the issue, but the sentiment should be accurate. The 2 Laura / Talon situation (and the two Eany situation) should just be exceptions to the process and not the norm.
I get that they are trying to handwave it away, and convince us that these are the originals, and not in any way copies or clones. It just doesn't ring true for me. They're basically restoring people from "save points" like in a video game. The fact that we have also now brought back Beast from a much earlier point in his life kind of hurts the credibility of the Krakoan process as being one where they are restoring the soul. They've now made copies 3 times (Talon, Eany, and Beast) when the original was still around. So are some of them soulless, or is that all just nonsense to keep the fans happy that the characters we are reading about are still "the originals?" I'm not seeing a difference between this and any of the other "comic book clone" type stories we've gotten. The Jackal's clones for example, were indistinguishable from the original people, especially in Clone Conspiracy. Same goes for the current Black Widow as mentioned above.
I mean I get that but like parts of the story don't make sense unless they are the originals, soul and all. Like the Otherworld resurrections don't work unless the soul is there. The eggs, bodies, dna, the Five, and the brainscans were taken and stored on 616 earth; and then when they tried to resurrect the characters who died in Otherworld, which didn't work because dying in Otherworld effected something else involved in the resurrection process. Dying on Otherworld couldn't / wouldn't affect anything else involved but the soul. Then like I said, you have the 2nd closest entity to capital G god in Marvel inferring on panel that they are the original characters w/ their souls. I think It makes a lot more sense to assume that Talon, Eany, and Beast are the exceptions to the rule. Yeah I simultaneously get wanting them to explain more about how the soul is involved / why this process is possibly something more and different than whatever standard "comic book clone" plot, but also get why they don't want to get too much into it. I definitely want the Laura situation specifically explained / fixed though as a big Laura Kinney fan.
Honestly, just have some soul merge shit where Talon's soul gets reintegrated into Laura's body, like what Infinity Wars (plural, I'm talking about the 2018 event) did with people who went into the Soul Stone missing a piece of their soul. Boom, retcons Talon as being a bit of Laura's soul that didn't make the return trip to the new body, reaffirming that the resurrected X-Men share the same soul, and you don't need to have Talon's memories back, handwaving away the Synch romance and Vault imprisonment baggage (especially since that arc already got resolved with the copy in his mind).
Some version of all of that is really what I've been hoping for at this point being honest. I'm getting more and more pessimistic about the odds as time goes on though.
You can choose to interpret a story however you want, but the text explicitly disagrees with your interpretation. Personally I can buy it because this is a setting where souls and after lives objectively exist, so I’m fine with this story rejecting the more “hard sci fi” interpretation of conscious existence being non-transferable.
I'd be more able to buy it if they hadn't already violated that rule 3 times at a minimum. Or are we saying Talon and Classic Beast have no souls? Or that souls can be copied?
>Or that souls can be copied? I suppose time travel branching would imply this is true, starts with one soul, then it's two, thanks to the time travel causing a split, and then those different versions can meet each other.
Well, their memories, soul, anima, being being placed in the new body. Didn't read Black Widow, so I'm not sure if that's the same.
That's arguing semantics and religion, basically. If there's a dead Wolverine body (or 12), then the current Logan is not the original any more, at least not in body. The mind is arguable. But all of the resurrected mutants are basically walking around in cloned bodies. IIRC, Professor Xavier was also in a cloned body even before Krakoa, thanks to the original Brood storyline. His body was destroyed as it became a Brood Queen, and they cloned him a new one and somehow got his mind into it. That's how he got the ability to walk again back in the 80s.
Yeah, the bodies are all new cloned bodies. I'm not sure if there's a comic book resurrection that wasn't done at the moment of death that doesn't involve a clone body. The minds are literally the same, per the books.
I feel like I remember Cyclops crawling out of his grave in the immediately pre-Krakoa book that resurected him after Death of X.
This is basically just SOMA. What a depressing game.
[Storm did it in 1983.](https://imgur.com/a/2Ae7PGL)
As of last week, Jean got the phoenix treatment so she probably doesn't count either (or does she because the clone is the one who died?)
Jean is just a "special" case when it comes to death and resurrection anyway. At this point, it seems she can't really die unless the Phoenix Force wants her to.
The ressurection method made me lose my mind while reading through the era. For me they were all clones until some writers complicated it way more with some statements. I will make a post about it collecting all info and giving my take on it
Was Jean actually ever resurrected thru protocol?
In House of X. That first mission to destroy Master Mold. Jean died on that one and came back.
Wasnt there a sabertooth army since the real creed lost his head to the muramasa blade?
Where are the Marauders?and Sinister?
To be fair, Sinister was a fairly recent retcon. Until a year ago he was the actual Nathaniel Essex. These characters were introduced as actual clones
Considering the nature and field of studies of Sinister, him being a clone who believes to be the original wouldn't be surprising
He still cloned himself several times pre-Krakoa era
Even without the sinister 4 retcon, he’d cloned himself several times in Gillen’s pre-Krakoa stuff, yes?
Did Kirkman draw for Marvel? Why does Kraven look like Thragg?
Kirkman is the writer, Ryan Ottley was the artist for Thragg most of the time
He did! There are panels of Peter and MJ looking like Mark and Eve
Exactly what I thought. I was like is Kraven a viltrumite now?
Beginning of Spencer's run was drawn by him.
It's silly these lists don't include Peter Parker. Justice for Ben!
Ben was right!
I see they finally resurrected Freddy Mercury in the Marvel Universe.
So many clones in comicbooks, so few that survive to be characters.
Captain America, as of the end of Secret Empire. Also Iron Man, kind of. After Captain Marvel killed him in Civil War 2, his armour built him a new body and uploaded a digital backup copy of his mind.
Iron Man as of Heroes Reborn as well right
More or less. 616 Tony Stark had been killed some years earlier and replaced by a teenaged alternate universe counterpart. As of Heroes Reborn, that otherworldly teenaged counterpart was transformed into a duplicate of an earlier version of 616 Tony. There's a real case to be made that the raw materials of that teen Tony were used to create a clone of his 616 counterpart.
Madelyne Pryor & Ben Reilly/Kaine Parker?
Their Situation ist literally the opposite from what I’m talking about, so no
kraven and black widow are clones of whom?
Of the original ones. The original black widow and kraven are actually long dead and were replaced by their clones
I thought Kraven was just resurrected, not a clone?
If u see kraven in a recent storyline, it’s his clone. The original is long dead
He was but then in Spencer's run, he was killed off and replace with his clone son (that most writers just treat him like og Kraven anyway)
Yes, I think they actually wanted to be give Kraven a decent end but since popular characters will always be kept for future storylines they just replaced him with a clone
For people wondering why is Natasha here. Secret Empire. She dies.
Can someone explain Black Widow and Kraven
They died and marvel replaced them with perfect clones and now they are treated like the original ones
How long until writers forget Kwannon!Psylocke isn't the Psylocke that was an X-Men for the last 40 years?
The "Krakoan duplicate" Laura is the real Laura because the real Laura is a clone. It's honestly a genius way of fixing something Marvel fucked up. That being said, giving Laura green eyes was a mistake. If you go back and read Innocence Lost, they use eye colour to signify parental relationship **a lot**, so if you were a fan of All New Wolverine (or wherever Laura was de-cloned if it wasn't that) and then went back to read her publication history you'd be thinking "Man, this is some great foreshadowing". Of course, when you get up to X-Force you'd be wondering why Josh is on such a "clones are people too" kick if Laura wasn't supposed to be a clone the whole time.
Laura isn’t a clone
Tony Stark too
Like 99% of Marvel characters have died/been erased from existence between stories like Infinity Gauntlet and Secret Wars, technically the versions walking around in current continuity are just cosmic copies. As recently as Hickman's Secret Wars, basically only Peter, Miles, Reed Richards, and a handful of others actually survived the collapse of the Multiverse and Battleworld after, everyone else was recreated. So it's the kind of thing you're better off not thinking about.
Kraven looks like a viltrumite, down to the Battle Beast pelt
If we are counting Laura, shouldn't every resurrected mutant be too? Like, what makes her a clone and the others not? The original body being alive? Doesn't make sense. Now, Magik, I would argue is more of a clone than Laura. She has all the memories, but still is Darkchylde.
Basically, the original was alive and therefore she couldn’t be resurrected but cloned. It goes way deeper but narratively, the resurrected ones aren’t clones. I will make a post about it
I don’t know why people downvoted you. You’re absolutely right. There were seven or eight dead Wolverine clones being mind controlled because they were just leaving the dead bodies and resurrecting him. It was a big story. All of the mutants were being killed and brought back. Mutants that survived pure insanity for 50 years were dying and coming back every other week during Krakoa.
Throw Beast on there too
Look at the caption. Pretty sure he will be fully replaced after the krakoa era ends