X-23 #20 - Girls Night Awesome

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X-23 #18 - Cosmic Babysitting Mayhem

The 80s taught us many valuable life lessons that include but are not restricted to the following: promiscuous teenagers get hacked to death by masked serial killers, crazy hair somehow has the magical power to make you awesome, and cocaine is a hell of a drug. It also taught us that babysitting is almost as hazardous as Charlie Sheen's girlfriend. It used to be a whole genre of shitty movies, following teenage girls that filled out bras way sooner than they should be biologically capable of as they watch over children that are as devious and cunning as crack heads armed with a tank. Those movies aren't made anymore for a reason. They're shitty, boring, and overly censored by the humorless pussies of the MPAA. But that doesn't mean the concept is without merit

That's where Marjorie Liu's X-23 comes in. For much of her run, Liu has played up the notion that X-23 is still a teenage girl despite being a clone of Wolverine that was trained to kill from the moment she could walk. She kindly reminds the readers that being a killer kind of has a way of fucking up someone and when you're a teenage girl with weapons grade hormones assaulting your every whim, that's a bad combination. For much of the series, Liu has taken X-23 down many roads of self-discovery and has done such a great job that I can't find it in me to make a lesbian porno joke. Her latest arc has X-23 taking on a babysitter role, something that many teenage girls partake in at some point in their lives. Sure, it may be some cruel conspiracy by society to prepare them for baby making, but it's a valuable life lesson.

Unfortunately, the kids she ends up babysitting belong to Reed and Sue Richards. In the previous arc, she made friends with them by helping them beat back a cosmic force that was looking to date rape their dimension. In their mind, that qualifies her for babysitting their kids. Personally, I think X-23 was better off taking her chances with an inter-dimensional tyrant intent on enslaving the world. Two genius kids with access to technology 100 years ahead of it's time is like putting a kid in a room with a pile of sugar with a table of sharp objects. Needless to say, X-23's foray into babysitting didn't go very well. First, Hellion won't stop bugging her after he was a massive dick cheese to her when she paid a visit to the new Jean Grey Institute. Then Valerie and Franklyn ended up creating another dimensional gateway that caused a dragon to appear. That would sound random in most comics, but since this is dealing with the FF it makes as much sense as a kid finding their parents' stash of weed.

X-23 #18 picks up on this babysitting gig gone horribly wrong. The creature has Franklin and Valerie in both claws and is flying over New York. X-23 is latched onto it's tail and clawing her way up it's back. I assume she wants Reed and Sue to pay her for all this trouble so she has a lot of intensive to make sure these kids aren't fried. That's not as easy as it sounds considering that this is a dragon and dragons like to spit fire. That makes their breath only slightly less offensive than Ann Coulter.

A fight with a killer purple dragon can go so many ways. Having slain many a dragons while on an acid trip, I can say from experience that X-23 needs to utilize unconventional methods. Even with adamantium claws and healing, she's horribly overmatched. She needs to find out just what kind of dragon she's dealing with while trying hard not to be a rooster in Colonel Sanders's coop. Well here's where Liu throws in a bit of a twist. While the dragon is flying X-23 and the Richards kids over the city, X-23 actually explains to the creature that she needs to protect these kids and it response. Now this wouldn't be the most fucked up thing I've seen happen to a dragon (I get really awesome acid), but apparently this creature isn't about kidnapping princesses of child bearing age and demanding that virile men rescue her. It just wants some manners. Seriously, should it take a fucking dragon to get that? I'm pretty sure Liu is sending a message to the teenagers of America.

As often happens with any positive lesson, an overly horny young man with poor impulse control fucks everything up. Remember Hellion? In the last issue he was right outside the FF building hoping to talk to X-23 (or have her touch his penis, whichever comes first). Seeing as how the woman he wants to bone is apparently in trouble, he goes after the dragon and hits it with telekinesis just as it's being nice enough to let X-23 and the kids down. As a former teenage boy myself who obeyed one too many impulses in my youth, I can sympathize with Hellion. But it's a fucking dragon, kid. Even the best imported acid from Angola has it's limits.

X-23 is understandably pissed. But unlike many other 80s babysitter movies, the dragon doesn't fucking explode after Hellion screws it up. He still subdues it and it nice enough to catch Franklyn and Valeria before they become street pizza. He gives her a look that says "you fucked up and you're never seeing me naked." She also tells him to get the dragon back to the Baxter Building while she tends to the kids. But before she can even begin to immaculate him, the dragon pulls a fast one. While he's holding it with his telekinesis, the whole damn creature just erupts in this typical comic band of light that engulfs Hellion, X-23, and the kids. It's sudden, but Angolan acid is still better.

Now there isn't much mystery here even if that's what this scene is supposed to convey. I get the premise. There's more to this dragon than meets the eye. But a bland light engulfing them? It's as boring as it sounds. It's like describing Natalie Portman's ass in less than four words. It just doesn't convey the sheer majesty of what's going on.

When the bland light fades, X-23 and Hellion find that they're not in New York anymore (or maybe they're in the Bronx because they're on a pile of garbage). So the whole babysitting plot was grounded enough, but then the dragon kind of spiced it up. Now they're on an entirely new world that's almost exclusively composed of garbage. It's quite a transition and it's a bit abrupt, but it doesn't change the central focus of the story. X-23 still needs to find the Richards kids, for whom she is responsible. Reed and Sue are still off for a night on the town, foolishly assuming that their kids are okay. In the Marvel universe, that's like assuming Jean Grey is dead for good. It's fucking stupid.

Helping X-23 with her search is Hellion, who was standing over her like a career stalker when she came to. Having already earned himself a restraining order from X-23's panties for no less than ten years, he has a lot to make up for. So as they start looking, they finally have the talk that every teenage would-be couple avoids like the first day of high school. Marjorie Liu actually uses this moment to clear a few things up. Keep in mind, this is the first X-23 arc since Schism so the events of regenesis are still settling in. X-23 takes some time to clarify where she stands in the Team Wolverine/Team Cyclops spat. She makes it clear to Hellion that she's on neither side. He also makes it clear to her that he really did miss her and despite being a complete dick, he still cares about her and it hurt him when she just up and left. It helps create a nice moment between the two when X-23 reveals that she stayed by his side while he was healing during the whole Hellverine shit. So as much as Hellion has ruined his chances of getting to know X-23's bra size, she still has feelings for him.

This a wonderful moment of teen drama, for which Marjorie Liu deserves plenty of praise. However, not a whole lot is really said to work out the meat and bones of their relationship. X-23 and Hellion have had a very unspoken connection since their New Mutant days. There's something there, but they've never put it into words. It was cute at first, but now it's just annoying. This seemed like a great opportunity to clear it up, but not much comes of it.

In their defense, they finally locate Franklyn and Valeria. They're trapped in a couple of containment orbs and being guarded by a killer robot that looks like a sentinel that has been snorting whatever shit Barry Bonds was injecting into his ass. The killer robot demands that they let him hang onto these two kids for whatever sick shit that robots do to kids in junkyards, which can't be any worse than what happens to them in Baltimore public schools mind you. X-23 and Hellion, having clashed with many a killer robots, give it the proverbial finger and start kicking it's ass.

As you would expect, a robot in a junkyard doesn't put up much of a fight even if it does look all big and bad. X-23 makes quick work of it while Hellion tries (and fails) to free Franklyn and Valeria. Upon slicing open the robot like a kid cutting up the naked women in your nudie magazines, X-23 discovers that the giant robot actually has a pilot. He looks like a cross between Magneto, Gandalf, and Elton John only slightly more gay. He calls himself the collector and claims to be an elder of the universe. So he's basically a god if god was a reclusive fanboy that spent most of his time trying to outbid people on ebay for anything William Shatner sat on. It's only slightly less pathetic than being the god who cleans Galactus's toilet.

But this Collector asshole shows he's serious about his obsession. Before Hellion can free Valeria and Franklyn, he pulls a little cosmic trick and causes their containment orbs to rocket into space. Why does he do this? Is it just to be an asshole? Not necessarily, although I'm sure that's part of it. After X-23 tells the Collector that she's Wolverine's clone, he suddenly becomes intrigued. That means Wolverine may have either killed someone he knows or fucked an ex-girlfriend (or both). But he makes it clear that he wants X-23 in a way far less creepy than Hellion and if she doesn't cooperate than the Richards kids are going to run out of air and be lost in space forever. It's basically what would happen if you gave those Ebay douche-bags the power of a god.

In my last review I praised the premise for this arc because it was more grounded than the previous arc which dealt in cosmic forces. This issue took that once grounded arc, strapped to a rocket, and shot it into a wormhole. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's actually a hell of a task, beginning a story one way and then adding extreme elements like a garbage planet and obsessive alien collectors. Yet Marjorie Liu finds a way to make this work and not just because her characterization and willingness to tackle teen drama like Hellion and X-23 is so well done. Look at it another way. If this arc was as down to Earth as most of those lame babysitter movies from the 80s I mentioned earlier, it would have been a hell of a shift from arc to arc. To go from a cosmic arc to a babysitting arc is a bigger shift than Newt Gingrich's presidential platform. By mixing in a few cosmic elements, this arc actually doesn't feel as dramatic a change from the previous arc. It actually flows with the series, which shows an attention to detail that most writers are too lazy or impatient to utilize.

While I love the sense of cohesion that this issue brings along with the previous issue, the transition from New York City to this garbage world still felt a bit too abrupt. I know it's a hard transition to make, but visually and organizationally speaking it was pretty bland. Also, the conversation between X-23 and Hellion, while dramatic, lacked substance. They did a lot of talking without saying much. And no that's not stoner talk. Not entirely anyways. But it basically amounted to Hellion missing X-23. Then they come close to kissing? It just doesn't seem to fit. I'm assuming that the drama between them doesn't end here. The arc isn't over and Hellion and X-23 are pretty much stuck having to rescue Valeria and Franklyn together. But it still feels like not enough was done.

X-23 is still a top notch X-men book that shouldn't be canceled. Alas, we're left to cherish these issues while we can because the end is near for them. Marjorie Liu's knack for mixing teen drama with cosmic forces is akin to vodka and whiskey. It just works. There are still some drama gaps just begging to be filled, not unlike my shot glass. But while I pour a few rounds in anticipation for the next issue, I give X-23 #18 a 4 out of 5. I still don't miss the 80s too much. I sure would love puffy hair and lenient cocaine policies to come back, but X-23 serves as a fond reminder that when you mix cute teenage girls with babysitting there are so many awesome stories you can tell. Nuff said!

X-23 #16 - Cosmic Power + Teenage Girl = Awesome

Cosmic forces are like the herpes of the Marvel universe. They don't always show up, but they always come back and there's no cure for it. Just ask Jean Grey. At a time when the X-books are relaunching, reorganizing, and in some cases fucking up the established order of the X-men it's rare to find a book that is untouched by recent events. X-23 has been one of those books that exists in it's own small pocket within the same universe. The ripples from Schism haven't reached it yet, but that's not a bad thing. It's been like that one baseball player that hasn't taken steroids. It doesn't get the praise it deserves, but it's still awesome in it's own right and doesn't have nearly the same embarrassing side-effects. Yes, that was in reference to shriveled balls balls.

Marjorie Liu has demonstrated a diverse range for X-23. In some arcs she can be just another messed up teenage girl in need of a little TLC. In other arcs she gets involved with big time superheroes and takes on cosmic forces that could reduce her to bones and use them to pick it's teeth. What's even more remarkable is that Liu finds a way to make all this fit within the same narrative. It's helped make her X-23 series a unique gem among many that the world of X-men has been churning out lately. This latest arc has a different tone, but it's like the tone of a dinner bell to a pig in many ways. It has new elements that X-23 hasn't faced before, but Marjorie Liu finds a way to make them awesome.

By now the mysteries have been cleared up without the help of Scooby and the gang. After "borrowing" a machine that looks like an Apple TV prototype from a physics lab, X-23 met up with the FF to discover that the Enigma Force, your average Marvel cosmic entity, was in deep shit. It's old enemy, King Whirldemons, is trying to invade Earth using that same physics device. Apparently, the FF didn't read the user agreement. It led X-23, Spider-Man, and Sue Richards to go on a little cosmic quest that led to a confrontation with this cosmic king.

Just when it seemed as though X-23 had beaten it, the King Whirldemons revealed that he set up shop in Valerie Richards. As you would expect, Reed and Sue have a big fucking problem with this. He's going to use Valerie to tweak the device so he can let his frat buddies in from his own dimension. X-23, despite not getting along with Valerie from the get go, shows she's more ballsy than your typical teenage girl and tells the king to use her instead. So you go from a child genius to a child killer. This has one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" moments. Or maybe it's a "and then we started drinking" moment.

I don't know how much X-23 has been drinking, but she somehow managed to convince King Whirldemons to leave Valerie and enter her. It sounds like a metaphor for date rape, but it actually helps establish more connections with other parts of the story. If my drug-ravaged brain isn't mistaken, it was X-23's presence that kick-started the machine that was supposed to let King Whirldemons into this world. So it's only fitting that she be the douche-bag landlord that kicks his ass out. Plus, her being imbued with some cosmic energy makes her that much more badass.

Just as she predicted, as soon as King Whirldemons is in her in a completely non-sexual way, the device that acts as a key to the big king's world activates. Reed Richards, bless his brilliant mind, thinks he can find a way to reverse it. But this is one instance where balls beats brains and X-23 has the edge in that department. So she takes the device from Reed and uses it to open a gateway. Thing tries to stop him, but he might as well be trying to stop Twilight fans from getting in line to see another movie with Robert Pattinson not wearing a shirt. A wall of rock just ain't gonna cut it.

X-23 arrives in King Whirldemons and it's about as inviting as John Wayne Gayce's windowless shed. King Whirldemons goes onto taunt X-23 as most overly powerful male entities would do to any teenage girl. We learn there's a little method behind X-23's seemingly selfless sacrifice for Valerie. King Whirldemons isn't able to control X-23 as easily as she is Valerie. It's pure pragmatics. She has a lifetime of experience resisting the control of overly powerful douche-bags that want to use her to fuck up the world. So in many ways she's more equipped than anyone to handle an asshole like King Whirldemons. He doesn't seem to care. He still taunts her in ways only witnessed in German dungeon porn, which against X-23 is usually a bad idea.

But King Whirldemons takes it a step further. Remember that symbol on X-23's hand that was revealed way back in X-23 #3? Well King Whirldemons says he's seen that symbol before, but not for a long time. So he takes a closer look. And by closer look I mean he cuts X-23's fucking arm off. Now this sounds extreme, but it wouldn't be the first time X-23 has had her arm cut off. For her, that's akin to a papercut. This time she heals in a much more efficient way. That strange symbol that King Whirldemons was so fascinated by apparently doesn't like him. Because as he ticks it off, it starts glowing. Then when X-23 puts her arm back, she gets a full dose of cosmic power. This is the Enigma Force again and it's the kind of power that in the hands of a teenage girl can make any dimensional being shit himself.

Now X-23 and cosmic power sound great on paper, but the way it's done here still feels a little random. Majorie Liu established a connection of sorts back in #3 and clarified it a bit further in the previous issue. However, if tapping this power was so easy then why didn't she do it when she was stuck in the same limbo with Spider-Man and Sue Richards? That's never fully explained. It's usually one of those details that Marjorie Liu doesn't skip. Now maybe X-23 just wasn't in a position to use the power before, but a little clarity would certainly have helped here.

Now armed with a cosmic power in the same tradition as Dr. Manhattan from Watchman, minus the exposed dick, X-23 tears into King Whirldemons and his forces. She treats them with the same respect she treats anyone who once worked for Weapon X. King Whirldemons seems to be getting a boner from it at first, but X-23 proves that she can wield a cosmic power and still be pretty badass about it. Keep in mind she's still at an age when some girls can't even handle a fucking credit card, let alone a cosmic power. But then again with the way banks are run these days, cosmic power and credit cards aren't too distant in terms of power and danger.

We get a few nice pages of cosmic caliber ass-kicking. It's not as detailed as scenes with Cyclops and Wolverine beating the shit out of each other, but it's still pretty awesome. X-23 has never been one to let a battle drag out. So she and King Whirldemons go at it for a while. He doesn't seem all that concerned when he claws and guts him repeatedly. He tells her that in cosmic form, this shit can go on longer than a Simpsons marathon. Well X-23 doesn't have that kind of time. She didn't come here to kill King Whirldemons. She came here to make sure he stays locked in his dimension. So when a little star appears in the sky, she somehow takes this as a signal that she's ready to leave. Again, it's a bit random and it's lacking on details. But King Whirldemons is pissed off so that's proof enough that he wanted to avoid this shit.

After bidding a not-so-fond farewell to King Whirldemons, X-23 takes off into another dark void not unlike passing out drunk. The Enigma Force offers some words of encouragement. Again, it's a bit light on the details as to how this defeats King Whirldemons, but it offers some compelling hints that this won't be the last time X-23 wields cosmic power. When all is said and done, she wakes up with the FF again. She's back to her normal self, which probably feels like a real drag. But she's okay and she has the thanks of Sue Richards. She did save Valerie so she can effectively add her to her friends on Facebook. She may not know it now, but making friends with other heroes like the FF will go a long ass way in the future. That's something most teenage girls don't figure out. Being a bitch to others and shutting them out really leaves you shit outta luck when you need help down the line.

So X-23 is back to her old self and no longer sporting cosmic dreads. Gambit later shows up to lend his support, never mind that he has done absolutely nothing this whole arc except hang out with Cecilia Reyes (and presumably try to bone her). Then she pays a visit to Alex Celebi back at the physics lab where all this shit started. Keep in mind, this arc started with her wanting to confront a kid whose parents she killed back when she was still just a letter, a dash, and a number. That whole plot seemed to fall to the wayside and in the end it's somewhat glossed over because X-23 ends up not telling him what happens. She just comes off as your randomly confused teenage girl that sucks with faces.

Now this may sound like a bit of a cop-out, but this time there are some added dimensions to it. After all the shit she just went through, X-23 can't even bring herself to tell this kid the truth. Gambit, who finally contributes to the story, offers a bit of a lesson. Sometimes it's best not to burden others with the truth if they're not prepared for it. This kid, Alex, was spared the shit storm that is X-23's life. Piling it on him just wouldn't be fair. She doesn't understand that as many young teenagers don't. It's not outright lying. It's just holding back the truth for the sake of keeping the world moving forward. It's a good lesson and one that helps add some needed progression to X-23's story with this arc. Mixing it up with cosmic power is all well and good, but this series is still a personal journey for X-23 and that means she's going to learn a few tough life-lessons along the way.

Now what can we make of this arc? It certainly started off with a sense of solid progression. X-23 learned about Alex Celebi in the previous arc and spent the first part of this arc tracking him down. The whole encounter with the FF followed by a romp with the Enigma Force and King Whirldemons was entertaining in the traditions of cosmic Marvel and all, but in the end it didn't have that same sense of progression that made so the rest of Marjorie Liu's X-23 arcs so compelling. In the end she just finds Alex, who seemed completely unaffected by what happened with his twisted physics experiments, and lets him go. It seems like the whole plot with the FF was too detached, like taking the long route to a destination that isn't as scenic as you would hope. But then again, that's the risk you take when you do an arc about a cosmic power.

Yet in the end, there was still some sense of progression in X-23's journey. After leaving Alex behind and learning a lesson or two about the merits of lying, it follows the same themes that Marjorie Liu established with other arcs. Cosmic force or not, X-23 learned something about herself here and made a few friends in the FF in the process. Moreover, Marjorie Liu made it work for her. She showed X-23 battling with forces trying to control her on a new level and once again, she overcame them. She did it while establishing some interesting dynamics between her and the FF and while maintaining X-23's evolving persona. For that, this arc is still a success.

I enjoyed this issue and this arc. Granted, it was a little convoluted in the middle and a little incomplete in the end, but the last two issues helped clear everything up in a way that makes the book feel solid. Marjorie Liu shows that she can write an X-book without having to get it involved in all the melodrama of events like Fear Itself and Schism. That helps make X-23 special in it's own right. Even though this arc was a little detached plot-wise, Liu maintains the same themes and establishes some new relationships with X-23. As such, I give X-23 #16 a 4 out of 5. X-23 is moving up to the big leagues! Her draft stock is rising faster than Andrew Luck. As her world starts to intersect with the post-Schism world, Marjorie Liu has plenty to work with and when you've got a messed up teenage girl at the center of it all there are just so many ways it can be awesome. Nuff said!

X-23 #8 - Clash of Awesome

It's finally here! No, the Iphone 5 hasn't been announced and Marvel hasn't agreed to do day-and-date digital release to their catalog yet. And no, this isn't a late April Fools Day joke. The event that is being billed as damaged teenage girl versus sexually confused douche-bag is here! That's right, X-23 and Daken are finally set to claw the everloving shit out of each other and not in the way that gives Daken a boner for once.

This has been a match-up that's been more hyped than a Patriots/Colts game. Marjorie Liu writes X-23 and Daniel Way writes Daken. Both have been building towards an eventual grudge match between the two messed up offspring of Wolverine. One has boobs. One of them loves the occasional dip into Hershey river. Now I haven't followed Daken all that closely. I never grew very fond of him as I tend not to grow fond of anyone who is such a colossal douche-bag that they would fuck their own shadow if it had a hole. But he is a part of Wolverine's story and so I have tried to keep up. Even as X-23 ventured off into her own series under Marjorie Liu, it's been a given that these two adamantium loving Wolverine mini-mes would clash. Well Marvel seems to understand that this is the kind of bloody grudge-match that gets fans more giddy than a baby in a topless bar. And it begins with X-23 #8.

I've been a big fan of this series from the beginning. Marjorie Liu has brought new life to X-23 and taken her places that have been great for her character, even if some of those places involve Sinister with boobs. During the lead-up to this story, X-23 found out from the boobilicious Sinister that a man named Malcom Concord was trying to kick start that beat up old monster truck known as Weapon X. With help from Gambit that doesn't involve wearing shoe-string thong panties for once, she's tracked him to Madripoor. This is an environment so hostile that shotgun shells are used as currency and beating the shit out of a rival gang is a required part of your tax form. And wouldn't you know it? Daken has set up shop there. A place like this is like a mix of Disneyland and the Playboy Mansion. Since the previous issue dealt with X-23 getting to Madripoor, this issue begins with her going on the hunt.

With Gambit struggling to keep up, she starts stalking Daken like a deranged Star Trek fan living inside William Shatner's dumpster. Along the way she fights off some guy who wants to use her in a gang-bang. For all she knows, it's a gang-bang that Daken just got finished warming up in. She gets pretty close without Daken noticing. That or he's just too much of a douche to feel threatened. Then right behind her one of Madripoor's many random crimes unfolds. Some faceless guy gets abducted. Why this would surprise X-23 is strange, but she deems it important enough to halt her hunt and help out. I suppose there needs to be some balance in Madripoor in the time between cock fights and donkey shows.

It turns out this isn't just random heroics. Once she gives them the adamantium special, she tells them that they reek of a certain scent and it isn't from spending the night with Amy Winehouse. She finds out they're working for Malcom Concord. It seems Concord is giving Daken a run for his money in the douche-bag department because he's using Madripoor's "leave law and order at the door with your dignity" policy to his advantage. He's been kidnapping children and not in the same way the Disney channel does it. As much as she wants to give Daken a few new holes that he can't use to pleasure himself, she hasn't forgotten Concord. So Gambit finally contributes by saying he knows someone he can help. It's very reasonable to assume that it's someone he's boned.

Sure enough, the help comes in the form of a beautiful woman who embraces him the same way Twilight fans embrace locks of Robert Pattinson's pubic hair. She's Tyger Tyger, a hot chick who dresses like Psylocke and kicks almost as much ass. As it turns out, she has a lot of influence in Madripoor. A beautiful woman that can make men think with the wrong head goes a long ways in a place where needless brutality is an Olympic sport. She's in a perfect position to help X-23 find Daken, who she believes knows where Malcom Concord is. It's a stroke of Madripoor luck and it doesn't even require a bribe.

So the next day, they put on a bit of a show. Tyger asked X-23 how her acting skills are so when they actually visit Tyger in her office where she plays the part of the Madripoor godmother whose ring you have to kiss to set up a brothel there's a sense of mystery. They act as though they didn't meet the previous night. They basically enter as if they're just fishing for information. They ask the same question about the abductions, Daken, and Malcom Concord. Tyger writes them off as if they're lobbyist for the UN asking to cut back on the opium exports without having the decency to offer a bribe. It gets heated and Tyger makes a nice dick joke about X-23 being Wolverine's clone. Because what comic can't be made more awesome with a dick joke? Since there's no bribe coming her way, she kicks them out of her office and X-23 leaves her usual threat.

If it's an acting job it may win a Golden Globe, but not an Oscar. Yet it's enough to convince Daken, whose brain rarely gets the blood it requires since he's so busy screwing other people over both literally and figuratively. As soon as Gambit and X-23 leave, Daken shows up. He had been hiding in a secret compartment the whole time and after hearing X-23's little rant, he's acutally intrigued enough to stop enriching brothel owners.

Now this scene is a bit complicated because remember, Tyger asked X-23 about her acting skills earlier. There's the sense that the whole meeting in Tyger's office was just a show. Daken doesn't know that, but the reader knows that. It's a scene that can get confusing real easily, but if you don't read the damn comic backwards it is easy to follow. It's a rare show of dramatic irony, something that only those who didn't skip English class in 12th grade can appreciate. In a comic book, that's pretty damn awesome.

X-23 and Gambit return to the lawless streets of Madripoor, waiting for their little ruse to bear fruit. X-23 takes a moment to enjoy the exotic cuisine, admitting in the process that her sense of taste was fucked up by Weapon X and fast food while living with the X-men. It doesn't take long for Daken to finally show his face in all his douche-baggy glory. They joke a little about X-23 being a clone and whether or not that technically makes her Daken's mother. As disturbing a concept that may be, once X-23 flashes her claws shit gets real.

It finally begins! The battle against X-23 and Daken is on! It's conflicted teenage clone vs. egotistical metrosexual douche! You couldn't get a more fitting fight if you pitted Mike Tyson against Hulk Hogan.

Daken shows early on that he fights dirty and not in a way I can make a gay joke about. He's not above using special weapons to give him an edge. His glowing claw thingy is akin to a brass knuckle laced with barb wire. As soon as the Madripoor rent-a-cops show up, X-23 takes the fight out of the streets so they can maim each other without being disturbed. X-23 is basically proving that she's the clone of Wolverine and using more than just her claws. It's a powerful moment when she pins him to the ground and tells him to look her in the eye. Usually this is the part where Daken would get a boner, but this isn't that kind of fight. He throws her right off him and start ripping into each other like a sadomasochist in a knife store. It leads to a two page spread of pure awesome. We knew this fight was coming and this comic doesn't try to finish it in a single page. You may find yourself staring at the spread with such awe that your eyes fall out. No worries. That's nothing a little crazy glue and duct tape can't fix!

It gets bloody and heated. It's the kind of violence you would expect in any comic that involves Wolverine or his offspring. They fight their way up a flight of stairs and to a roof. They only catch their breath for a small panel and then they go at it again. X-23 tries to throw him off a building, but Daken makes sure she comes along for the ride. It makes for another great spread that shows just how evenly matched these two characters are. One is guided by teenage angst. The other is guided by egotistical douchiness. It's a classic example of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object!

This is the kind if fight you don't want to see end. Sadly, this comic runs out of ink just after X-23 and Daken get a mouthful of pavement. A fall that would usually leave two people more crippled than Russian cage fighters is nothing more than a scratch to these two. They rise up and get ready to go at it again. That's where the comic cuts out. The fight is set to continue in Daken #8. It's simply too big to finish in one comic. Normally I hate waiting almost as much as I hate waking up hung over in someone else's back yard with magic marker all over my face and a dog licking my balls. However, for a battle this intense I'm more than willing to wait! This isn't something that can or should be resolved in one comic. More is needed to truly show the caliber of awesome that such a clash is capable of.

Now with all the anticipation of the Daken/X-23 fight being built up, it would have been easy for this comic to stumble. It could have turned out bland, filled with nothing but mindless slashing and no real progression. It could have turned out as a boring setup issue, having little action and only setting readers up for a cliff-hanger at the end with no real action to get excited about. But it didn't happen. The first issue of the Daken/X-23 clash struck a perfect balance between setting up the fight and carrying it out. Marjorie Liu set the stage and then blew it up in a way that floods the brain with every kind of awesome chemicals. If books like this came in pill form, the DEA would have raided Marvel's office by now and declared it a drug bust.

There are very few ways in which this book is flawed. Some may be a bit confused by the scenes with Tyger Tyger. The whole notion of X-23 and Gambit acting like they never met Tyger before she leads them to Daken may fly over the heads of some readers. It's not so convoluted that you have to re-read it multiple times. Just reading the section twice should clarify what's going on. The case can be made that some scenes act as filler, but if you were to remove those scenes the book would be a bit less coherent. At times it feels as though more pages could have been dedicated to the main fight, but even if that's true there is still a great balance within the pages and it is still plenty awesome.

I've been eagerly awaiting this comic so much that I almost went bald tearing my hair out with impatience. I'm glad it finally arrived and delivered everything I hoped it would. It's a great feeling when a book lives up to and exceed your expectations. Marjorie Liu has made that a habit with her run on X-23. That's why I give X-23 #8 a perfect 5 out of 5. You couldn't have started a major event like this any better. The fight between X-23 and Daken deserves to be epic. It's not quite on the scale of Wolverine and Sabretooth just yet, but it could very well get there! Even if it doesn't, this first issue has put the clash between X-23 and Daken on the same epic scale. That alone is a hell of an accomplishment! Nuff said.

X-POSITION: Marjorie Liu & Daniel Way - My Questions Asked!

I know I've been doing a lot of ranting lately, comparing Hope Summers (aka Jean Ripoff) to no fewer than fifteen different kinds of diarrhea. I apologize to those who are sick of hearing my graphic depictions of the entrails I want Jean ripoff's brains to read once Bishop comes back from the future and gives her a Columbian neck-tie complete with her tongue ripped out through her throat. While I may not be done spitting on her eventual grave, there are still plenty of X-books that I enjoy reading. X-23 by Marjorie Liu is one of them. This past week she and Daniel Way were the subject of CBR's X-POSITION.

X-POSITION: Marjorie Liu & Daniel Way

Now I've had little to complain about with X-23. Marjorie Liu has taken the character a long way in only seven short issues. X-23 has been a science experiment, a messed up teenage girl, an X-man, a member of X-Force, and a whole host of other problems that make her just slightly less crazy than the girls I dated in high school. X-23 still has plenty awesome to offer as recent stories have set the stage for an eventual clash with Daken, Wolverine's metrosexual son who makes Lady Gaga look modest. I'm looking forward to seeing X-23 give Daken the kind of torment that doesn't give him a boner. As such I submitted some questions for the X-POSITION and they ended up getting asked.

MarvelMaster616 is also curious about Weapon X and some of Laura's conditioning. What can you tell him about the following:

1) Since the beginning of the "X-23" series, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on Laura being a teenage girl and not just a mutant or a product of Weapon X. Now that she's trying to find her own way, what exactly would you say she's looking for? Does she have any idea? Or is that something she's still trying to figure out?

Liu: I don't think she really knows what she's looking for. Who does? She's always lived in a very controlled environment. Very regulated and structured. And then, the first time she was on her own, it was a disaster. She killed people, became a prostitute -- I mean, come on. This kid has had a rough life.

Now she's a little older, maybe a little wiser and she wants to know who she is -- because she doesn't know. Is she just a killer? Is that all she's good for? Can she move past her conditioning and be something more? Or is it enough for her to be a soldier? What makes her happy? 

2) In the second issue of "X-23," there's a moment where Logan is talking to Laura about him being a father figure to her and her being a daughter. Is this relationship dynamic going to come back up once their paths cross again? The ‘Hellverine' arc sort of derailed it.

Liu: You bet it's coming back. I'll also be exploring Wolverine's double-standard when it comes to his care of Jubilee versus X-23. Actually, I'll sort of be hammering it over the head. I'm not very subtle, sometimes.  

3) Why do you think X-23 and Daken are so different despite being the offspring of Wolverine?

Liu: That's a hard one. Both were raised in radically different environments. Clearly, I think X-23 had a more difficult life than Daken and yet, she's not a sociopath. She is, however, emotionally shut down -- and can be a stone-cold killer. If she had been raised like Daken? Who knows?

Way: Here's the easy, non-academic answer: different creators. Few people know this, but my inspiration for Daken's characterization was actually the song "We're Only Gonna Die" by Bad Religion.

Overall, I've little material with which to make poop jokes this time around. Marjorie Liu seems to have a solid handle on X-23. She's not approaching this series the same way as her previous series. She's basically guiding X-23 down a very uncertain path and providing plenty of awesome along the way. The prospect of X-23 meeting up with Wolverine and a non-Twilight vampire in Jubilee adds even more potential for gut busting awesome. Yet I would still argue that about a quarter of the girls in my high school graduating class went through less insanity.

While the other X-books give me so many reasons to shove my head into a deep fryer, X-23 offers a great deal of comfort in that it's a solid and consistent book that tells the story about a great character who is still coming into her own. With plenty of events to look forward to in the near future, I'll definitely be tracking this comic in my blog and in my LSD trips! Nuff said.