I’ve always liked X-23, she had a certain mystique about her that Wolverine had lost with the release of the story Origin. He had been demystified, exposed and explained and rendered a bit lesser for it all because of it. So here was Laura, a second shot at what Woverine used to be when she was introduced and a bit more even. Unlike Logan she was successfully made into a weapon to be used by others before her engaging the X-Men. So when I found this book in my stack of potential reviews I was interested in seeing how her solo adventures as X-23 would be, after all she had made a pretty good Wolverine while Logan was “away”“. Unfortunately this comic fell far short of expectations.
The story is split between Laura’s inner monologue in the aftermath of the events that we see play out in the comic. The majority of this is about the differences in the personalities of Laura and her sister Gabby (Honey Badger) as they continue to hunt down Dr Chandler who is responsible for producing more female clones of wolverine for nefarious uses. I can see what Tamaki is going for here, she is trying to create an compelling story about two people who are close to each other but who are in conflict due to differences in method, outlook and age but she is only partially successful. While I can understand and follow they thread of the story with no effort it fails to draw me in, in any meaningful way. Laura’s reflection of events is very rambling in nature, perhaps on purpose to evoke a sense of a stream of consciousness process as Laura tries to make sense of how the evening has played out. This however failed to connect with me. The critical argument between the two does play out like something between real sisters however. The older one being more sensible and rational while the younger one expresses an unrealistically idealistic argument, but for the most part the story lacked the sort of engagement that it should have had to maintain real interest.
ART
Olortegui clearly knows how to draw, he has no problem doing backgrounds, props and scenery. His faces are expressive (although some expressions seem odd at times) and his pages flow with an easy readability. However I can’t help but wonder if super heroes are really his thing. His ability to draw dynamic poses and action is very hit and miss. There is a panel where a security team litterally bursts through a pair of doors (rending them into splintered bits) with guns at the ready and on the very next page they are confronting the two mutants with claws out with all of their weapons lowered as part of a poor joke (so I likely have to blame this on the writer to be fair). He shows some promise in terms of action for a couple of pages with some dynamic action and angles but most of the pages are rather flat and dull. There is even a two page spread that is completely wasted on the two girls shouting at each other. Again, I’m not sure who is to blame for this, writer or artist so I’m putting it here in the art section. Also Olortegui doesn’t seem to know much about the character’s he’s rendering. In a particular panel Gabby has three bullet holes in her face. Yes she can’t feel pain and yes her healing factor is even faster than Wolverine’s but she lacks an adamantium skeleton so having your brains blown out of your head a few times would even slow down Deadpool. It’s not just writers who should understand the characters they are working on, artists nee to do their research too.
The inking and coloring are frankly nothing special. The work is serviceable and the colors in particular added little to the art. There was no pop just a certain sort of sameness with little thought being given to mood and only rarely emotion.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It’s all a bit meh. 2 out of 5
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
REVIEW: X-23 #11
Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Art: Diego Olortegui
Inker: Walden Wong
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
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