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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Seriously?!

You know how I complained about Cassandra Cain...I've since come to learn that it can always be worse.

See, I'm on average not much of an X-people reader anymore so I'd somehow only managed to learn snippets of this character.

Now I disclaim, I have never read an issue with this character. I have never even seen the X-Men evolution episodes with this character. Perhaps the writing was actually good enough to make the character much more palatable than she sounds in the wikipedia entry.

But dear gods, I can't imagine how.

Clone of Wolverine? Okay. I can buy that. Made female because the Y chromosome couldn't copy? I suppose that sort of makes sense. (Though really, that probably wasn't even necessary. There are biological factors that can allow a genetically male fetus to develop female sexual characteristics.) The gratuitously angsty backstory complete with abuse that makes Cain's treatment of Cassandra look humane, prostitution and a penchant for cutting. And she outperformed Wolverine in simulation missions by the age of twelve...

All that I could accept in a character. Not necessarily happily mind you, but like Cassandra, I could probably react to all that with mild apathy and be done with it.

But *toe claws*?! They gave her *toe claws*?! WHY?!?!

Okay, any Marvel readers out there...please, PLEASE tell me she's better in execution than concept. I was actually starting to get really interested in the character concepts I'd heard about in New X-Men, but the idea that this character exists scares the crap out of me.

Kitty Pryde is honestly too much for me a lot of the time. I don't think my brain could handle this girl.

Please tell me she's better than she sounds...

posted by kalinara @ 1:58 AM  

21 Comments:

  • At March 06, 2007 3:04 AM, Blogger Heath Edwards said…

    after reading the first mini-series, and currently the second, i quite enjoy x-23...

     

  • At March 06, 2007 3:24 AM, Blogger Marc Burkhardt said…

    Sorry but ...

    your worst fears are indeed true.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 4:31 AM, Blogger D.Bishop (aka Mr. Allison Blaire) said…

    I've always been mostly a Make Mine Marvel kind of guy but I really hated X-23. Especially since she came from X-Men Evolution which I also hated. I like her in the current mini-series, cuz its kinda fun in a cheezy way, but I'm not too fond of her in regular continuity stories. I don't need her pushed down my throat like they do with Wolverine, who I actually loved before the constant, unapologetic overexposure.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 6:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm in the minority that actually like her in the comics. She was everything you fear & more in the cartoon, where she debuted, but in the comics, I think she shows how a child raised since birth to be a killing machine would be - completely unable to function normally in society. She has none of the learned controls that tell her how to behave or what 'tact' is.

    Like Mr. Allison said, she's best in her miniseries, where you really see how damaged she is. Hopefully, with the next storyline in New X-Men, though, they'll sideline her for a spell. It's there that the whole 'overexposure' thing is pretty justified (especially with all the non-team students who could use more page time).

     

  • At March 06, 2007 9:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I think the first X-23 mini was very good, but it focussed mainly on the intrigues between her creators.

    Since I remember your main complaint about Cassandra was that we feel nothing but sympathy for her, you should have less problems with X-23 - she seems not very likable in new X-Men, more cold and arrogant, but not in an interesting Emma-Frost-way.

    I don't like the current direction of New X-Men very much; they had an overkill of shock-deaths, but very little character development. It does not work very well that X-23 is an expert in fighting and secret service stuff now in a team with unexperienced, nervous teenagers. Her lack of social skills or a social life has not really been used yet.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 9:47 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    But wait! It gets better! The toe claws, y'see, are because she's the female version of Wolverine! *pause to absorb* Because...they were theorizing that Wolverine is actually an entirely new breed of human altogether -- something other than mutant (which despite their wild diversity and staggering variety and the ability to fall into different sustainable subsets are all the same species: homo superior) -- something they were calling homo stupendous (or something equally clever, iirc -- homo loganhowlett frillyshirt?) that apparently would always breed true instead of developing different powers and the toe claws would be because the female of that species would need to be able to fight to defend the cubs, which apparently means she needs to kick. I don't recall the exact explanation they used for it, but it was definitely because the claws were designed to defend the young. See what you're missing by reading comics that can be good instead?

     

  • At March 06, 2007 9:50 AM, Blogger Sleestak said…

    Yeah, yeah. Another hot, dangerous chick who is so improbably naive she can serve only as fanboy wank material. Think Sandra Bullock in Demolition Man packing steak knives. "Sex? What is this...Sex? Can you teach me?"

    Wait until they give her bone toe claws.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 10:09 AM, Blogger SallyP said…

    Kalinara, I never thought that I would find myself saying this...but stick to Hank Pym. He's MUCH better adjusted.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 10:25 AM, Blogger Rich said…

    Much better in execution than concept, once the writers and editorial settled on a take on the character, and the X-23 mini is pretty good. She's also doing well in New X-Men right now.

    That said...the toe claws are ridiculous.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 11:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You should see how the Cass fans respond to X-23.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 11:37 AM, Blogger Seth T. Hahne said…

    I was happily reading NYX when I was was introduced to X-23. I put the book down and never hefted another issue, despite the fact that the book's story had interested me up to that point.

    Didn't Marvel already do X-23 in the late '80s in What The--?!. I think they called her Wolverina. And undoubtedly, X-23 is the best there is at what she does.

    I keep being reminded of that figure-skating move, The Cutting Edge: "Toe pick!"

     

  • At March 06, 2007 11:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh no. It is bad.

    Very bad.

    I'm not sure if she's the latest in Marvel's long line of Mary Sue "see, we have positive female characters" or if she's some repressed fanboy's attempt to reconcile his romantic feelings for Wolverine. Cause it's not nearly as sick to have the hots for a psycho-killer jail-bait hooker. ;)

     

  • At March 06, 2007 12:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    eh, it isn't as bad. i prefer X-23 to Wolverine. More interesting and tired old Logan. I can only stand Logan in small doses on AXM.

    her "overexposure" so far has been only in New Xmen and her Limited Series. for now, she isn't all over the Marvel U titles being a bad-ass.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 1:40 PM, Blogger Ununnilium said…

    I like her in the miniseries... es, and haven't really read her anywhere else. She's an interesting character, IMHO.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 1:46 PM, Blogger Zaratustra said…

    I posted this why didn't it appear.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 2:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I remember her from NYX. I was mostly dazed by the pretty art, but she didn't bug *much* there.

    She was actually more of a nonentity, as I recall. Walking plot device. It would have been annoying if she'd made any impact on my attention whatsoever.. but she just didn't.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 3:03 PM, Blogger Seth T. Hahne said…

    Omigosh, Zara. That was rad. That was maybe some of the lamest comics I've read in ages. Classic.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 3:59 PM, Blogger Your Obedient Serpent said…

    Why toe claws?

    As an homage to Alice B. Toeclaws, of course.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 4:52 PM, Blogger Sleestak said…

    Pee. Fetish. Cover.

     

  • At March 06, 2007 5:05 PM, Blogger Bill D. said…

    Robert Kirkman actually used her pretty well in the "League of Losers" storyline in the most recent version of Marvel Team-Up, if you can believe it. A tyrant from the future kills most of the Marvel heroes, but she and a bunch of other third-stringers (Darkhawk, Dagger, Terror Inc., Speedball, Gravity) somehow survive a mass hero slaughter and are transported to the future to try and prevent the guy from ever going back in time in the first place.

    Okay, yeah, it's kind of convoluted, but it's a fun story (the last good MTU story before the Freedom Ring fiasco), and she's not entirely horrible for once.

     

  • At March 07, 2007 9:28 AM, Blogger Jon said…

    Hey, I kinda liked Freedom Ring, aside from the fact that one of the new characters introduced in the storyline was the exact same thing as one of Kirkman's Invincible characters.

    But, yeah, the League of Losers arc was great.

     

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