Summary
- Wolverine’s daughter, Laura Kinney, also known as X-23, Wolverine, and Talon, is dead and unlikely to return.
- Laura’s psychic imprint was stored by Synch after her body was destroyed by the High Evolutionary, but he had to let go of it to save the X-Men.
- Although a younger clone of Laura still exists, the original Laura is gone for good, with Marvel editorial making it clear that they want to avoid doubling up on characters.
After 21 years in Marvel canon, Wolverine‘s daughter Laura Kinney – also known as X-23, Wolverine, and Talon – is dead, and she’s probably not coming back. Formerly believed to be a clone of Logan, but later revealed to be his biological daughter, Laura has been fighting alongside the X-Men for years, and has finally fallen while safeguarding humanity and fighting to give mutantkind a last chance at survival.
Recently, Synch has been storing Laura’s psychic imprint within his mind after her body was destroyed. This kept Talon alive in a very real sense, since until very recently, the X-Men were able to use psychic imprints to resurrect their fallen heroes. Synch ‘saving’ Talon allowed them to keep communicating, and made it possible for her to potentially return. However, in X-Men #31 from Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto, Synch is called on to save the X-Men from the Sentinel known as Nimrod, and has to let go of Laura’s imprint to do it.
The Death of X-Men’s Longest Romance in History
The fight with Nimrod allows the X-Men to remove Orchis’ ability to kill a huge swathe of humanity, which they achieved by tampering with the free medicine the X-Men had previously distributed across the world. These people were being used as hostages to prevent the X-Men from fighting back against Orchis, who are plotting the extinction of mutantkind and the rise of AI life as the planet’s dominant lifeform.
However, while Synch and Laura’s actions saved countless lives, they also came at immense cost.
Fans can take some comfort in the fact that Laura had a long life, as a recent adventure trapped her and Synch in the time-prison known as the Vault for 100 years, over which the two gradually fell in love
Laura Kinney Officially Dies in Marvel Comics Canon
Wolverine’s Daughter Was Killed by the High Evolutionary
In X-Men #30, Laura and Synch went on a mission to steal technology from the High Evolutionary – the device which the X-Men just used to nullify Orchis’ poisoned medicine. Unfortunately, the godlike villain didn’t approve of their presence, and after a brief fight he disintegrated Laura despite her powerful healing factor.
Thankfully, Synch was able to store Laura’s psychic imprint, allowing them to remain in communication and maintaining the possibility that she could eventually return. Unfortunately, because of the immense toll Synch’s powers take on his body, there was a major ticking clock on his ability to keep Laura ‘alive.’
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That clock stops in X-Men #31, as Laura convinces Synch that stopping Nimrod and saving the X-Men is more vital than maintaining her imprint. Like her father before her, Laura launched herself into violence and suffering for the greater good, willing to pay the ultimate price twice over. Fans can take some comfort in the fact that Laura had a long life, as a recent adventure trapped her and Synch in the time-prison known as the Vault for 100 years, over which the two gradually fell in love, spending a lifetime on the run within the facility before eventually breaking out.
Wolverine’s Daughter Is Probably Gone for Good
Bringing Laura Back Goes Against Marvel’s Priorities
While superheroes rarely permanently die in Marvel canon, Laura Kinney may be the exception. After Synch escaped the Vault, he believed Laura to have died, resulting in the X-Men ‘resurrecting’ her from her memories before she entered the structure. This created a younger clone – a new version of Laura Kinney with no memory of her lifetime in the Vault. In a classic X-Men twist, however, the older Laura turned out to still be alive, and recently broke free of the Vault and rejoined the team, taking the codename Talon.
Even when they were still active, the X-Men’s resurrection protocols could only store one version of a person’s psychic imprint, and the last fans knew, they were going with the teenage clone rather than the older original. In the real world, the younger Laura is the version fans know – a teenage hero going by ‘Wolverine’, and currently working with her father on the X-Force roster.
Despite being the original, the older Laura feels far more like a new character, and one who has only existed within the confines of Marvel’s 2019-2024 Krakoan Age, which is currently closing out its story. If X-Men continues from here with just the teenage clone, that would look from the outside as if the story has returned to its former status quo, without the confusing doubling of having both a young and old Laura.
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That type of confusion is something Marvel editorial are keen to avoid. In an interview with AIPT, Jordan D. White – the X-Men Senior Editor at Marvel – confirmed that his advice to X-Men creatives is to avoid doubling-up on characters in a continuity that already has its fair share of clones and doppelgängers, saying:
I caution people about doubles. We don’t need more doubles. But with the X-Men, especially, you’ve already got hundreds of characters – do you need five versions of the same character in our universe? And the answer is no, you don’t. … nothing against this character or the stories done with her, but we had Bloodstorm and it’s like, well, that’s another Storm. ‘Well, she’s totally different – she’s a vampire.’ Yes she is. But she’s still a version of Storm. We can have Bloodstorm in alternate universe stories or whatnot. We don’t necessarily need her in this universe. Which again, does not mean we couldn’t do a story where we have alternate reality characters coming into it. I think that’s a great idea. Tell me a good story. That’s what matters most.
With the original Laura dead and a new clone already in existence who replicates the version fans know, Marvel has little reason to row back such an impactful character death.
There’s Another Laura Who’s Still Around… For Now
Wolverine’s Daughter Is a Clone Again, Just Not of Him
While the original Laura Kinney just met her end, fans do at least still get a version of the hero to stick around in X-Men canon. The current clone of Laura, still going by Wolverine, is alive and well… at least for the moment. In the recent Wolverine #42 (from Victor LaValle, Benjamin Percy, Cory Smith and Oren Junior), Wolverine’s family were attacked by Sabretooth’s new army. These villains killed Wolverine’s son Akihiro and his protégé Quentin Quire, then – as revealed in #43 – kidnapped the younger Laura.
Strangely, if this Laura remains alive in X-Men canon, then a character who was once a clone of Wolverine will now once again be a clone, but this time of herself. It’s the type of twisted knot that X-Men excels at – Cyclops’ family is half made-up of his time-displaced future children – but it’s also another reason for Marvel to simply let the older, less familiar, but still original Laura die, and continue on with the younger version who – in accordance with her most famous incarnations – can now once again be referred to as a clone.
Laura Kinney’s Surviving Clone Is Thriving
While Laura might be dead and gone, her successor seems to be living her best life. Not only has the clone Laura been a major part of the Sabretooth War event, but she’s also getting her own Wolverine solo series. Marvel seems perfectly happy to be putting the original Laura away and moving on with her clone, which is to be expected.
The story devoted tro Laura’s final act is a pleasant surprise, consider the Krakoan age provided a fantastic way to reboot several characters who had gone too far, or had reached the natural conclusion of their story. By contrast, fans can draw their own conclusions on Magneto being literally brought back from the afterlife by Storm, contrasted with Beast’s total descent into villainy until he was killed off in favor of an uncorrupted clone.
Laura Kinney Lived and Died as a True Hero
Laura Fought for a Century to Give the X-Men a Chance at Survival
While fans get to keep a familiar version of Laura Kinney around (if she survives Sabretooth’s master plan), the X-Men franchise has made it clear many times over that clones are their own people. From Cable’s evil double Stryfe to Jean Grey’s mystic ‘sister’ Madelyne Pryor to Laura’s own younger duplicate Gabrielle ‘Honey Badger’ Kinney, the clone is not the original and vice versa.
That means that the Laura Kinney who entered comic canon as X-23 in 2004 just passed away, having been created as a living weapon but finding her own identity as the new Wolverine among her siblings, friends, and loves.
X-Men #31 and Wolverine #43 are available now from Marvel Comics.
Source: AIPT
