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Characters / Marvel Comics: Laura Kinney

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Laura Kinney

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6799965_x23.jpg
The best at what she does.

Notable Aliases: Talon, X-23, Wolverine, Captain Universe

Editorial Names: All-New Wolverine

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant/Clone

Affiliations: X-Men, Avengers Academy

First Appearance: "X23"(August 9, 2003) note ; NYX #3 (February, 2004) note ; All-New Wolverine #1 (November, 2015) note 

"The Facility created me to be a weapon. Killing was all I knew. I didn't know how to say 'no.'"
Laura Kinney

A trained assassin, X-23, or Laura Kinney, was created by the Weapon X offshoot known as the Facility, or HYDRA, depending on universe, using a damaged sample of Wolverine's DNA. The damage was greatest on the Y chromosome apparently so Dr. Deborah Risman in the series and the similar Dr. Sarah Kinney in the comics eventually had the brilliant idea to create a female copy instead. At last the 23rd attempt to clone Weapon X was successful, thus X-23. However, Sarah Kinney states X-23 is technically a genetic twin rather than a true clone, making her Logan's sister. note  He later introduces her to her classmates at Xavier's this way, although they share more of a father-daughter relationship.

She grew up being trained to be an Assassin, so that the Facility could sell her talents to the highest bidder. She grew up being emotionally and physically abused, in order to remove such weaknesses as emotion and self worth. However, Dr. Sarah Kinney, the one scientist who treated her like a child, tried to free her, but X-23 had been conditioned with a special 'Trigger Scent' that would forcefully throw her into a Berserker Rage, and X-23 uncontrollably killed the good scientist. In her dying words, Dr. Kinney named her Laura, as she had yet to be given a name.

After a few years on the run she tracked down Logan and was invited to join the X-Men, forming close relationships with some of the X-Men. However, it was retconned so that she only pretended to bond to them, and just saw them as interchangeable people, with only Logan being the one she would treat like a friend, and father. That changed after House of M, where she was placed with some other students and eventually grew close to fellow students Cessily 'Mercury' Kincaid, who had also been through a lot, Julian 'Hellion' Keller, who wound up as her crush, and Sooraya 'Dust' Qadir, who she gains a mutual respect for. Logan later legally adopts her as a daughter to provide her with some manner of family. Their relationship is at times strained, but Logan nonetheless cares deeply for her well-being and path to recovery.

Following Logan's death, Laura has taken on the Wolverine name herself in All-New Wolverine. She was joined by Gabby Kinney, a clone of hers created by Alchemax who she took under who care and trained to be a hero. The two eventually joined a team of X-Men led by the resurrected Jean Grey in a bid to improve relations between humanity and mutantkind.

When the mutant nation of Krakoa was founded, Laura was soon selected for a dangerous mission alongside Synch and Darwin to infiltrate the Vault which housed the Children of the Vault to assess their capabilities and danger to mutants. Trapped for hundreds of years within the Vault, Laura and Synch began a relationship. Although unlike Synch, she failed to escape and was revived by the Five with no memories of her time within. Laura subsequently joined Cyclops' new team of X-Men alongside Synch but eventually resigned during the second Hellfire Gala.

In a miraclous twist, the "original" Laura who was thought to have been killed covering Synch's escape was discovered to have been alive and well by Forge during a rescue mission meant to save Darwin. While she reunited with Synch and joined back up with Cyclops' X-Men, she agreed to leave the Wolverine mantle in the hands of the younger duplcate who had mistakenly replaced her.For that version of Laura See Here

Laura Kinney has appeared in the following works:

Notable Comics Books

Appearances In Other Media

Laura Kinney provides examples of the following tropes:

    open/close all folders 

    A-H 
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Same as Logan.
  • Abusive Parents: Depending on your definition of "parents." Zander Rice was one of the lead scientists involved with her creation and training, and the abuse he subjected Laura to was outright horrific. Sarah Kinney, her biological mother, (surrogate womb and some genetic material) was ordered by the Facility to deny her an emotional connection, so was forced to shun her when Laura reached out to her. To her credit Sarah defied those orders whenever she was able, but this still led to much of her emotional damage. Then there's her handler, Kimura, who abused Laura as badly, if not worse, than Rice. It really says something when as poor of a father as Logan can be (which he even outright admits), he's still one of the better parental figures Laura's had.
  • The Ace: Laura is miles ahead of her peers when she first comes to the school, having been trained as a Living Weapon and spent years as an assassin-for-hire. Notably, when Nimrod gauges the kids for threat assessment, he ascribes Laura the highest threat level out of the entire team.
  • Adaptation Dye-Job: In X-Men: Evolution, she was a brunette. In the comics and most other incarnations, she has black hair.
  • Affirmative-Action Legacy: When Laura takes up the Wolverine codename after the conclusion of Secret Wars, a woman taking up the mantle of a man.
  • Age Lift: Her original depiction in X-Men: Evolution was as a little girl. However, when she became a Canon Immigrant to the comics, she was reimagined as a teenager, which also carried other to other versions like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Marvel Heroes — which caught fans by surprise when Logan presented a Truer to the Text version.
  • Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She's pretty, with long, dark hair, and comes off as aloof and distant.
  • Alternate Universe: Like most Marvel Universe characters, she has several:
    • She was originally introduced in X-Men: Evolution, an alternate universe from Marvel's main universe, 616.
    • League of Losers: A villain from the future uses historical data to kill all the well known heroes in the world. Only a handful of heroes who weren't in the historical records (making them "losers") survive. X-23 was one of those heroes.
    • X-Men: The End: A near future version of the character. Strangely, she not only appears to have an adamantium skeleton, but her muscle tissue appear robotic or techno-organic.
    • Artume-ruled reality: In a temporary alternate reality created by Amazon Queen Artume where women rule the world, X-23 is known as Wolverine, and is one of the main members of the Avengers.
    • Age of Apocalypse: The daughter of Logan and Mariko Yashida who goes by the name Kirika is found in Mr. Sinister's lab in a container labeled "X-23".
    • All-New Wolverine #9 reveals there was a version of X-23 raised by the Wolverine who eventually became Old Man Logan.
    • Another from All-New Wolverine #30 is a version in which the heroes won an all-out war against the villains, and ushered in a utopia. In this universe, Laura is Queen of Madripoor, and is dying of Clone Degeneration.
    • X-Men Film Series introduces a really young and Mexican version of Laura in Logan, played by actress Dafne Keen.
  • Alternate Company Equivalent: Cassandra Cain/Batgirl (2000). Everything from their backgrounds (raised to be an assassin), lack of social skills, and relationships with their respective father figures/mentors are quite similar.
  • Ambiguously Brown: Although in the comics X-23 is unambiguously (and canonically) Caucasian with some occasional Depending on the Artist, in Evolution she has a much darker complexion, with features that have been interpreted as anything from Latina to First Nations. Word of God states that her features were based on those of the girl who modeled for the reference shoot as a thank you.
  • Amnesiac Lover: She's this to Everett Thomas AKA Synch after the events of the ill-fated Vault Mission. Unlike most examples of this trope, Laura quickly pieces together by herself that she and Everett use to have a thing and even expresses an interest in picking up where they left off once the time is right.
  • Animal-Themed Superbeing: After taking up the Wolverine name for herself. However while she does have as vicious a temper, she's much more in control of it than Logan was. Her cooler head doesn't make her any less fierce or determined a fighter, though.
  • Apologetic Attacker: After Daylesville is doused in trigger scent, but before she falls into a murderous rage, Laura apologizes to the locals around her for what is about to happen. Subverted when it turns out Laura managed to stab herself in the head before falling to the trigger scent, meaning that someone else slaughtered the town.
  • Arch-Enemy: Kimura, her former handler and the one who dealt her abuse from an early age. Kimura has Density Control, giving her immunity to X-23's adamantium claws since she can make her skin denser than the metal itself.
  • Armed Legs: While Logan has three claws in each hand, Laura has only two. The third claw is instead located in each of her feet, making her kicks potentially lethal. Her fighting style thus incorporates Combat Parkour in order to bring the foot claws into play. She's also known to not use them and rely more on the claws in her hands. This allows her to bring them out to get the drop on an opponent who assumes she shares Wolverine's claw arrangement (as Task Master and Black Mamba discovered to their regret).
  • Artificial Human: Laura is an engineered clone created by duplicating Logan's X chromosome due to damage to the Y making a direct clone impossible. This makes her the parthenogenetic offspring of Logan's mother.
  • The Atoner: Much of what Laura does is out of a desire to do be a better person after all of the horrible things the Facility made her do. She once notably asked Ghost Rider to use his Penance Stare on her because she believed she deserved punishment.
  • Audible Sharpness: Her claws make the same snikt sound as Wolverine's.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: Combined with Sherlock Scan below: Whenever Laura walks into a room, her brain immediately calculates the best means of killing everyone inside it.
  • Badass Adorable: Especially as a little girl. As a teenager she's a highly-skilled fighter, and one of the most lethal assassins in all of Marvel. Notably, Nimrod identifies her as a severe threat, and yet she can really work◊ the Puppy-Dog Eyes.
  • Badass Bookworm: Not the same degree as some, but Laura is incredibly gifted intellectually and received an extensive (albeit narrow) education during her training. Her intellect (at least for a seven year-old) is described by Rice in X-23: Innocence Lost as being "off the charts." Her official power rating at Marvel places her firmly in "Genius" category.
  • Badass Biker: Her second costume as Wolverine evokes this look, consisting of a sleeveless bodysuit and armored jacket, and a helmet. She even gets to ride motorcycle in issue 20.
  • Badass Longcoat: She starts wearing these occasionally over her uniform. Mostly for practical purposes, either because it's raining, it's cold, or she wants to cover up her costume.
  • Battle Couple: With Warren in All-New X-Men volume 2. Ish. They work together to track down the Ghosts of Cyclops, but Warren ends up more concerned about Laura's well-being than getting the job done.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite being a clone of the famously unattractive Logan it's clear from dialog and her character design that Laura is intended to be a very attractive young woman. And then over the course of her history, she's taken a good deal of punishment, but the only permanent mark on her body is the emblem associated with Captain Universe on the palm of her right hand. Justified, since she has a Healing Factor.
  • Become a Real Boy: While this has always been a subtle part of her character, it's used to symbolic effect in issue 17: Pinocchio's transformation from puppet to real boy is directly juxtaposed with Laura finally breaking free of her conditioning to the trigger scent, literally "cutting her strings" and making her a puppet no more.
  • Beneath the Mask: Early on Laura is outwardly The Stoic bordering on an outright Emotionless Girl, and many characters (even people who are ostensibly her friends) treated her like she was nothing but a cold, unfeeling killing machine. Underneath her cold facade, however, she was a confused and suicidally depressed jumble of loneliness, heartbreak, and rage. This has changed as Character Development taught her how to better process her emotions.
  • Big Sister Instinct: Demonstrates this with her cousin Megan, even though Megan is established as older. She develops this towards the Sisters as the first arc of All-New Wolverine develops, nearly losing her cool when she believes Taskmaster killed them, and making it unambiguously clear to Mooney that the girls are under her protection. It especially applies to Gabby, to whom she eventually becomes a Parental Substitute.
  • Big Sister Mentor: Laura falls into this role with Gabby over the course of the series, and the series makes use of Call Backs and Book Ends to subtly demonstrate her teaching Gabby some of the lessons she learned from her own Big Brother Mentor, Logan.
  • Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Her claw arrangement was intended to be this according to Word of God, with her foot claws specifically designed to be a trait of females with the same mutation as Logan. As described by Craig Kyle, the concept was that of a lioness; front claws for hunting prey, rear claws for self-defense.
  • Blessed with Suck:
    • Her extensive training has given her Sherlock Scan and Awesomeness by Analysis that allows her to immediately size up a threat upon entering a room, planning multiple plans of attack, and choosing the best course of action. This is certainly useful when walking into a Bad Guy Bar or other hostile situation. Less so when she's around her friends, because she can't turn it off.
    • She also has pretty much every Blessed with Suck trait as Wolverine: Her heightened senses mean she's enduring a constant barrage of sensory overload in a crowded room, and because of her Healing Factor, every time she extends her claws it tears up her skin again. Laura's not bothered as severely by the adamantium since it only covers her claws, but she does note in her solo series it still makes swimming a bit harder than it would be otherwise. Also, even though her claws are laced with adamantium, the bones of her hands and feet are not reinforced, meaning the vibration of striking something with her claws with sufficient force could conceivably shatter the bones in her hands, wrists, ankles and feet. Ouch.
    • Even though she heals much faster than Wolverine, she can be hurt in ways far worse than he can since this is because she lacks the adamantium on her bones.
    • The Scent is its own bit of this, as well: She's already a highly-trained and deadly fighter, and the Trigger Scent turns her into a virtually unstoppable ball of whirling, adamantium-bladed death that will not stop until everything in reach is dead. Unfortunately, that means everything: The trigger sends Laura into an Unstoppable Rage in which she is incapable of distinguishing friend from foe. And yes, this has led to her hurting people she cared about. However the trigger scent has been rendered useless.
  • Body Horror: Her claws were forcibly removed from her body without any attempt at anesthesia so they could be coated in adamantium. Because only her claws have been bonded she's also been horribly mangled in the past. Including getting hit by a train.
  • Breakout Character: Started as a Canon Foreigner for a mostly forgotten animated series, quickly ported to the comics due to positive reception, and her popularity has only grown from there. She was arguably the main character of New X-Men, has had a number of miniseries and now an ongoing series, was included in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 despite having only existed for less than a decade then, and is now almost always included in Team images. She's easily the most popular post-2000 X-Men character.
  • Broken Ace: Although miles ahead of her peers in terms of her maturity, skills, and experience, Laura is a very broken, damaged and withdrawn girl prone to bouts of severe (if not suicidal) depression. Her preparedness to sacrifice herself for others without hesitation stems from a poor sense of self-worth, and she habitually cuts herself when severely stressed or upset because she doesn't know how to deal with her feelings (such as her jealousy when she sees Surge kiss Hellion).
  • Broken Bird: Laura has endured horrible amounts of abuse and suffering in her life, and a major recurring theme is her efforts to recover from the emotional damage done to her.
  • Brutal Honesty: She's Innocently Insensitive and has difficulties with lying, even to spare others' feelings.
  • Bulletproof Vest: In issue 3 Gabby offhandedly suggested Laura ought to try body armor. In issue 19 she finally incorporates it into her costume, after Gabby's argument that just because she can heal isn't an excuse for allowing herself to be injured in the first place.
  • Cain and Abel:
    • The Abel to Daken's Cain.
    • Also to Raze, the time-traveling shape-shifter son of Logan and Mystique.
  • Cannot Tell a Lie: Laura is very well-known for her Brutal Honesty and being Innocently Insensitive. Because she was created as a Living Weapon covert operative and assassin, she certainly has the capability to lie in order to maintain her cover on missions, but outside of this context she consistently shows an inability to do so.
  • Canon Immigrant: Originally created for X-Men: Evolution, but found her way into the comics universe in NYX.
  • The Cape: Although willing and able to kill if she has to, Laura has increasingly leaned in this direction, resorting to lethal force only as a last resort. She also possesses a strong willingness to sacrifice herself for others, and a growing sense of idealism leaving her desperately hoping for something better to aspire to. It becomes much more evident in All-New Wolverine where she's become much more adept at not using lethal force. Dr. Strange notes that she's actually much better at keeping her killer instincts under control than Logan ever was.
  • Children Forced to Kill: The first time Laura ever killed anyone was at the age of 9, when Rice used the Trigger Scent to force her to kill her sensei. Her first assassination mission was when she was 11. By the time she escaped the Facility at age 13 she had killed hundreds of people, and she continued killing even after joining the X-Men.
  • The Chosen One: She shares a connection to the Enigma Force, and has even been designated the chosen heir to its power.
  • The Chosen Many: After Logan's resurrection, Laura now shares the mantle of Wolverine with him.
  • Civvie Spandex:
    • Although Laura has had a few more traditional costumes (a variation of Wolverine's Shi'ar "wild" suit, her New X-Men, X-Force, and All-New X-Men uniforms, and now the Wolverine costume), she's spent almost as much time in civvies as she has in an actual costume: She was introduced in a Stripperific coat, corset/tank top, miniskirt, and fishnets ensemble (justified as she was a prostitute at the time), she actually spent more time in New X-Men wearing Painted-On Pants and a sports bra than in her actual uniform, wore a similar outfit for the duration of Avengers Academy, and only wore her then-current X-Force uniform twice during the Liu series.
    • It becomes almost literal in the costume Mike Choi designed for Volume 4, as he based it heavily on athletic wear after surveying women in their late-teens and early-20s about what they would actually wear as a superhero.
  • Classical Anti-Hero: When she first appears, Laura is plagued with doubts about herself. She's prone to bouts of suicidal depression, practices Self-Harm, questions whether she's "real" or worthy of life because she's a clone, accepts her role as a killer and that it devalues her compared to people like Wolfsbane, has a strained relationship with her father figure as a result, wonders whether she even has a soul, (and even asks Ghost Rider to use his Penance Stare on her) and believes she deserves punishment for the things she did under the Facility's control. Over time, she comes to accept that she had no control over what the Facility made her do, (especially when the Trigger was involved) accepts that being a clone doesn't mean she's not a "real" person and comes to value her own life, and adopts a Thou Shalt Not Kill attitude, using lethal force only as a last resort.
  • Clones Are People, Too:
    • It tends to vary depending on her self-esteem. When she first appeared she thought very little of herself, and for a time she viewed herself as expendable in part because she was a clone. However after Character Development greatly improved her sense of self worth, she's now come to believe that clones are just as "real" as normal people. However it's quite common for people seeking to put her down to call her "clone" as an insult, and much of the torture inflicted on her by the Facility was because Rice did not differentiate her from Wolverine.
    • After a botched mission to infiltrate the Vault time capsule resulted in Laura and her team being trapped in the pocket dimension for centuries, it was assumed she'd died with the rest of the team and a clone of her was created by the Five per the Resurrection Protocols, though due to a slip-up the clone was given a totally adamantium-plated skeleton like Logan's. It later transpired that the original Laura was still alive, now with white streaks in her hair, and the two worked it out so that the younger Laura took over the Wolverine moniker while the older Laura started going by Talon again.
  • Clone Angst: Zig Zagging. Because Laura actually had to be implanted in a womb, carried to term, and raised from birth, she's a bit more realistic than the typical comic book clone and generally averts the "Am I Real?" angst most are subject to. Hellverine was able to get under her skin by telling her that as a clone she doesn't have a soul, and Blackheart once managed to distract her by telling her he can confirm whether or not she does. She even asked Ghost Rider to use his Penance Stare on her just to find out for sure.
  • Clone Degeneration: Laura is dying from this in the alternate future presented in the "Old Woman Laura" arc, although it sets in much later than is typical.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Laura's entire life at the Facility. Training from Hell, her claws surgically removed one by one without anesthesia, punished severely even when she completes missions successfully, constant physical and emotional abuse. Target X reveals that even her conditioning to the trigger scent involved outright torture when Laura is shown being electrocuted and nearly drowned.
  • Combat Parkour: Unlike her genetic father, Wolverine, X-23's fighting style is much more acrobatic and in many of her fight scenes she can be seen using flips and handstands to bring her foot claws into play, and because her body is much less durable since only her claws are bonded with adamantium.
  • Comfort Food: Played with subtly. Laura has shown a fondness for spicy foods in her own series after being raised in the Facility with no choice but the nutritionist's bland fare for her. Played with in that she eats things she didn't get to have; eating more familiar things would probably bring back bad memories.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: As noted on the trope page, a non-film example that's played with. It's initially inverted since Laura wasn't given a real name until she was thirteen years old, when Sarah names her as she's dying. Until then she was either referred to by her Facility codename, X-23, or various insults (particularly Rice calling her "animal") to dehumanize her. Most of her friends, loved ones and teammates just call her Laura, and occasionally they'll use "X" as a sort of nickname. She's addressed much less frequently as "X-23" in-universe (usually by people such as Kimura who intentionally use it to dehumanize her), though it is the name she's usually marketed under. She doesn't begin using a codename with regularity until she takes up the Wolverine mantle.
    • In her movie debut itself, the only appearances of "X-23" are in her dossiers (and more specifically, Laura is X-23-23, the 23rd subject of the project to create mutant clones). The bad guys refuse to use any name with her, but her nurse calls her Laura, leading Xavier and Logan to do so as well.
  • The Comically Serious: She rarely smiles, has never been shown truly laughing, and her sense of humor is very subdued, generally black, and trends towards the Deadpan Snarker (emphasis on "deadpan"). Much humor is derived at her expense as she reacts to the insanity that surrounds the X-Men with complete, stoic seriousness. She even views a potential racquetball game with the same intensity as she would wading into combat.
  • Competition Freak: All-New X-Men Volume 2 opens with Laura and Warren in a downhill skiing race in Vail. Laura uses her claws to cut off branches of passing trees to slow Warren, and complains he cheated when he turns to his wings to catch her when she falls off the mountain.
  • Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Laura is very annoyed by Warren's insistence on white-knighting her, as she's fully capable of taking care of herself in the situations he's "rescuing" her from.
  • Cool Big Sis: Was one to her cousin Megan, (even though the timeline in Innocence Lost suggests Megan is actually somewhat older). Jubilee is one to her. Becomes this to the Sisters, especially Gabby, who admits a great deal of admiration towards her to Chandler.
  • Cool Helmet: The mask that's part of her second costume is a hard shell helmet, rather than a simple cowl. This both protects her from getting shot in the head, and is also a much more practical way for it to work with her hair.
  • The Cowl: Started out as this, especially during her tenure in the New X-Men. Part of her Character Development is her transformation from this into The Cape.
  • Creepy Child: Laura's icy stoicism makes her off-putting to almost everyone she meets.
  • Cultured Badass: An alternate cover for All-New Wolverine #20 shows Laura and Gabby napping on a couch while reading MacBeth, while her mother read to her from The Art of War when she was a child, and she's a polyglot who speaks at least English, French, Japanese, and Russian. Laura is also known to play chess, and during the Liu series suggests she's quite good.
  • Cute Bruiser: Laura's ability to heal makes her very tough to kill, and she may be an even more dangerous fighter than Logan. She's also a very attractive young girl with a fondness for corsets and Stripperific outfits.
  • Dark Action Girl: Basically what the Facility turned her into. She usually dresses in dark colors, is often emotionally standoffish, and is willing to kill and torture to achieve her goals, even after joining the X-Men and attempting to turn her life around. However it's been increasingly downplayed over time, and while she's still able to kill if she has to, thanks to Character Development it's more and more her last resort. By the beginning of All-New Wolverine she's verging on outright becoming The Cape.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Hoo boy. Tortured, abused, trained from childhood to be a living weapon, treated as if she weren't even human by those who created her, forced to kill the only two people who showed her kindness and compassion during her training (one of whom was her mother), and gave up her only other family to protect them from Kimura after she finally escaped. And this isn't even getting into her time as a Street Walker. And unlike Logan for most of his history, she remembers every moment.
  • Darker and Edgier: As badly as X-23 suffered in Evolution, her better-known comics version endured even worse. To the point that when she made her bow in the comics, it was as a virtually mute and catatonic child prostitute.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Gradually evolves into this. note  In particular, she reassures Jubilee that being a vampire does not automatically make her a predatory monster.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Laura's Brutal Honesty often manifests as this. As her social skills have improved she's developed a distinctly dry sense of humor.
  • Death Seeker: Downplayed in recent years, but much more evident in her past, when she was willing to sacrifice herself for others without hesitation, and took many actions that were potentially suicidal.
  • Deconstructed Character Archetype: X-23 is pretty much what you'd actually get out of a raised-from-birth Living Weapon Tyke Bomb who endure years of Training from Hell. She was virtually destroyed emotionally by the years of abuse and torture she received at the Facility, leaving her a PTSD-ridden wreck prone to falling into Heroic BSODs at the drop of a hat. Because she was deprived of the affection, emotional support, and socialization a child requires for normal development she's often lost in social interactions, easily confused by her emotions, and frequently experiences bouts of severe and possibly suicidal depression. At least one analysis of her character suggests she suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, and a significant portion of her development in the books has been spent on repairing the damage that was done to her.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Although X-23: Innocence Lost reveals X-23's origins, the story itself actually focuses on her mother, Sarah.
  • Defusing The Tykebomb/I Am Not a Gun: She is struggling to find an identity other than "living weapon," and strongly dislikes being used in that manner. This makes the trigger scent particularly upsetting for her, because it allows someone to make her kill against her will.
  • Deliberate Injury Gambit: Being a very strategic fighter, Laura is not above taking advantage of her Healing Factor if she can turn it to her advantage.
  • Depending on the Artist:
    • She's sometimes drawn with dark skin like her original design in Evolution.
    • Although she's canonically only modestly to a bit above averagely endowed, Paco Medina and Humberto Ramos gave her a positively massive rack during New X-Men. See exhibit DD◊.
    • Her height also tends to vary between short to average, not helped by the fact she's often drawn shorter than Logan, whose height has also varied significantly from artist to artist. Her official height is listed as 5'1".
    • Though Laura is canonically Caucasian in the main universe, some artists draw her in a way that she almost appears Asian or even Latina.
    • Occasionally, covers will draw her slightly beefy and resemble a slightly older version of her Evolution design, only for the story to use her more common skinny goth look.
    • Although her eyes are canonically green, they've also been colored brown or blue in different books.
  • Depending on the Writer:
    • In the X-Books, Laura is established as having a Healing Factor superior to Wolverine's (see below). However, once she gets to Avengers Academy, Hank Pym warns Hazmat that "her healing factor isn't as strong as Wolverine's". The writer later admitted to the mistake on his part in the letters pages.
    • Her speech patterns are generally accepted to be more formal and laconic than her peers, and tends not to use slang. However the degree tends to vary between writers from outright Spock Speak (Liu) to more naturalistic but still proper (Kyle and Yost), with some signs that her dialogue has become much more relaxed to coincide with her Character Development (Taylor). However some writers dispense with this altogether and write her as they would any teen character (Bendis).
    • Although canonically a Genius Bruiser who carefully analyzes a situation before acting with the most effective strategy (and she can do it quickly, at that), it's not uncommon for some writers to forget the "Genius" part and just throw her right at a threat in a brute-force frontal assault.
  • The Determinator: Laura is incredibly stubborn, a trait Logan wryly notes she gets from him, and she will keep coming no matter how badly she's hurt. Especially in issue 21 of All-New Wolverine. While everyone helping cure The Plague ravaging Roosevelt Island has to stop once their healing factors are overwhelmed so they can recover themselves, Laura pushes herself far beyond her limits out of sheer force of will to save as many people as she can. When her healing factor fails she keeps going. When the disease begins to ravage her body, she keeps going. When Ironheart tells her she has to stop before she kills herself, she keeps going. When she's nothing more than a withered shell of a human being, she keeps going until she finally collapses.
  • Disposable Sex Worker: Zebra Daddy makes it quite clear he sees X-23 as property he can discard on a whim, even putting out the eye of another of his girls as punishment when X escapes and he thinks the girl helped. When he finally catches up to her in the climax, Daddy quite remorselessly and casually guns her down. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't know what she really is. She makes short work of him when she finally gets fed up with him.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Unlike her father, Laura rarely loses her head in combat, and instead approaches killing with chillingly cold and collected detachment. If she's ever visibly angry when she's coming for you, you should be running. Fast.
  • Distaff Counterpart: To Wolverine and Daken. The writers explicitly designed her with the question in mind: "If Wolverine were the male of the species, what would the female be like?" They decided that she would be leaner so she could chase prey like a lioness and would have two claws on her hands and one on each foot so that she could climb trees and puncture the gut of any predators who managed to tackle her.
  • The Dog Bites Back: She kills Zebra Daddy in the finale of the first series. It's made clear that Daddy is incredibly violent, and both verbally and physically abusive towards the girls he pimps for, and it's implied that he leveled the same abuse on her as well, firmly making it this trope. Considering who she is, it invites a bit of Fridge Logic as to how she even came to be under his control in the first place.
  • Domino Mask:
    • Her X-Force costume incorporates one with red lenses.
    • The design is also present on Mike Choi's concept artwork for the 2018 series. She also wears them in the series proper, where this trope is combined with Goggles Do Something Unusual, acting as infrared or night vision goggles.
  • Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: X23 was abused by her creator because she was an Opposite-Sex Clone of Wolverine. He hated Wolverine because of his father's death related to the Weapon X project, and so X-23, grown from his DNA, made a good scapegoat for his frustrations with the other mutant.
  • The Dreaded: Let's put it this way: she was dangerous enough from the start of her career that even Captain America was wary of her, and while she may still be barely functional as a human being on all but her very best days, most people who aren't significantly above her weight class know to give her a wide berth unless she's unquestionably an ally.
  • Due to the Dead: After Logan's death she does this twice: First by dyeing her forelocks gold and blue, his most iconic colors, as a tribute. Later, this is one of the reasons why she took up the Wolverine name herself.
  • Dull Surprise: Pretty much her default expression throughout NYX. She's pretty much just there, and barely reacting to anything around her. Justified by later stores; she's mired very deeply in a Heroic BSoD during the events with this book.
  • Duplicate Divergence: After her return from the Vault in X-Men (2021), there are offically two Laura Kinneys walking around as a result of the Five using the ressurection protocol to bring her back from a backup taken prior to the Vault mission without a solid conformation of death. The "new" Laura keeps the Wolverine mantle while also having the adamantium skeleton Proteus mistakenly gave her. The "original" Laura (distinguished by a streak of grey in her black hair) continues her relationship with Synch, joined back up with Cyclops' X-Men, and became the sole beneficiary of the resurrection protocol by virtue of tenure. The two have also agreed to never see eachother after their initial meeting to set up some personal boundaries.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Subject to this in her early appearances in Uncanny X-Men, before her personality was formally established in Innocence Lost, Target: X, and New X-Men. For example in Uncanny she immediately introduces herself as "X-23" when she encounters Wolverine, even though she later would rarely use that name herself. Uncanny also suggests that she and Logan had never met before, or that Logan had no idea who she was, even though Target X would establish that Sarah Kinney sent him a copy of her letter before attempting to free her.note  And while she's always been portrayed as anti-social, under Claremont it manifested as a much more snarling and Feral Child personality than The Stoic she's best known as. She's also frequently drawn aping Psylocke's mannerisms in the background in Uncanny, something that would be out of character under her later characterization. Additionally, one early issue implied her entire skeleton was bonded with adamantium, when it was later established that only her claws are.
  • Emotionless Girl:
    • Through multiple traumatic events in her backstory, Laura learned to never trust or emotionally connect with anyone. This made her an outcast among her fellow teenagers. But her character development (and eventual journey to find herself) ultimately subverts this trope; she gradually becomes accustomed to emotion, and bonds with other abuse victims who understand why she prefers solitude. By the time of later books she's interacting with others on a relatively normal, if still more reserved, manner.
    • It's further implied that one of the reasons she repressed her emotions is because she didn't know how to handle them or the memories of her past; when she did completely abandon her stoic exterior, her displays of emotion tended to be quite extreme and often explosive (such as destroying a bathroom in a confused rage when she saw Surge kiss Hellion). Ironically, the emotionally detached state that others scorned her for was in place for their own safety.
  • Empty Shell: The Facility deprived her of emotional connections and subjected her to horrific physical and emotional abuse to strip her of her humanity, and it's been noted several times that she had so little sense of self during her captivity and days as a prostitute that she truly didn't realize the things done to her were even wrong.
  • Escaped from the Lab: She was created and raised in a lab before escaping at age thirteen, but not before being subjected to extreme torture during her time there.
  • Evil Counterpart: Daken, in a way. Both are genetic children of Logan, both tend to only use two of their claws and save the third for special attacks, both have messed up pasts. They have a mutual respect for each other, partly because they are so alike.
  • Expressive Mask: The eyes on Laura's cowl shift slightly with her expression when drawn by Ig Guarra. Largely averted by Lopez and Takara.
  • Extreme Doormat: Despite being a highly-trained assassin and deadly fighter with adamantium Wolverine Claws and a Healing Factor, it didn't stop Laura from being walked all over at different times in her early life.
  • Family Eye Resemblance: Played with:
    • Laura's eyes were made green to establish her Strong Family Resemblance to her creator/mother, Sarah Kinney, even though Laura doesn't actually possess any of Sarah's genetic material. The Hunt For Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda #4 reveals this is because Laura does indeed carry Sarah's DNA, making her genetically her daughter.
    • In Generations #3 Logan remarks that Laura has his mother's eyes. However as noted above, Laura's eyes are green, while Elizabeth Howlett's are blue, making it something in Laura's eyes that reminds him of his mother, rather than their appearance.note 
  • Fanservice with a Smile: Her first encounter with the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men came while working as a waitress at "Wannabees," a mutant-themed night club where the attractive female staff dresses as mutant superheroes.
  • Fastball Special: Although not as frequently as the Trope Maker himself, Laura has gotten her shot at it as well.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: The Noodle Incident which leads to their friendship was never revealed, but by the time of "Old Woman Laura", she was close enough with Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) that Kamala's only issue with Laura breaking into the White House (as in this timeline, Kamala had been elected President of the United States) was that since Laura was also a world leader, she could have made an appointment instead.
  • Flanderization: Once her backstory was revealed, Laura was established as a highly-skilled fighter, and a very intelligent and highly educated young girl with extensive assassin and black ops training, while New X-Men expanded upon this further by revealing her to be a gifted strategist as well. Most writers now completely ignore everything after "highly-skilled fighter," and give her all the subtlety in combat of Leeroy Jenkins.
  • Feral Child: Her depiction under the pen of Chris Claremont in her appearances in Uncanny X-Men. Also how she's presented in the first half of Logan.
  • Genius Bruiser: Laura is depicted as very intelligent, able to formulate multiple plans for killing everyone around her and choose the most efficient and best means of doing so within seconds. She's also an incredibly skilled fighter both with weaponry and her own claws. Marvel's official power ratings actually classify her as a Genius-level intellect, and her fighting prowess is ranked at the highest possible level.
  • Glass Cannon: Like Logan, Laura has adamantium-reinforced claws in her forearms that can cut through most things with absurd ease. In addition, she possesses similar claws in her feet that augment her graceful fighting style, letting her dish out tons of damage before her opponents can even react. However, unlike Logan — whose entire skeleton is laced with adamantium, giving him unbreakable bones — only Laura's claws are augmented, meaning she can still be incapacitated by broken bones and her organs are more vulnerable.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: The eyepieces of her second costume have infrared scanning capabilities.
  • Going Commando: While Laura's previous costume for X-Force clearly included a thong (leading to her infamous Panty Shot and Trouser Space moment in her first solo series), issue 9 subtly implies that she's not wearing anything under the Wolverine suit.note  Considering that the Wolverine suit is no less form-fitting than her X-Force duds, it's the only way to escape panty lines.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: Laura has a healing factor that is more potent than Logan's due to the small amount of adamantium in her body. This is important since, unlike Logan, her lack of a full adamantium skeleton leaves her bones and organs much more vulnerable.
  • Goth: Laura's manner of dress often has a gothic influence, particularly during the time she spent as a prostitute during NYX.
  • Grew Beyond Their Programming: A biological example: Laura was created to be nothing more than a Living Weapon. The Facility didn't even recognize her as a human being, with feelings and desires of her own. Now, she's a compassionate woman who is trying her best not to kill, has built friendships, desires something noble to aspire to, and has even fallen in love.
  • Happily Adopted: Laura was taken in by Wolverine, who served as a moral compass and father figure while she recovered from the effects of being raised as an assassin. He later legally adopted her.
  • Harmful to Minors: Practically from birth, Laura was subjected to violent imagery and outright physical and emotional abuse, including being ordered to kill a puppy when her creators decided she had too much empathy, who then threatened to torture it to death and make her watch when she failed to complete the assignment. And this is before they started sending her on assassination missions, she killed her own mother during her escape under the effects of the Trigger Scent, and became a child prostitute under an abusive and violent pimp on the streets of New York City.
  • Hates Being Touched: Rarely initiated physical contact when first introduced, even with people she liked. Justified in that most physical contact she received as a child was abusive, and such feelings are very much Truth in Television among abuse victims. It eventually becomes downplayed due to Character Development, though she is still often uncomfortable with physical contact unless she's the one initiating it.
  • Healing Factor: The same as Wolverine's, of course, but much more efficient since she only has adamantium in her claws, and thus it's taxed far less than Logan's skeleton taxes his. Her mother speculated that Laura's ability to heal would be similarly slowed if her entire skeleton was bonded as well. The only thing that defeats it is a full-face blast from Nimrod's lasers. There are indications it can naturally fluctuate due to her emotional state. For example, the cuts she inflicts on herself when stressed or upset tend to leave visible injuries far longer than damage she sustains in combat. As with Logan, several of her secondary powers are a byproduct of her healing abilities, including: Super-Senses, mild Super-Strength,note  and Super-Reflexes, Ideal Illness Immunity, Perpetual Stamina, Immune to Drugs, note , reduced aging, among others.
  • Hellbent For Leather: This is her typical look in civilian dress; leather pants, skirts, corsets, boots, etc.
  • Heroic BSoD: Laura is constantly slipping in and out of these as a result of all the trauma going on in her life, and the fact she can rarely catch a break before something else bad happens to her.
    • She's in the midst of a major emotional collapse when the O5 find her, not only from her experiences on Murderworld, but then being captured and tortured nearly to death over and over again by the Purifiers. Jean tries to read her mind against Kitty's objections, only to be utterly horrified when she learns what was done to her.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Has a tendency to attempt these at the drop of a hat. It's heavily implied her preparedness to do this stems from her poor sense of self-worth and difficulties accepting herself as a real person whose life has value. However even after moving on from these issues she's still quick to put her life on the line for the sake of others.
    • She's prepared to kill herself to prevent Kimura from using her as a weapon. However Kimura forces her hand by revealing she's located Megan and Debbie, and will kill them if she doesn't cooperate.
    • In issue 21, Laura nearly kills herself trying to save as many of the infected people of Roosevelt Island as she can, pushing herself until her healing factor simply gives out from the strain of fighting the virus.
    • In "Old Woman Laura", Laura intends to go down to rescue her sister and take Doom with her. Ultimately subverted, as Gabby browbeats her into living and finding a fix for her Clone Degeneration at the end.
  • Hero with Bad Publicity: The fact that Laura averts this where the general public is concerned is part of what sets off the Orphans of X, and drives their plot to see her dead, and the other mutants of her type wiped out. They simply can't accept the fact that someone who has ruined as many innocent lives as she has can still be considered a hero.
  • Hero Worship:
    • A series of Funny Background Events in her early appearances in Uncanny X-Men suggested she had some of this for Psylocke, as she could often be seen in the back of panels mimicking Betsy's mannerisms.
    • Also of Logan. Funny thing about it is that it didn't start until after he died, such as dyeing her forelocks gold and blue in his memory.
  • Hollywood Science: The process in which X-23 was cloned is currently impossible. However, in a universe where humans can fly, shoot lasers out of their eyes and talk to gods on their cell phones, it's hardly significant.
  • Huge Girl, Tiny Guy: Depending on the Artist. Her height vs. Logan's height varies a lot. Mostly due to how Logan's height changed since Hugh Jackman played him in the movie (Logan started at 5'2", spent a lot of time at 5'5", and now is sometimes drawn actually tall.) During New X-Men, Laura was half a head shorter than Logan. She is also usually depicted as shorter than her primary love interests, Hellion and Warren. She's officially listed at 5'1", so canonically would be this towards most anyone.

    I-Z 
  • I Am Not Pretty: Laura is quite clearly a very beautiful young woman, whose looks are frequently commented upon. Laura, however, doesn't see it for herself, which stems from her abusive upbringing aimed to strip her of her humanity, resulting in very poor self-esteem and sense that her life has little value.
  • Iconic Outfit: The corset, fishnets and miniskirt outfit Laura wore in Target: X may be one of her most common looks in fan art, even though she only wore that in one book (though it is similar to the outfits she wore in her debut appearance in NYX). If not this, she's drawn in her black Painted-On Pants, sports bra, and locket from New X-Men. Her X-Force uniform is perhaps her most popular actual costume.
  • Idiot Ball: Laura herself acknowledges she was stupid for attacking Blob head-on without a real plan.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: A part of Laura's explanation for her increasing recklessness in All-New X-Men (2016) is in part this. She despairs of everyone seeing her as the Emotionless Girl with No Social Skills, and continues to struggle being close to others. She thinks rushing into danger without consideration of the consequences would help dispel that.
  • Immortal Assassin: It's unclear how long someone with her type of Healing Factor can live if left to their own devices, but based on Wolverine and Sabretooth Laura could have a lifespan of centuries if not longer (Romulus is possibly thousands if not tens of thousands of years old). While she can be killed, Laura's ability to bounce back rapidly from even fatal injuries makes that incredibly difficult.
  • Implacable Man: If Laura was sent to kill you, she would. Not. Stop. until you were dead, and if you were marked with the trigger scent, nothing would save you. She will keep coming unless you can inflict enough damage to knock her out, and once she does get back up she'll just come after you again. Unfortunately, this comes back to bite the Facility themselves hard when Sarah gets fed up with their abuse and turns Laura loose against them. Once Sarah orders her to take them down, nothing could stop her from slaughtering everyone (not that she needed to be ordered to do it). Laura still retains this tenacity even after joining the X-Men.
  • Innocence Lost: Laura's origin story is even called this, and shows in brutal detail the cruelty inflicted on her by the Facility to strip away her humanity and turn her into an emotionless killing machine. They ultimately failed, but still managed to inflict quite severe damage that she still struggles to recover from.
  • Innocently Insensitive: Because of her lack of social skills Laura at times has these moments due to a combination of Brutal Honesty, Cannot Tell a Lie, and genuinely not understanding what is or is not appropriate to say.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: With Gambit. And Psylocke. And Kitty Pryde. And Jubilee. Frankly, Laura shows a general tendency to have an easier time relating to and establishing friendships with people older than her, while struggling with people her own age.
  • It's All My Fault: Laura blames herself for the virus ravaging Roosevelt Island, feeling she is responsible since the alien child carrying it came to earth looking for her. She's later quick to accept that the Orphans aren't wrong for being angry over all the people she killed and families she hurt or destroyed as a result, pointing out to Megan that even though she was as much a victim of the Facility as her targets and their loved ones, she was still the killer.
  • Junior Counterpart: To her father, Wolverine, with all the same powers. However it's mildly subverted in that Laura is much more tactical and in control of her anger than Logan ever was.
  • Killer Rabbit: Laura is physically quite unimposing, generally being depicted as a slight, pretty teenage girl. She's also one of the most deadly assassins in the entire Marvel Universe, having a body count into the hundreds, if not thousands. By the time she was thirteen. On numerous missions Laura has been shown actively taking advantage of this trope by playing up her harmless appearance (whether by disguising herself as a handicapped girl, or a Girl Scout selling cookies, etc.). Even those who have heard of her are stunned when they actually see her for the first time.
  • Kill the Ones You Love: Laura, as a living weapon, wasn't meant to bond with other people at the Facility. Those who did anyway were killed by her own hands in artificially induced rages.
  • Left for Dead: On one mission, Rice decides to participate and attempts to abandon X-23 to be killed, murdering his own team in the process as an excuse to withdraw prematurely. X-23 reaches the rendezvous point in time nonetheless, and he deliberately leaves her behind, smugly dropping his father's dogtags to make sure she knew why he was doing it. She still survives and manages to return to the installation on her own.
  • Legacy Character: Laura has taken on the mantle of Wolverine in the aftermath of his death and Secret Wars.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Normally Laura averts this, as she is a disciplined fighter who very carefully analyzes the situation before she acts. However once she loses control of her emotions she's prone to acting impulsively and rashly, and can rush into trouble without thinking clearly.
  • Lineage Comes from the Father: Invoked by the Facility, who created her with Logan's DNA in order to continue the Weapon X experiments. She got her looks from her mother, however.
  • Little Miss Badass: In X-Men: Evolution, Laura defeated all of the X-Men, despite being half the age of most, if not all, of them. Although this version did have her skeleton laced in adamantium and the element of surprise (and even the ones who knew they were being attacked had no idea who they were up against and had no way to fight back), it's not likely Wolverine himself could do this.
  • Living MacGuffin: The entire second half of NYX is driven by Zebra Daddy's attempts to get her back.
  • Loss of Identity: Her entire childhood was essentially engineered for the purpose of dehumanizing her.
  • The Lost Lenore: Hellion is this for her in "Old Woman Laura's" alternate future.
  • Made of Iron: Even without her healing factor taken into consideration, Laura can take an incredible beating for someone as tiny as she is. Part of this is that her healing factor naturally makes her bones denser, meaning they're harder to break in the first place.
  • Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Laura's creator, Dr. Sarah Kinney, was described as the foremost expert on mutant genetics and was hired by the Facility after her proposal to clone Wolverine. Sarah's interest was purely For Science!, and directly likened the idea of cloning a mutant to godhood. All this knowing full well that the child would be raised to be a Living Weapon heading in. Laura herself is frequently described as Sarah's spitting-image, (she does carry Sarah's DNA, after all) and it's made quite clear Laura is intended to be a quite beautiful young woman.
  • Mama Bear: Do not hurt or threaten Gabby. Laura nearly killed Old Man Logan when she thinks he's killed her, and very well might have gone through with it if Gabby hadn't stopped her. When Gabby is later endangered by the Brood in issue 22, Laura ignores Rocket's warnings to run away, and instead tries to cut her way through the entire horde to save her.
  • Matricide: She was forced to kill her mother with the trigger scent just as they were about to escape together.
  • Meaningful Name: Although frequently cited as the 23rd attempt to clone Wolverine period, Word of God confirms the name "X-23" specifically refers to her being the 23rd attempt at a female clone, after an unknown number of males. Her facility code name therefore derives "X" from the X chromosome, and "23" for the 23rd attempt.
  • Mistaken Death Confirmation: Discussed. Laura actually survived the events of the Vault and was successfully rescued by Forge, which immediately caused a debacle in Krakoan leadership as this meant that they had jumped the gun and cloned her by mistake. While Beast expressed some healthy skepticism on whether or not Laura's survival in the Vault was Too Good to Be True, Jean Grey shut Hank down while calling into question whether or not his time in X-Force has permanently damaged his ability to believe that good things can genuinely happen.
  • Modified Clone:
    • Laura is essentially this: Because the Y chromosome from Logan's DNA sample was damaged, Sarah Kinney modified the genetic structure to create a female instead.
    • Assuming that Laura had been killed following a botched mission, the Five resurrected her and accidentally gave her an adamantium skeleton. It later transpired that the original Laura survived, with the younger clone continuing to go by Wolverine and the older original going by Talon.
  • Mook Horror Show: You know the monster that might go down with enough firepower, but will gut the poor slob closing in for a coup de grace and/or track down those who leave it for dead? This is her, just add assassin skills to the mix.
  • Morality Pet:
    • Acts as one for Wolverine. Gambit as well in her self titled series, and he also sometimes acts as one to her. Hellion can be considered hers during their time with the New X-Men. She's become one for Daken, too, as Laura is one of the only people he has demonstrated genuine affection and respect for. She also acts as one for Sarah.
  • Ms. Fanservice:
    • Her most common civvies include corsets, short skirts, Zettai Ryouiki, Stocking Filler, and Painted-On Pants. Even her uniforms have traditionally been more revealing, such as her X-Force outfit.
    • Although downplayed more recently, with her civilian style becoming a bit more casual and modest, her wearing the classic Gold and Blue spandex as Wolverine is its own brand of fanservice for some. That the costume is skin-tight still leads to more conventional Male Gaze moments (including quite infamously in a clear shot of her backside in the Monsters Unleashed tie-in to All-New X-Men, and on the cover to the final issue of Inhumans vs. X-Men).
    • The dress she wore in Rogue and Gambit's wedding demonstrate that, despite her height (or lack of it), she's got proportionally long legs.
    • Her post-ResurrXtion black and gray suit qualifies as well, combining a biker aesthetic with bared shoulders without the jacket.
  • Mundane Utility: One of the things she's used her claws for, is trimming Gambit's hair.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: The trigger scent sends Laura into a blind, murderous rage in which she will kill anyone marked with it, Friend or Foe?, and no matter how much she cares about them. She's been consistently shown to be very sensitive about its effects on her.
  • My Greatest Failure:
    • Laura is deeply haunted by and remorseful over all of the deaths she caused, and once even asked Ghost Rider to use his Penance Stare on her because she believed she deserved punishment for all of her killings.
    • Killing her mother in a trigger scent-fueled rage is the single biggest one, to the point that when Logan finally manages to bring her to the Xavier school, Emma Frost tries to force her to leave by taunting her with a psychic ghost of her mother's dead body blaming Laura for her death. It's enough to drive the normally stoic Laura to tears.
  • Mysterious Waif: Almost nothing about her is revealed over the course of NYX. Her name, who she is, where she came from, and how she wound up working for Daddy is never discussed. She also drives the second half of the story as Daddy will stop at nothing to get her back.
  • Natural Weapon: As with Logan, Laura's claws are bone beneath the adamantium.
  • Never Given a Name: X-23 wasn't named at all, until Sarah Kinney names her Laura in the very last pages of X-23: Innocence Lost #6. She was thirteen years old before she was given a name other than her Facility codename/designation.
  • No Name Given: She's never named within NYX, and when Bobby asks her name when going out to find her, Zebra Daddy acknowledges he doesn't even know what it is.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Initially averted, and ultimately invoked. Laura is the prototype, and once she is successfully created essentially is also the plans since the Facility can (and does, as is discovered near the end) of Innocence Lost use her genetic material to create additional clones (which would also serve as a backup). The entirety of the last act is Sarah setting X loose with specific orders to destroy her unborn "sisters," and all equipment and research associated with the project to prevent the Facility from recreating her. A big reason the Facility has made several attempts to recover her is so they can use her as a template for more assassins.
  • No Social Skills: Because Laura was deprived of normal human social interaction, her social skills are generally rather lacking. She's blunt, and struggles with social niceties.
  • Not Allowed to Grow Up: Word of God from Craig Kyle is that this was the plan: Because Laura's healing factor was activated at such an early age, she would remain a child much longer than normal. While still technically in effect thanks to Comic-Book Time, it was still averted when Joe Quesada aged her up to a teenager in NYX. Averted further in All-New Wolverine, in which she is firmly established as an adult at 20 years old.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • With Vampire Jubilee. Jubilee and Laura realize they have much in common, with X-23 having to struggle with finding herself and the trigger scent and Jubilee struggling to control her newfound blood lust. They get along really well though.
    • She has this with Daken as well: Technically brother and sister, both raised by some very, very bad people, but while Daken embraces what Romulus made him, Laura desperately wants to be something more than just a weapon and killer. Nonetheless, their similarities give them a fair bit of mutual respect towards one another.
    • Also with Kimura, of all people. Both suffered severe physical and emotional abuse in their past that's largely shaped and defined who they are now. Both also only had one or two people in their lives when they were young who showed them love and kindness, and attempted to repair the damage that was done. The difference is that Kimura became an Ax-Crazy psychopath who uses the abuse and bullying she was subjected to as an excuse to do it to others herself, while Laura is making an ongoing effort to heal.
    • And again with Siphon. She talks down both Daken and Blade from killing him because she can empathize with what it is to be tortured and turned into a weapon, and to constantly be fighting against her conditioning to kill. As a result she genuinely desires to try and help him.
    • She defeats the Orphans of X not by destroying the organization, but by joining them, making it clear that she was as much a victim as they were, and promising to bring those who forced her to kill their loved ones to justice.
  • Not So Stoic: Laura as a rule keeps her emotions tightly controlled, and it's a significant character trait she has difficulties expressing, or even understanding, what she's feeling. She endures the years of physical and emotional abuse inflicted on her by Zander Rice and Kimura in complete silence, even when her creator/mother, Sarah, tries to get her to talk about it. At least until she's forced to kill Sarah by the Trigger Scent during their escape from the Facility, at which point for a couple pages Laura becomes a lonely, broken girl desperately crying over her mother's body to come back to her. She also breaks down in tears once again when she's forced to cut off ties with her cousin and aunt to protect them form Kimura. The only other times she generally lets her guard down is when someone she cares about is in danger. In which case it's a very, very bad idea to be on the receiving end.
  • Of Corsets Sexy: If she's not in a midriff-baring tank top, chances are she's wearing one of these.
  • Official Couple:
    • Starting with the Bendis-era, Laura began dating a time-displaced Warren Worthington AKA Angel. But due to the fact that he would eventually have to return to his own time period, their relationship inevitably ended with little fanfare.
    • During the Krakoa-era, Laura and Everett Thomas inevitably became a Battle Couple while suriving the perils of the Vault together. When Laura miracously returned from the Vault with Forge' assistance, she immediately glomps and kisses Everett in their Big Damn Reunion.
  • One-Man Army: Laura is a highly-trained assassin and skilled fighter. When her mother turned her loose on the Facility, she was slaughtering their soldiers by the dozens.
  • Only Sane Man: She calls Cap out on the clusterfuck that Civil War II has become, pointing out exactly how dangerous it is for them to act so rashly over Ulysses' predictions — especially once their efforts to prevent them ends up making them come true — and just how stupid it is that heroes are allowing themselves to be drawn into fighting other heroes over the matter. She then informs him in no uncertain terms that she'll be sitting the fight out.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Laura is stoic if a little upset at working as a prostitute, other girls being harmed, or a John who is acting off and pulls a knife. When Laura looks like she wants to try and help said John and he kills himself however she is horrified.
  • Oppose What You Suffered: This is almost a Hat:
    • Being an Opposite-Sex Clone, Laura is extremely sensitive to genetic experimentation and exploitation]]. It lead to her siding with the Sisters against Alchemax in All-New Wolverine, and the central plot of the Tamaki series involved her hunting down and shutting down further attempts to experiment on her genetics. She has outright stated that she refuses to let anyone else suffer as she did, and intends to make good on that promise.
    • Additionally, Laura spent some time as a Street Walker under a particularly sadistic and cruel pimp. As a result, she's evolved into something of a Wife-Basher Basher who goes out of her way to bust up any human and sex traffickers she comes across. On several occasions she has outright killed people she caught brutalizing prostitutes (and in one case killed a man who murdered a girl she thought was a prostitute).
  • Opposite-Sex Clone: She was intended to be one of Wolverine, though it was later revealed that she's closer to being his biological daughter.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • Laura is typically calm, collected, and withdrawn, and prone to Dissonant Serenity even while gutting Mooks. Even though she inherited Logan's temper, she's much more in control of it, typically keeps her head in a fight, and kills with a cold, efficient detachment. If she's ever visibly angry, you've likely just done something incredibly stupid, and you should be running. Fast.
    • On the less frightening end of the spectrum, when she breaks down emotionally she breaks down, and it's a sign of just how bad things are when Laura loses control of her emotional state. This has been downplayed as Character Development led to her expressing her feelings more freely, but her becoming unusually emotional is still a sure sign of a Heroic BSoD in progress.
    • Laura generally Hates Being Touched, and even as her behavior has normalized still largely avoids physical contact even with people she's close to. For Laura to initiate contact (such as hugging a distraught teen Cyclops after the latter learned his father was still alivenote ) demonstrates just how seriously she views the current moment.
  • Our Clones Are Different: Laura Kinney is an Opposite-Sex Clone of Wolverine created by the Facility. Because they couldn't do a direct clone of Wolverine because of the damaged DNA sample, they had to duplicate the x chromosome. Not only that, she was actually birthed by Sarah Kinney, who used some of her own DNA to complete the damaged sample. Because of this, later stories would pretty much retcon her clone status.
  • Parental Abandonment: Laura is still conflicted over her relationship with Logan. The fact he left her to virtually fend for herself at the Xavier School when she desperately wanted to make a family with him continues to haunt her. This experience leads her to make a conscious effort to avoid the same mistakes with Gabby that Logan made with her.
  • Parental Favoritism: Among Daken, Gabby and Laura, Laura is Logan's favorite.
  • Parental Substitute: Officially becomes one to her little "sister", Gabby, in issue 7 when her memories of Logan's failures as a father figure lead her to realizing the best place for the girl is with her.
  • Parrying Bullets: She pulls this off in issue 10, neatly slicing a bullet fired at her face in two. [From point-blank range.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Practically Laura's entire life has revolved around this. While she did kill innocents under the Facility, they also hired her out to kill some pretty bad people, as well. And of course when Sarah turns her loose on the Facility itself it becomes this. It's also generally her role on a team; much like Logan, she's the one willing to kill if she has to. Exaggerated when she's on X-Force, an entire team built on this principle.
  • Photographic Memory: O5 Cyclops remarks that she has one in the second volume of All-New X-Men, and she certainly demonstrates excellent memory and recall.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: Not exactly the strongest physically, but is quite deadly for someone whose actually shorter than Logan. Marvel: Avengers Alliance even classes her as a Bruiser. To put that into perspective, this is the same category as Colossus, Juggernaut, Hercules and Thor.
  • The Power of Love: Despite everything the Facility did to break her and forge her into an emotionless killing machine, it was Sarah Kinney's love for her as a daughter, defying orders to not treat her as a child whenever she could by reading to her and offering an emotional connection that preserved her humanity and helped her break free of the Facility's control.
  • Practically Different Generations: Laura is as much as fifty years younger than her brother, Daken, who was born in the late/mid-1940s. She's also this to her younger sister Gabby (who takes it further by being Younger than She Looks, since Gabby was rapid-aged while Laura grew up normally).
  • Precision F-Strike: Laura is generally much more reserved and controlled than Logan, so while she doesn't swear often, when she does she makes it count.
  • Professional Killer: This is what X-23 was raised to be. Not wanting to let that define her life, she's since changed her approach to be more in line with X-family ideals, but her complete ruthlessness makes her at times a more efficient killer than even Wolverine.
  • Promotion to Parent: Laura is unsure sure what to do with Gabby in the aftermath of the "Four Sisters" arc, and at first believes she needs to find somewhere else where she can be safe and live a normal life. However after some introspection on her own relationship with Logan in issue 7, Laura decides to take her in herself, and becomes this.
  • Psychic Block Defense: Laura has displayed a degree of resistance to powerful telepathy. It took Emma Frost a great deal of effort to bypass Laura's mental defenses in order to learn her true nature (though afterwards Emma was able to taunt her with a mental ghost of Laura's slain mother). Logan has also displayed a similar resistance in the past, but it's unclear if this is a result of their Healing Factor, training, or a result of tampering by Weapon X/The Facility.
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: Laura can work them very well, particularly helped by her being The Woobie. See Exhibit A◊. She ends up on the receiving end of these on separate occasions in #7, from both Gabby and Squirrel Girl.
  • The Quiet One: She speaks a bit of Japanese in training with her sensei, but doesn't speak in English until the final issues of the series. Even then, she doesn't speak much.
  • Turned Against Their Masters: She didn't need much encouragement to tear down the Facility once Sarah turned her loose. She even puts up her claws to beat Rice to death with the bare hands for 10 minutes.
  • Race Lift: Ironically it's her most familiar iteration that's the Race Lift:
    • In her original appearance in X-Men: Evolution, X-23 is Ambiguously Brown, with features that have been interpreted as anything from Latina to First Nations. Word of God states she was modeled on the girl — who was ethnic — who posed for the reference shoot as a thank you.
    • The books made her canonically Caucasian (which, considering she's a clone of Logan, makes sense that she would share his ethnicity). This extends to most other versions of Laura in both the comics and other media, who are also depicted as Caucasian.
    • In the Age of Apocalypse universe, X-23 is half-Japanese due to having Mariko Yashida as her mother. She also has the given name of Kirika, rather than Laura, and has the same claw arrangement as Logan. Many fans therefore view her as X-23 In Name Only.
    • In Logan, Laura is still Caucasian, but Latino (even being portrayed by Anglo-Spaniard actress Dafne Keen), as she was born out of a Mexican mother.
  • Rape as Backstory: Subtly done: Laura was no older than fifteen in NYX, during which time she was a prostitute under a sadistic and violent pimp. As she was legally unable to provide consent to most, if not all, of her Johns,note  and the fact that she was essentially forced into sexual slavery by her circumstances and Zebra Daddy's violent control over her (who it's implied also raped her), Laura was a victim of statutory (and possible actual) rape.
  • Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: She's most commonly drawn with fair skin and black hair, and it's frequently noted that Laura is a very attractive young woman.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: It means she's affected by trigger scent and you might want to do more than just "take warning." Varies Depending on the Artist to either being bloodshot, or outright glowing.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Logan's Red; Laura is The Stoic, laconic, and generally keeps her emotions tightly controlled. Logan, by contrast, is far more passionate and quick to anger. She's also generally accepted as much more intellectual and given to careful strategy even when angered, whereas Logan is typically depicted as The Berserker.
  • Retcon:
    • Laura's decision to spare Henry Sutter in Innocence Lost is treated as significant in that book because she never failed to complete a mission, and her refusing to kill him is a sign to Sarah that her humanity hadn't been entirely stolen from her. Later books introduce more people that Laura failed to kill as ordered. Some were other children she chose to spare (Liu series), and at least one individual she maimed, but managed to escape (All-New Wolverine).
    • Her first appearance in a main X-Men title came in Uncanny X-Men under Claremont, and she first met Wolverine when he, Rachel, and the rest of the X-Men tracked her to Wannabee's, a mutant-themed nightclub. It's established in Uncanny that Logan had never even heard of Laura before. However this was retconned by creators Chris Yost and Craig Kyle in Target X and New X-Men: Target X established that Sarah informed Logan of her existence by sending him a copy of the letter she left for Laura. New X-Men changed their meeting in Uncanny to be staged for the benefit of the rest of the X-Men, with Logan pretending he didn't know her.
    • Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda #4 revealed that rather than all of her genetic material coming from Logan, as was previously established, she actually received enough from Sarah Kinney to be considered her biological daughter.
  • Scarily Competent Tracker: Her sense of smell is even better than Logan's, and she's demonstrably been able to locate individuals in a crowded city hours after they were last there. In one case it even allowed her to completely reconstruct a crime scene — including the movements of dozens of individuals — by scent alone. Combine that with her extensive espionage and intelligence training. So when she threatens some mooks by telling them once she has their scent there is nowhere they can hide from her, she's not bluffing.
  • Screw Destiny: When Old Man Logan tries to warn her about Gabby based on his experiences in his own timeline, Laura immediately shoots him down. Not only does she remind him that this isn't his universe and they're not bound by what happened there, but she rejects the idea of predetermination altogether and insists on finding her own way.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After chewing Cap out for causing the entire conflict in issues 10-12 in the first place, she demands that he and Hill leave her out of the Civil War, and notes she and Gabby will be retiring to somewhere they can't find them.
  • Self-Harm: She habitually cuts herself on the wrists and forearms with her claws, and is first shown to engage in this behavior as a reaction to being forced to kill her sensei as a test of the trigger scent. Laura can fall under all of the reasons for cutting noted on the trope page and one issue of her solo series suggests she may even be inflicting fatal injuries on herself: an employee at a hotel where she was staying with Gambit reported to his manager that it appeared as if someone attempted to commit suicide in a bathroom she just left. Her Healing Factor prevents her from dying from her wounds, however, and completely heals the resulting scars. As with many tropes relating to her Dark and Troubled Past this has faded as her Characterization Marches On.
  • Self-Harm: In her early days, she frequently seen cutting herself with her claws.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Laura tragically killed her own mother accidentally, when she smelled the trigger scent, which makes her mindlessly attack anyone in her range.
  • Sex Goddess: During her time as a hooker she was said to be "the best at what she does", and commanded a much higher price than the other girls her pimp controlled. She was also his personal favorite.
  • She-Fu: Laura's fighting style is highly acrobatic, using flips, handstands and cartwheels to bring her foot claws into play and to avoid being struck. Justified because her body is much less durable than Logan's since only her claws are laced with adamantium. Even though she does heal faster, she's much more prone to being knocked out of a fight by broken bones or dislocated (or severed) limbs.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Laura has been dealing with symptoms of PTSD almost all her life after the things that the Facility did to her, her time as a prostitute, and the many other hardships, tragedies, and battles she's been forced to endure, and her slow recovery has been a substantial part of her character development. Even then, she's continued to fight severe, possibly even suicidal, depression.
  • Sherlock Scan: Whenever Laura walks into a room, her brain immediately begins to analyze the situation and everyone in it, performing threat analysis, formulating multiple attack plans, and calculating the best method with which to kill everyone in the room. Her thoughts in Avengers Arena reveal that she can't turn it off, so she even does this to her friends.
  • Shout-Out: When first introduced, the John X-23 was in bed with tells her she's the best at what she does. Also counts as a subtle bit of Foreshadowing as to who she really is.
  • Smart People Play Chess: Laura is depicted as quite intelligent and certainly highly-educated. One issue of her solo series reveals she plays chess when Storm offers to teach her and Laura counters that she's never lost a match. She does quit their game after only a few moves, but only because Hellverine arrives, causing her to flee.
  • The Soulless: This is a running source of angst for Laura for much of her history, particularly throughout the Liu ongoing:
    • In The Killing Dream, Hellverine tells her that as a clone, (and because of all the death she's caused) she has no soul, and drags her into a Battle in the Center of the Mind to to give her a chance to prove him wrong. Laura encounters her inner self (later implied to actually be a part of the Enigma Force that remained with her after her previous contact with the entity), who reveals that she wasn't born an emotionless killing machine, but that it took the conscious effort of the project to break her. This revelation gives Laura the power to defeat the demon. However, she remains in doubt over how much of his taunting was the truth afterwards. When Miss Sinister later attempts to steal her body, Laura questions her about having a soul, but Sinister is unable to answer and admits it's something she's given little thought.
    • She also once asked Ghost Rider to use his Penance Stare on her, both because she believed she deserved to be punished for the pain she had caused, and, since it only works on someone who has a soul, because it would prove one way or another whether she did. However when he offered to carry out her wishes at the end of the encounter she ultimately decided it didn't matter.
    • During Circle of Four, a different demon, Blackheart, calls her a silly girl for pondering whether or not she has a soul by reminding her that she's in Hell, and people can't go to Hell without a soul.
    • Any remaining question about the matter is firmly laid to rest in All-New Wolverine #29, when Muramasa uses a piece of her soul to craft the Muramasa Armor.
  • Spock Speak: In her earlier series Laura had a very rigid, measured way of talking, and almost never used contractions. However this voice was primarily used when written under Liu, while other writers, including Kyle and Yost, tended to be more casual. Her voice under Bendis went much more towards the opposite extreme, veering near to the standard "Bendis Voice."
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: With the time-displaced Angel. No matter how strong or not her relationship with him is, it will ultimately end because at some point he must return to his own time. Their final breakup doesn't even occur on panel, and when he does return home they don't even say goodbye.
  • Status Quo Is God: Whatever development she goes through, inevitably she's going to find herself back in her depressive state.
    • Averted after Secret Wars, as she finally begins getting her life in order and moving past her trauma, complete with taking on her father's mantle.
    • There was an attempt to have Laura give up the Wolverine mantle and return to using the X-23 moniker in an on-going series that debuted during the Fresh Start initiative. But as soon as her solo series wrapped up and X-Men (2019) came into the picture, Laura returned to using the Wolverine mantle with Logan's blessing and was eventually elevated to become the offical Wolverine of the X-Men's new roster with all of her related character development still intact.
  • Stopped Caring: Much of her training went towards invoking this trope — teaching her not to act like an emotional or independent being.
  • Straight Man: Laura is pretty much this to everyone, as her sense of humor is very subtle, often black, and runs towards Deadpan Snarker (emphasis on the "deadpan"). It's especially pronounced whenever she comes into contact with wackier characters like Deadpool and Squirrel Girl.
  • Street Walker: She spent an unknown amount of time as one sometime between losing Megan and Debbie, and joining the X-Men. It was detailed in her first appearance in NYX but has been discussed or referenced several times since then.
  • Stripperiffic: Spends pretty much the entirety of the NYX (when she's not actually naked) in high heels, fishnets, short skirt, and a corset. Justified, considering her line of work.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Played with in issue 1. She actually doesn't resemble Logan much at all, with almost all of her looks coming from Sarah Kinney. However during the flashback scene they share many of the same facial expressions and ticks.
  • Stronger Than They Look: Laura is a short, slight, pretty teenage girl, and outwardly she doesn't seem particularly threatening. However one secondary effect of her Healing Factor is that her muscle and bone tissue is much denser than that of a normal human. As a result, her muscles exert more force than that of a typical girl her size. Additionally, her bones are stronger and harder to break, which reduces another limit since her muscles are capable of greater exertion without risk of breaking her own bones.note  In fact Laura was fully capable of lifting carrying Old Man Logan on her back, and climbing out of Fin Fang Foom's digestive tract, adamantium skeleton and all.note 
  • Strong Family Resemblance:
    • Pretty much any time Sarah Kinney appears Laura is drawn as her spitting image. She also looks a lot like her aunt Deborah, who also shares a Strong Family Resemblance with Sarah. It's eventually established in Adamantium Agenda #4 that Laura shares Sarah's DNA, thus explaining their similar appearances.
    • Oddly enough she doesn't look much like Logan, her genetic source.◊ Taylor plays with it during a flashback scene in All-New Wolverine #1 by having Laura and Logan demonstrate many of the same facial expressions. Logan also mentions she has his mother's eyes.
  • Super-Hearing: Laura's hearing is enhanced by her mutation. She was once able to hear a conversation Maria Hill was holding with Captain America...through Cap's own ear bud from across the room.
  • Superhero Packing Heat: Although not a power per se, as a former assassin Laura is highly trained and skilled in the use of firearms, and has no compunctions against using them if necessary.
  • Super-Reflexes: Laura's reaction times are heightened as a secondary effect of her healing factor. She's been shown dodging and Parrying Bullets.
  • Super-Senses: Better than even Wolverine's. Since their enhanced senses are a byproduct of their Healing Factor, this may be because Laura's is more powerful.
    • Her sense of smell is so refined she's been able to reconstruct crime scenes hours after the events, even able to determine by scent alone that one victim of a killing had high cholesterol.
    • Laura's vision is so keen that she was able to see a single nanite in a test tube with her naked eyes.
  • Super-Strength: Another byproduct of her healing factor is that Laura's muscles, connective tissue, and bones are denser than those of a normal human. As a result she's stronger than one would expect such a short, slight girl to be. She can also stay in states of fight or flight with her adrenaline pumping for longer and her healing speed also mitigates the duration and severity of any pain she feels.
  • Sympathetic Sentient Weapon: Young X-23 killed a lot of people, many of them innocents. She was also horrifically tortured, abused, and forced to do so against her will.
  • Taking You with Me: The Laura and Gabby of Old Man Logan's timeline ended up killing each other. Although the circumstances aren't made clear, the fact that Logan is most broken up over Laura's death suggests Gabby was the Heel.
  • Tank-Top Tomboy: Frequently, both in place of and in addition to Of Corsets Sexy. According to Mike Choi this dates entirely to his Top Cow variant for Target X #1, which he drew intending it to be a one-off design before her backstory and look had been completely finalized. It immediately became popular, and quickly solidified itself as part of her aesthetic.
  • Technical Pacifist: Has steadily been evolving into this over the course of her life. While even from early on she hated killing, when she first joined the X-Men she was utterly ruthless and unflinching with her use of lethal force. Usually to the horror of her friends and teammates. However over time she's become increasingly reluctant to cut loose, until by the time she takes on the Wolverine name she makes every effort to avoid killing.
    • Holding back from taking a life doesn't mean she's not completely willing and able to maim, dismember, and otherwise beat the ever-loving shit out of someone. And it doesn't mean she won't kill, either, and she very clearly establishes that there are limits to how much she'll tolerate.
    Bellona: (After being prevented from killing) Great, "Wolverine" is a Pacifist.
    Laura: I don't think you can call me a pacifist when we are surrounded by people I've just beaten up.
    • She finally reaches her limit when confronted with Kimura, the woman who tormented her all her life at the Facility, and continually threatened her, her friends, and her family after she joined the X-Men for years thereafter.
  • Thousand-Yard Stare: Introduced staring blankly at a blinking "No Vacancy" sign after a session with a John.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: When first introduced she was ready to kill at need, and could be even more ruthless and efficient than even Logan. However she has gradually moved in this direction. By the time she took up the Wolverine name she has sworn off killing.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Downplayed, but Laura is the Tomboy to Gabby's Girly Girl, being a tough, serious, cool-headed (unless someone pisses her off) fighter.
  • Torture Technician: One of the skills she's been highly trained on, in her solo series Malcolm Colcord's fingernails finds this out the hard way.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Very subtly done. While Laura doesn't have one particular favorite food, she favors anything that's spicy. See Comfort Food above.
  • Training from Hell: Her back story in Innocence Lost and Target: X.
  • Tranquil Fury: In most cases, Laura is chillingly cold, calm and efficient while gutting you, and that's terrifying enough. If she ever actually loses her cool, she's either under the effects of the trigger scent or you've just done something to really, really piss her off. In both cases you should run. Fast.
  • Trauma Conga Line: From the moment she was born Laura has bounced from one hardship to the next: Torture, abuse, being forced to attack and kill those she cares about, losing her only surviving family to protect them. Laura has suffered an endless series of chain-yanking throughout her life as things begin to look up, only to come crashing down hard again. However it finally begins to abate post-Secret Wars, as she begins to finally put her life in order.
  • Troubled, but Cute: Dialogue in the books makes it clear that Laura is a very attractive young woman. Troubled? Just look at all the tropes focusing on how screwed up she still is because of her abusive upbringing.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Laura's first assassination was at age 9. She was immediately put to work by the Facility afterwards, and by 16 she's an accomplished enough killer to worry Captain America. Justified since she was bred and raised from birth specifically to be a Living Weapon, but her utter ruthlessness and cold detachment makes her an even better killer than Wolverine. It's mildly subverted in that she doesn't want to be a weapon, but it nonetheless comes completely naturally to her.
  • Two-Donor Clone: Created from damaged blood samples of Logan mix with Sarah's own blood and who also birthed her. While at first she was treated as Wolverine's Opposite-Sex Clone, later stories would go with her being Sarah's actual genetic daughter.
  • Tyke Bomb: Literally conceived as such.
  • The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Jubilee has described her as "hot" and Teen Warren, who she's currently dating, has stated that she's prettier than Jean Grey. The fact she's the famously unattractive Logan's Opposite-Sex Clone makes the trope even more noticeable.
  • Unaffected by Spice: She can tolerate levels of spice that even have Gambit, who as a Cajun is no stranger to hot stuff, doing a double-take. In fact she habitually shows a preference for spicy foods.
  • Unstoppable Rage: The trigger scent causes this. Normally she's very composed otherwise, but if pushed too far she will snap. At which point whoever is responsible better run. Fast.
  • Uptown Girl: Gender inverted: Laura was born in a lab, and spent time on the streets as a homeless prostitute. Her primary love interests have been Hellion and the time-displaced Angel, both of whom are from privileged and wealthy upbringings.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Laura wasn't born an emotionless killing machine. The Facility consciously destroyed her innocence. Much of Laura's life after escaping the is spent trying to repair the damage that was done to her.
  • Vague Age: Downplayed. In X-Force it is shown that she can estimate someone's age within about three years by their scent.
  • Villainous Crush: Laura has picked up a couple of these:
    • Kimura is her Arch-Nemesis, whose obsession with X veers into full-on Stalker with a Crush, to the point that her obsession over Laura reads like a jilted Psycho Ex-Girlfriend.
    • During the time she spent as a Streetwalker in NYX she was her pimp, Zebra Daddy's, favorite girl (and it's heavily suggested he sampled the goods himself). To the point that her running away with Kiden Nixon's group, after a John committed suicide during one of their sessions, drove the rest of the plot with Daddy's escalating efforts to get her back.
    • Gamesmaster — an omnipath who can read all minds, everywhere, and can't turn it off — developed an obsession with her because he finds her mind a refreshingly quiet and peaceful place to hang out. Whether or not Laura actually welcomes his presence in her head never enters into his considerations, and he frequently addresses her with endearments, calling her his "wicked, lovely girl."
    • Hellverine wants her to lead his armies, and it's heavily implied that he just plain wants her. He captures the above-mentioned Gamesmaster when he finds him poking around Laura's mind, and presents him muzzled and in chains as a gift (Gamesmaster also tried to drive away Hellverine to protect Laura, which got him caught in the first place). He makes several advances towards her, including appearing to her as a naked Cyclops.
    • Played for laughs in All New Wolverine, when she gets doused in a pheromone designed to make Fin Fang Foom randy for whatever is marked with it. The moment he gets a whiff of her, the background is replaced by a giant Heart Symbol.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Hellion. Laura and Jubilee started out like this before becoming Heterosexual Life-Partners.
  • Waking Up Elsewhere: Slight variant: The rage induced by the trigger scent causes Laura to black out, during which time she has no knowledge or conscious control over what she's doing.
    Laura: The ones who made me, they made a chemical...a scent...when I smell it, everything goes black and when I wake up, everyone's dead.
  • Waif-Fu: Laura's fighting style tends to be very acrobatic, justified because she's rather small and lightly-built, and unlike Wolverine, lacks adamantium coating her entire skeleton, so is much more prone to being disabled by broken or severed limbs.
  • Weak, but Skilled: She relies primarily on Waif-Fu in combat since she's unable to sustain damage, and is very highly trained in hand-to-hand combat, firearms, interrogation techniques, infiltration, languages, and other skills she might have needed as an assassin.
  • Wife-Basher Basher: Laura pulls a variation of this with prostitutes as a result of her experiences under Zebra Daddy's control. On several occasions afterwards she's been shown reacting very violently to seeing other girls abused as she was.
  • Wolverine Claws: Inherited from her father, though hers are in a slightly different arrangement with two in each hand (between the index and middle finger, and pinky and ring finger) and one in each foot (between the big and long toes). Like Logan's they're coated in adamantium. Zander Rice cut them out of her one by one while she was conscious to perform the procedure.
  • Wolverine Publicity: Played straight and at the same time played with in All-New Wolverine where various superheroes and villains, specifically Taskmaster, Doctor Strange, The Wasp, and Squirrel Girl make appearances. Yes, other characters are now appearing in a Wolverine book to help establish the book.
  • Would Hurt a Child: On several occasions Laura was ordered to kill children by her handlers, and in fact her very first mission sees her slaughtering a presidential candidate, his wife, and kids (and possibly other children present in the room, as well). However see Retcon above and under the series tropes below.
  • The Worf Effect: Not as frequently as Logan, but occasionally Laura will be used to deliver a big Oh, Crap! to her teammates.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain:
    • Pretty much her entire life. Her mother finally decides to take a stand and rescue her from the Facility? Turns out she's contaminated by the trigger scent and Laura kills her in an Unstoppable Rage just as it seems they're about to escape. Welcomed into her aunt's home, where she strikes up a close friendship with her cousin, Megan, and begins to feel that she's part of a family? Turns out her aunt's boyfriend was an agent planted by the Facility who calls in Kimura, forcing Laura to send her last remaining family into hiding to keep them safe. Logan talks her down from a Murder-Suicide and offers her a home at the Xavier school where she can get help coping with all the hell she's been through? S.H.I.E.L.D. attacks her and Captain America puts her under arrest. And now that it finally seems as if she's beginning to put her life together and heal, she gets shanghaied by Arcade to fight other troubled teenage heroes to the death for his amusement. The poor girl finally begins to catch a break by the time she takes up the Wolverine mantle, with her life improving considerably after the events on Murder World.
    • On a meta level for her fans, the revelation that she would appear in Amazing X-Men under her creators, Yost and Kyle, was falsely reported and no actual plans are in place for them to be writing her again in the immediate future.
    • And also on a meta level, many fans believed that her taking on the Wolverine name was a sign of her star rising, and that she would be gaining a starring presence among the X-Men as a result. And then Old Man Logan stole her thunder, with most writers using him whenever they needed a Wolverine for events. It got even worse for her fans under ResurrXion, when Laura was removed from her only team book, while Logan got three teams.
  • You Are Number 6:
    • Laura's Facility designation, X-23. She's almost never called this by her friends and teammates, who at most just use "X" as a nickname, but otherwise call her Laura even in the field when they use their own codenames. By contrast, Kimura always refers to her as X-23, which is done deliberately to dehumanize and belittle her.
    • X-23 was the only name she was ever given in her two appearances in Evolution.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Laura is dying of Clone Degeneration in "Old Woman Laura's" alternate future, and resolves to use her time left to finish off Doctor Doom once and for all.
  • Your Worst Memory: While Laura has endured loads of pain and trauma in her young life, and it has taken years for her to come to terms with the terrible things she has done, and had done to her, it's implied her single worst memory is of being forced to kill her mother under the effects of the trigger scent. Emma Frost specifically uses this memory to torment her in an effort to drive her away from the school. It reduces her to tears.
  • Yo Yo Plot Point: Every single character arc of her's revolves around learning to be more than a weapon. This comic sums it up pretty well.
    • Subverted at the end of her solo series, she accepts that part of her is a weapon, but she won't let that beat her.
    • See also Trauma Conga Line. It seems like just as she starts to become more or less stable, some fresh new trauma hits her and sends her back to square one.
    • Finally starts to get averted after Avengers Arena, as she pieces herself back together and things begin turning around. Particularly by finally dealing with Kimura and the trigger scent, and getting her family (Megan and Debbie) back.

Alternative Title(s): X 23 Laura Kinney

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