Meet Laura Kinney, the Torchbearer of Wolverine's Legacy

Whether she's called X-23, Wolverine, or Talon, Laura Kinney has proven herself as one of the brightest stars of the next generation of X-Men. Like the original Wolverine, Laura battled ferocious instincts and violent impulses that could have reduced her to a mindless weapon. But also like Logan, Laura forged her own path as a hero through her solo adventures and as a member of the X-Men and the Avengers. Laura carried on the mantle of Wolverine after Logan’s apparent death and proudly shares that title with her father today.
 
Let's take a closer look at Laura Kinney and her journey through the Marvel Universe. We'll revisit some of her most important adventures as she gets ready to start a new chapter alongside several other young X-Men in NYX (2024) by Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, Francesco Mortarino, Raúl Angulo, and VC's Joe Sabino.

THE BIRTH OF X-23

To build the perfect killing machine, the Facility—a successor to the Weapon X Program—created Laura Kinney from some of Wolverine's DNA in X-23 (2005) #1 by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, and Billy Tan. Although their Wolverine tissue sample was incomplete, Doctor Sarah Kinney managed to make a female clone of Wolverine. She gave birth to X-23 herself and eventually named her Laura.

The Facility conditioned Laura into becoming a young assassin, covering her hand and foot claws in adamantium metal and embedding in her a "trigger scent" that could send her into a murderous rage. After Sarah urged X-23 to attack the Facility, the group's leaders forced X-23 to kill her mother with the trigger scent.

Laura escaped the Facility and found her way to the X-Men, where she met Wolverine in X-23: TARGET X (2006) #6 by Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, and Mike Choi. Laura tracked Logan down and attacked him, but he explained that he too had been looking for her. As Logan tried to steer Laura onto a less violent path, Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. arrested her for one of her assassinations. However, thanks to Matt Murdock and a letter from her mother, Laura was released. 

HOW LAURA KINNEY JOINED THE X-MEN

After spending some time alone in New York, Laura crossed paths with Wolverine and the X-Men once more in UNCANNY X-MEN (1981) #451 by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis. While working at a restaurant in a New York mutant neighborhood called District X, X-23 met the X-Men and briefly joined the team, where she stayed close to Logan and roomed with Kitty Pryde and Rachel Summers.

Although she briefly stepped away from the team, Laura joined another group of Xavier Institute students in NEW X-MEN (2004) #20 by Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, and Mark Brooks. While most of the world's mutants lost their powers after HOUSE OF M, Laura was one of the lucky few that retained hers, and she used them to help the junior X-Men squad take on William Stryker and his Purifiers.

X-23 made friends with her new roommate Dust, as well as Hellion, who rescued her from an intense battle with Nimrod. Although headmistress Emma Frost still disapproved of her, Laura teamed up with Hellion to save the shape-changing Mercury from the Facility. When the New X-Men were taken into the hellish Limbo dimension, Belasco tortured Laura by repeatedly killing and resurrecting her until the team escaped.

LAURA KINNEY AND X-FORCE

When Hope Summers became the first new mutant born since HOUSE OF M in X-MEN: MESSIAH COMPLEX, Laura joined Wolverine and several other veteran hunters on a secret new X-Force team in UNCANNY X-MEN (1963) #492 by Ed Brubaker and Billy Tan. Logan tried to dissuade her from joining this particularly violent group, but Laura stayed with the team and killed Matthew Riseman, one of the Purifiers' leaders.

Although a concerned Logan told Laura she was too careless, she stayed with X-Force as the group fought mutant-haters and tried to keep the infant Hope safe. The Facility briefly took Laura as a captive following a tense encounter with the time-stopping Kiden Nixon.
 
Once the X-Men defeated Bastion and saved Hope from his Human High Council, Wolverine kicked Laura out of X-Force and told her to start building a life that did not involve taking orders.

LAURA GOES SOLO

In X-23 (2010) #1 by Marjorie Liu and Danni Luo, Laura stepped away from the X-Men and grappled with her father's legacy in numerous ways—sometimes literally. After she confronted a demon impersonating Logan, Laura began wandering through the country with Gambit, one of her father's teammates, quietly following her. When she stumbled into a murder, Laura teamed up with Gambit to defeat Miss Sinister, who tried to possess her body.

During this solo period, Laura befriended Akihiro, Logan's biological son, and came to view him as her brother after a brief battle. Laura also formed a strong bond with Jubilee, who had recently been turned into a vampire, as the pair would keep each other's violent urges in check.

Around this time, Laura began working with other groups like the Fantastic Four's Future Foundation and an unofficial team that included Ghost Rider and Red Hulk. When a schism split the X-Men into factions loyal to either Wolverine or Cyclops, Laura chose her own path and accepted an invitation to train with other young heroes in AVENGERS ACADEMY (2010) #23 by Christos Gage and Tom Raney. X-23 stayed with the team throughout AVENGERS VS. X-MEN but was later one of several students kidnapped by Arcade, who forced them to fight each other to the death.

LAURA AND THE ALL-NEW X-MEN

When teenage versions of the original X-Men time-traveled to the modern Marvel Universe, they began operating as a team under the supervision of Kitty Pryde. This team of young X-Men saved an amnesiac Laura from a group of Purifiers in ALL-NEW X-MEN (2012) #19 by Brian Michael Bendis and Brandon Peterson.

After recovering her memories, Laura joined the team and grew particularly close to the teenage Cyclops. Cyclops eventually left the team to travel through space with his father, causing Laura to consider leaving too. She ultimately decided to stay and helped the group take down the time-traveling Brotherhood. During this time, Laura and the time-displaced Angel kindled what would go onto become a long-standing romance.

Shortly after Logan's death, Laura was one of several mutants with healing factors captured in DEATH OF WOLVERINE: THE LOGAN LEGACY (2014) #1 by Charles Soule and Oliver Nome. However, she teamed up with Akihiro, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, and Mystique to form the Wolverines and recover Logan's adamantium-encased body.

Together, this unpredictable team faced the power-stealing Siphon, Mister Sinister, and the spirit of Ogun. However, they were ultimately taken down by a traitorous Mystique, who backed out of their plan to resurrect Wolverine.

THE ALL-NEW WOLVERINE

Laura decided to carry on her father's legacy by taking on the mantle of Wolverine and donning a yellow and blue costume in ALL-NEW WOLVERINE (2015) #1 by Tom Taylor, David Lopez, and David Navarrot. 

On her first outing as Wolverine, Laura discovered that Alchemax had created several clones of her, and she took in the youngest clone, Gabby, as her little sister. As part of a plot to control Laura again, Kimura, an agent of the Facility, framed Laura for killing everyone in a small town and used trigger scents to resurface her assassin conditioning. But thanks to Laura's friends, including Gambit and Gabby, Kimura failed and Laura killed her.

The young Wolverine later teamed up with her brother, Akihiro, to face the Orphans of X, an organization of people wronged or harmed by Logan, Sabretooth, and their allies. When a resurrected Jean Grey formed a new X-Men team, Laura joined alongside Gabby, who took the codename Honey Badger (which then became Scout). Laura briefly returned to her X-23 codename in X-23 (2018) #1 by Mariko Tamaki and Juann Cabal, where she began hunting people involved in other cloning operations.

LAURA KINNEY AND KRAKOA

When the world's mutants came together to form the island nation of Krakoa, Laura joined them and took on the Wolverine codename once more. To investigate a group of highly evolved beings called the Children of the Vault, Laura teamed-up with the power-copying Synch and hyper-adaptable Darwin on a mission into the Vault in X-MEN (2019) #5 by Jonathan Hickman and Leinil Francis Yu.

Times moves at an accelerated rate in the Vault, resulting in Wolverine living there undercover for hundreds of years. During this extensive time period, she developed a romantic relationship with Synch before seemingly dying.

Presumed dead, the X-Men resurrected Laura through a cloning process that restored her to her pre-Vault age and recruited her for Krakoa's official X-Men team with Synch. However, the centuries-aged Laura survived the Vault and took the name Talon upon her return to Krakoa.

The younger Laura joined Jubilee in the vampire-hunting X-Terminators and later claimed her father's place on the X-Force strike team, while Talon took her spot on the X-Men with Synch. After Krakoa fell in an attack orchestrated by the mutant-hating group Orchis, Talon died in a battle with the High Evolutionary, and the younger Laura helped Logan take down Sabretooth and his army of Multiversal variants.

With the X-Men going their separate ways, the young Laura continued to carry on the Wolverine legacy as a vigilante who protects the mutants and humans who are neglected by society.
 

Be sure to catch up with Laura Kinney AKA Wolverine in NYX (2024) #2, out now!

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