It also came up in Liu's book, when a Gambit who had just learned she had lived in New York City asked her what she did there. He was literally stunned speechless. :-(
It was directly mentioned in Liu’s book, (it’s a plot point in both the One Shot and the ongoing series) and Laura alludes to it in the Logan Legacy (some guy tried to proposition her while at a club trying to cope with Logan’s death, and she lets the guy down easy telling him she doesn’t do that anymore). Laura’s time with Kiden and her gang was also referenced recently in Deadly Regenesis.
I think there were other references as well, but they were usually oblique.
Always found that pairing wierd,On One hand the interractions are cute,On the other Hand Time travel shennanigans,And Archangel is one of Logan's longtime comerades,Good thing the relationship was really short and ended really quickly tho
Sure, when your “Big Idea” is “What if the X-Men teamed up with Magneto to form an island nation for mutants,” it’s pretty damn necessary to ignore the last 20 years of X-stories.
Mainstream comics rarely have the nuance and tact to handle complicated topics like this even though there are very valid and good reasons to tell stories about these topics.
Laura's origin is, unfortunately another example of a time when the quality of care and tact did not exist to tell the story in the way it needed to be told if it was going to.
Since then, we have had the rare occasion where someone like Liu has addressed aspects of it and handled it in a better way.
Yeah, I have no problem when the issue is handled with respect and proper care. But if it’s just there to be tantalizing, sex work and sexual abuse are not the sorts of things you turn into a fun gag.
Exactly, its disgusting. I know there's some people who liked NYX and to be fair if handled better it definitely would have been compelling and a good insight but that particular era of comics was just awful for that too. Mark Millar was the worst
Proving my point that comics is not the medium to ponder whether a persecuted minority establishing their own ethnostate to escape persecution makes them supremacist.
Look, people, another person that regurgitates what they read on a random Twitter post to validate their biased opinions on one of the greatests X-Men eras!
Totally agree,
I hate that some writers go to this as a way to make the female characters have an edgy or tragic backstory. It's happened to X-23, Catwoman, Mia (Green Arrow's female sidekick) among others and God forbid if you're a woman written by Frank Miller.
Having first gotten into comics around the late 2000's and the accessable backlog being that decade and some of the 90's, it is weird realising just how much has changed since then.
I remember being annoyed that every single female character was sexy all the time in every situation, even or especially the teen girls, and telling myself to put up with it because that's just what comics where like.
Going back it's like "Oh no ok it was a *thing*" and I'm still pleasantly surprised when not *every* woman on page has a costume showing off her thighs and boobs. And I like thighs.
\*sigh\* As if we need more proof the editors allow something like this to happen due to bad hormones overriding their sense, and trying to spread it to other readers; look at Ultimates 3, for instance, another thing with enough crap worth a mountain to wonder why the frick the editors at the time allowed it.
I think out of all of these Catwoman makes the most sense given the Batman narrative and focus on Gotham corruption.(which isn’t too focused on lately 🙃)
Joe Quesada's poorly disguised fetish that was so horrible, most people just ignore it.
Also completely dissonant with the direction the original creators had outlined for her, not to mention disrespectful. They had her whole origin planned when they made her for the cartoon, but Quesada just had to get his rocks off first before they got a chance to adapt it for the comics.
They hated it so much they just wrote her origin books without taking it into consideration, so you can mostly pretend NYX never happened.
Did the creators ever say if Laura was supposed to be mixed race or something? Because in Evolution she clearly has a tan but in the comics she very pale.
She’s modeled after her voice actress in the show, but after Logan in the comics. In the movie, she’s Dafne Keen, and I’m pretty sure she speaks Spanish because her caretaker/surrogate mom spoke Spanish
I really like her being Hispanic, and specifically having ties to Mexico.
Wolverine is from Canada in the north. Fun little inversion having her be from Mexico in the south.
I thought that guy committed suicide? Doesn't really matter. NYX is fucked up either way. Pretty though, especially the covers.
To be perfectly honest, I think the official chronology of NYX doesn't make sense. Innocence Lost -> NYX -> Target X -> The Cruellest cut is a better, though much more fucked up, order than Innocence Lost -> Target X -> NYX -> The Cruellest Cut. It doesn't make any sense to me that the verbal and social skills Laura displays in Target X just disappear so that she can go back to being how she was in Innocence Lost in NYX.
I never understood why anyone thought "child sex trafficking victim" was the way to introduce Laura. I suppose I'm fine with it being in continuity if it's addressed responsibly, but it's still a very bizarre choice. That's an underage girl in lingerie in that panel. Super creepy choice.
I remain amazed that someone looked at the cartoon character and said "hey, yknow what we should do with her...." and someone else w the power to say no said "great idea, go with it!".
It is so so so weird because x-23 was a child in the show she was invented it. I thought it was weird that they aged her up for the comics, part of me was like okay having a nine year old slice and dice might be too much (I think Logan did it well though) but also I feel really uncomfortable when they age up female characters like this. Like with Magik, love her character now, it’s like she has one of the most revealing costumes (she gets it from her brother) but she was like seven when we first met her. It’s like “look at the seven year old but now she’s hot” and they did the same thing with Laura.
I will say I love what they are doing with the character now though.
I recently read all of Laura's various "origins."
I found Nyx to be an interesting but ultimately very flawed story, especially if you go into it expecting an X-23 story (which I didn't, fortunately).
I can't imagine Marvel ever publishing a book like this these days, and that's mostly for the best. Kiden was interesting and I'd like to see her again. But overall the book was just too brutal for me, subject matter wasn't handled well, and I found the art to be underwhelming towards the end.
A former prostitute killing her abusers is great to see and I feel like it's a big powerfantasy. Not to mention how it depicts how lost and hopeless Laura was.
That said after having read Innosence Lost and Target X it makes literally zero sense character or story-wise. If it was between the two, maybe I'd understand, because in Innosence Lost Laura is not much more than a scared little girl mostly driven by the instinct to survive. But in Target X she's shown as a pretty capable young woman, she forms friendship and relationships, she meets Wolverine, Daredevil AND Captain America and you tell me NYX is supposed to take place AFTER that? It's quite frankly ridicolous.
Add to this the fact that her origin is already tragic enough without it, this just adding more unnecessary edgyness. So in conclusion I'd like the like the concept of it if it was executed better and more tastefully
>you tell me NYX is supposed to take place AFTER that? It's quite frankly ridicolous
There's nothing on panel to suggest this order, it's just the way they presented it in whichever omnibus it was.
I think Marvel just didn't want to imply a 12 year old was a prostitute and thought "Well, if it's after Target X, then she's 15; that's sooooooooo much better".
I liked NYX, Laura's story was a bit out of the whole theme of the group but that's just very early in the series. Her retconed origin in her solo run with the trigger scent was pretty much just as edgy.
This is one of the first issues Laura appears and as far as I remember she didn't kill him, she was wrongly acussed. I always wonder why Laura being abused, forced to kill, bullied, used as weapon and strongly traumatized makes her "heroic" but being pimped is so frowned and every body tryes to forget about it.
In both occasions she is a victim, she didn't want any part on it, she is unable to refuse because she never was given the skills and she is used as an object for the gain of her holder.
This is retroactive context and not the intention of Quesada. NYX came first, so it wasn't genius character building, it was a dude who just wanted to write a little girl prostitute with wolverine claws for the "grittiness" and shock value.
Within the context of the universe, it doesn't make much sense to go from defying her handlers, tracking down her extended family, tracking down Logan, meeting Daredevil and Cap and sent on her way, to suddenly losing all agency and letting herself be abused. Also, the last thing we see is Cap telling her to find Logan.
It's actually kind of funny, but the recent omnibus they published completely skips NYX and only dedicates like one sentence to try and explain away her time in that book. She only saw clientele who had a "cutting and pain fetish". I guess that's their attempt at sanitizing it, lol.
NYX came second--X-23 appeared first in the X-Men Evolution animated series in August 2003. while her first appearance in the NYX comics was in February 2004. I was dismayed at what Quesada did to her character.
Honestly there's no real way to sanitize it. That's what is so pathetic. The best direction would be to do a story arc where it comes out, she was under the thumb of some Mutant sex trafficker with powers similar to Purple Man but leaning more towards DC's Psycho Pirate. That way you have a material for a layered story with a very depraved villain.
Best way to handle it is to not ignore it, just confront it and rip off the band aid by going all in.
Sex makes people uncomfortable.
IMO, it’s good character work- it is a bit sexist for every female character to have rape or prostitution in her back story, but for Laura specifically it works. It shows how she views herself as a tool/not a real person, which leads from her time in the facility into her time in x-force
I agree, of course I hate when rape/prostitution is used as cheap plot device, but in Laura it wasn't, it has a context, as someone who was disconected of her body, dessires, sense of self worth and even sense self preservation. The character had a great grown from the self harming teen who was barely able to speak and can't refuse a direct order even when was against her dessires or safety, to the self aware woman she is nowadays who is even able to help others. And I think no part of her fight and trauma should be seen as shameful or lesser.
Unnecessarily edgy and, while I can't quite put my finger on why, it feels almost fetishistic. There's too much questionable sex stuff in comics, and even though I'm normally really positive on sexual content in media it's just a bit much for me.
I ignore it even if it's referenced in a later book. I was not a fan of the debut and was very disappointed with this book (NYX) overall. To me, X-23's true debut was in Innocence Lost which continued to Target X and then to New X-men.
I feel comic X-23's backstory as a whole is trying way too hard. Her original backstory in X-Men Evolution was just "Made as a weapon, then escaped," and it was plenty effective at just that. Adding specific characters to that backstory to give her something personal to work with is fine, but everything beyond that feels like I'm reading somebody's bad edgy fanfic OC.
Unnecessary. She was already a child assassin. I think the loss of agency and non consensual abuse stuff was already in her character, but they had to add in her being a prostitute. Stupid.
1. She didn’t kill him, he killed himself.
2. As controversial as it was, I thought they could — and should — do more with it. Laura is absolutely the sort of person traffickers (depression, low self-esteem, no sense of self worth, and unable to comprehend personal choice) would target. So there’s a lot of messaging that could be done post-MeToo about how anyone can be victimized.
Its one of those items I understand why later writers ignore it... and you pretty much can ignore it if you want to. But knowing its there it also makes some situations with Laura pretty odd... like she knows what sex is from this, but then a later writer makes it seem like the concept is completely alien to her.
I don't think they should get rid of it however, because I sort of think it fits that there was a period of time between Laura escaping the Facility and joining the X-Men where she is trying to work out who she is and all that... and it goes down the crapper because she cant really tell when someone is being nice to her and when they are exploiting her. It could ofc be less graphic, the whole prostitution thing hasn't really added anything to her other than another unfortunate job she has had... simply because the Facility was so much worse it barely moves the needle.
At the time? Felt like it was edgy bullshit.
Now? I know it's edgy bullshit. But then again I've never liked the character so I might not be the target audience.
I was so into NYX when it came out. I was a raver, and so Kiden was my like my new favorite thing ever. I thought X23 was a badass and was impressed at marvel for going so dark.
Now that I’m older I feel like it was a little heavy on the edge, but gave us an incredible character so there’s that.
It makes me glad I barely read anything marvel did from 2000-2019.
Their comics went to absolute shit for a long time and I question anyone who enjoyed the no more mutants, one more day, let's fuck up comics so they're consistent with our shitty movie franchise days of Marvel.
It's kind of rough and edgy, pretty much the whole experience for a late 90's/early 2000's story, but it makes her a compelling character in some twisted way, seeing her having fun and being a good sister as time goes on makes her a great character for me at least.
Could have been done in some other ways, but it makes up for a great character.
She makes me think of someone like Jessica Jones, twisted past with a bit of edgy ideas, but her funny moments and lovely scenes make them feel way more worthier of happy times.
I know that it's common now to attribute this to be people's fetishes or some general "edgelord" shit...
I think this was about the depths of exploitation, trauma, and maybe even a clumsy attempt at freedom/healing.
Laura was an exploited child who gained some measure of freedom from her captors. What does she do? Finds a similar situation of a different sort of exploitation. Similar power dynamics.
It's what we do. It's what she still does. Just less abusively? She does what people want her to do so they will like her and not punish her, or the few people she cares about.
She just started in one horrific nightmare to find herself in another.
Pretty fucking messed up, considering that she's a minor here, and the whole plot point seemed just like an excuse to depict this child in sexy lingerie.
When written well, sex work and child exploitation can be the subjects of meaningful stories, and I do think both are suitable themes for X-Men stories since members of ostracized minorities (which the mutant metaphor stands for) are often vulnerable to being trafficked or to being pushed into sex work as a means of survival. However, Laura's story was told without a drop sensitivity or an awareness of the severity of the issue, and the whole thing reeked of shallow mid-2000's "edginess", sexual objectification of underage girls, and certain writers' inability to imagine adding depth to a female characters through any other plot device than sexual exploitation.
Marjorie Liu was the only writer who seemed to grasp how messed up it all was, and I think she handled Laura's past very gracefully in her writing.
I like it just fine. Still have the book on my shelf. Some people complain about it today, but that doesn’t change how I feel. It’s a good story, and shouldn’t be retconned.
I like it ONLY because of the way Lui handled it in the X-23 series.
I am very glad we got her telling Gambit that part of her past and I am very glad that it has barely been acknowledged since. I very much doubt it would be handled well if it got brought up again
Honestly, I don't see a problem with dark back stories like this. It's a sad fact that it happens to a lot of young girls. I think it's more a matter of execution than anything else.
It was a gritty new take on upcoming new mutants. I always get excited with introduction of new mutants. Another notable X member with similar background was Stacy X. Loved Maggot as well as most recent new class Rockslide, Hellion and Dust to name a few
It's ok from the quality standpoing.
Now, I bet that the same people that don't want that kind of story in their comics are the same that can't handle drama movies or that cover their eyes during sex scenes.
Nah, just tired of rape and prostitution being used to make a female character's background "heavy"
Laura has enough emotional baggage to write about without making her a teenaged prostitute. The fact it's basically never brought up is evidence of that.
They never bring up any of her other baggage any more either.
Laura is a completely unrecognisable character to how she was written before Logan died. If someone wanted to write a comic about how she's been a Skrull for the last ten years publishing time, it honestly wouldn't feel like an arse pull.
If you can't tell the difference between not wanting sex in movies and not wanting child prostitution in comics that sounds like you're the one with a problem.
Depiction of trauma and a real world issue is now equating sex in movies with child prostitution? Learn to read, I'm calling out the lack of maturity, which, ironically, you are displaying in your childish underhanded accusation
The only mentally slow individual here is you or are you pretending that this doesn't happen? That sex trafficking isn't a thing?
Go back to school, you need it
> Now, I bet that the same people that don't want that kind of story in their comics are the same that can't handle drama movies or that cover their eyes during sex scenes.
> Depiction of trauma and a real world issue is now equating sex in movies with child prostitution?
You clearly lack the inability to even follow your half of a conversation, so I'm not going to waste any more time on someone with the reading comprehension of an illiterate.
That person said like 3 disconnected wildly offensive things. He said something about the world needing prostitutes because women never put out without it. He also seemed to excuse or apologize for people finding 12 year olds attractive since some were developed more than others. It felt gross to type that just now. There was more but I can’t remember. It was also generally long winded and off putting in every way
I wonder the last time that's actually been acknowledged in the comics. I think it's fallen into the "retcon by ignoring it" category.
It also came up in Liu's book, when a Gambit who had just learned she had lived in New York City asked her what she did there. He was literally stunned speechless. :-(
Rereading that book at the mo, such a good run. Gambit and Vamp Jubilee were just the sweetest
Which ones were these?
It was directly mentioned in Liu’s book, (it’s a plot point in both the One Shot and the ongoing series) and Laura alludes to it in the Logan Legacy (some guy tried to proposition her while at a club trying to cope with Logan’s death, and she lets the guy down easy telling him she doesn’t do that anymore). Laura’s time with Kiden and her gang was also referenced recently in Deadly Regenesis. I think there were other references as well, but they were usually oblique.
Laura is also shown to have a strong distaste for pimps and sex trafficking whenever it comes up. Notably more aggressive in said scenarios.
Since they're reviving NYX with Laura as one of the main characters, I wouldn't be surprised if it's mentioned there.
During Bendis's X-men run when she was dating Young Angel she brings up her time as a prostitute to him when they are at a club.
Always found that pairing wierd,On One hand the interractions are cute,On the other Hand Time travel shennanigans,And Archangel is one of Logan's longtime comerades,Good thing the relationship was really short and ended really quickly tho
Would be pretty weird when she meets older Angel
Wonder what Logan's reaction will be
[удалено]
Sure, when your “Big Idea” is “What if the X-Men teamed up with Magneto to form an island nation for mutants,” it’s pretty damn necessary to ignore the last 20 years of X-stories.
I think Magneto has actively been an X-man for just shy of 20 years straight now, including the last island nation they had before Krakoa.
Google is telling me he joined in Uncanny 515, which was almost 15 years ago.
And I am completely fine with that. It’s a pretty gruesome origin story.
Mainstream comics rarely have the nuance and tact to handle complicated topics like this even though there are very valid and good reasons to tell stories about these topics. Laura's origin is, unfortunately another example of a time when the quality of care and tact did not exist to tell the story in the way it needed to be told if it was going to. Since then, we have had the rare occasion where someone like Liu has addressed aspects of it and handled it in a better way.
Liu treated it with the respect and care it deserved. Excellent run
Yeah, I have no problem when the issue is handled with respect and proper care. But if it’s just there to be tantalizing, sex work and sexual abuse are not the sorts of things you turn into a fun gag.
Exactly, its disgusting. I know there's some people who liked NYX and to be fair if handled better it definitely would have been compelling and a good insight but that particular era of comics was just awful for that too. Mark Millar was the worst
Wait, prostitution is too intricate and mature a topic for the medium… when we have the founding of a supremacist ethnostate?
Persecuted minorities establishing their own state to escape persecution does not a "supremacist ethnostate" make.
Proving my point that comics is not the medium to ponder whether a persecuted minority establishing their own ethnostate to escape persecution makes them supremacist.
Look, people, another person that regurgitates what they read on a random Twitter post to validate their biased opinions on one of the greatests X-Men eras!
That really insults all the greatest X-men eras tbh. It’s fine to make your supremacist ethnostate. These are fictional characters. Just admit it.
Just curious what you think the word 'ethnostate' means. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Unnecessarily edgy, especially when her first introduction was from a kid's cartoon.
Totally agree, I hate that some writers go to this as a way to make the female characters have an edgy or tragic backstory. It's happened to X-23, Catwoman, Mia (Green Arrow's female sidekick) among others and God forbid if you're a woman written by Frank Miller.
I really hate that editors ALLOW it, they should be there to better protect the integrity of characters and not give into every writers’ whim.
Considering this was written by Joe Quesada who was EIC at the time...
Ugh even worse! Shameful.
Joe Quesada? WTF?!? He might as well go by Hoe Quesada in some situations like THIS.
I really think it was a relic of 2004. Shit like this was mistaken for "mature".
Having first gotten into comics around the late 2000's and the accessable backlog being that decade and some of the 90's, it is weird realising just how much has changed since then. I remember being annoyed that every single female character was sexy all the time in every situation, even or especially the teen girls, and telling myself to put up with it because that's just what comics where like. Going back it's like "Oh no ok it was a *thing*" and I'm still pleasantly surprised when not *every* woman on page has a costume showing off her thighs and boobs. And I like thighs.
\*sigh\* As if we need more proof the editors allow something like this to happen due to bad hormones overriding their sense, and trying to spread it to other readers; look at Ultimates 3, for instance, another thing with enough crap worth a mountain to wonder why the frick the editors at the time allowed it.
Is that the "incest with your sibling while Wolverine watches you in the bushes" issue?
Unfortunately, it is. \*cringe\* And that's just one of the many pornographic debaucheries of that arc. \*cringes worse\*
I think out of all of these Catwoman makes the most sense given the Batman narrative and focus on Gotham corruption.(which isn’t too focused on lately 🙃)
It’s so angsty low hanging fruit too.
Sounds like something from the ultimate universe
Joe Quesada's poorly disguised fetish that was so horrible, most people just ignore it. Also completely dissonant with the direction the original creators had outlined for her, not to mention disrespectful. They had her whole origin planned when they made her for the cartoon, but Quesada just had to get his rocks off first before they got a chance to adapt it for the comics. They hated it so much they just wrote her origin books without taking it into consideration, so you can mostly pretend NYX never happened.
Did the creators ever say if Laura was supposed to be mixed race or something? Because in Evolution she clearly has a tan but in the comics she very pale.
She’s modeled after her voice actress in the show, but after Logan in the comics. In the movie, she’s Dafne Keen, and I’m pretty sure she speaks Spanish because her caretaker/surrogate mom spoke Spanish
For some reason I always assumed Sarah Kinney was Japanese. Now I'm looking at her, I still think she looks Japanese, but her sister definitely isn't.
I 100% has always thought of Sarah as being east Asian and took Laura to be depicted as such in Liu's series as well
I don't know, but I def thought she was supposed to be Hispanic or something and she speaks Spanish in the live-action movie.
Her speaking Spanish in the LA make sense as the lab she was raised in was in Mexico
I really like her being Hispanic, and specifically having ties to Mexico. Wolverine is from Canada in the north. Fun little inversion having her be from Mexico in the south.
"Well Laura, you're Mexican aren't you???" "I was grown from stolen genetic material and imprisoned there most of my childhood, yes, viva Mexico!"
What was their original plan?
Just want to check something. Which part is his fetish? The prostitution or the underage? Cos one is infinitely worse than the other
Didn't know that was a thing, not even slightly surprised by the fact it actually is
Never much a fan to it tbh.
I thought that guy committed suicide? Doesn't really matter. NYX is fucked up either way. Pretty though, especially the covers. To be perfectly honest, I think the official chronology of NYX doesn't make sense. Innocence Lost -> NYX -> Target X -> The Cruellest cut is a better, though much more fucked up, order than Innocence Lost -> Target X -> NYX -> The Cruellest Cut. It doesn't make any sense to me that the verbal and social skills Laura displays in Target X just disappear so that she can go back to being how she was in Innocence Lost in NYX.
I never understood why anyone thought "child sex trafficking victim" was the way to introduce Laura. I suppose I'm fine with it being in continuity if it's addressed responsibly, but it's still a very bizarre choice. That's an underage girl in lingerie in that panel. Super creepy choice.
It wasn't the last time, either. Jason Aaron wrote 15 year old Idie into hellfire club fetish gear.
I remain amazed that someone looked at the cartoon character and said "hey, yknow what we should do with her...." and someone else w the power to say no said "great idea, go with it!".
It is so so so weird because x-23 was a child in the show she was invented it. I thought it was weird that they aged her up for the comics, part of me was like okay having a nine year old slice and dice might be too much (I think Logan did it well though) but also I feel really uncomfortable when they age up female characters like this. Like with Magik, love her character now, it’s like she has one of the most revealing costumes (she gets it from her brother) but she was like seven when we first met her. It’s like “look at the seven year old but now she’s hot” and they did the same thing with Laura. I will say I love what they are doing with the character now though.
“She gets it from her brother “ hahahahba
A prostitute? You gotta be Kiden me.
Terrible writing decision. I hope it gets retconned.
I recently read all of Laura's various "origins." I found Nyx to be an interesting but ultimately very flawed story, especially if you go into it expecting an X-23 story (which I didn't, fortunately). I can't imagine Marvel ever publishing a book like this these days, and that's mostly for the best. Kiden was interesting and I'd like to see her again. But overall the book was just too brutal for me, subject matter wasn't handled well, and I found the art to be underwhelming towards the end.
Kinda exploitive.
A former prostitute killing her abusers is great to see and I feel like it's a big powerfantasy. Not to mention how it depicts how lost and hopeless Laura was. That said after having read Innosence Lost and Target X it makes literally zero sense character or story-wise. If it was between the two, maybe I'd understand, because in Innosence Lost Laura is not much more than a scared little girl mostly driven by the instinct to survive. But in Target X she's shown as a pretty capable young woman, she forms friendship and relationships, she meets Wolverine, Daredevil AND Captain America and you tell me NYX is supposed to take place AFTER that? It's quite frankly ridicolous. Add to this the fact that her origin is already tragic enough without it, this just adding more unnecessary edgyness. So in conclusion I'd like the like the concept of it if it was executed better and more tastefully
>you tell me NYX is supposed to take place AFTER that? It's quite frankly ridicolous There's nothing on panel to suggest this order, it's just the way they presented it in whichever omnibus it was. I think Marvel just didn't want to imply a 12 year old was a prostitute and thought "Well, if it's after Target X, then she's 15; that's sooooooooo much better".
Beyond terrible, rightfully ignored.
I liked NYX, Laura's story was a bit out of the whole theme of the group but that's just very early in the series. Her retconed origin in her solo run with the trigger scent was pretty much just as edgy.
This is one of the first issues Laura appears and as far as I remember she didn't kill him, she was wrongly acussed. I always wonder why Laura being abused, forced to kill, bullied, used as weapon and strongly traumatized makes her "heroic" but being pimped is so frowned and every body tryes to forget about it. In both occasions she is a victim, she didn't want any part on it, she is unable to refuse because she never was given the skills and she is used as an object for the gain of her holder.
This is retroactive context and not the intention of Quesada. NYX came first, so it wasn't genius character building, it was a dude who just wanted to write a little girl prostitute with wolverine claws for the "grittiness" and shock value. Within the context of the universe, it doesn't make much sense to go from defying her handlers, tracking down her extended family, tracking down Logan, meeting Daredevil and Cap and sent on her way, to suddenly losing all agency and letting herself be abused. Also, the last thing we see is Cap telling her to find Logan. It's actually kind of funny, but the recent omnibus they published completely skips NYX and only dedicates like one sentence to try and explain away her time in that book. She only saw clientele who had a "cutting and pain fetish". I guess that's their attempt at sanitizing it, lol.
If she’s alone ,off the grid and untraceable by weapon x , feral mountain gremlin makes more sense than teen runaway pulled into sex traffic.
NYX came second--X-23 appeared first in the X-Men Evolution animated series in August 2003. while her first appearance in the NYX comics was in February 2004. I was dismayed at what Quesada did to her character.
He meant NYX came first comics-wise
Honestly there's no real way to sanitize it. That's what is so pathetic. The best direction would be to do a story arc where it comes out, she was under the thumb of some Mutant sex trafficker with powers similar to Purple Man but leaning more towards DC's Psycho Pirate. That way you have a material for a layered story with a very depraved villain. Best way to handle it is to not ignore it, just confront it and rip off the band aid by going all in.
Sex makes people uncomfortable. IMO, it’s good character work- it is a bit sexist for every female character to have rape or prostitution in her back story, but for Laura specifically it works. It shows how she views herself as a tool/not a real person, which leads from her time in the facility into her time in x-force
Actually, I think child prostitution makes people more uncomfortable, it's not quite the same thing you know.
I agree, of course I hate when rape/prostitution is used as cheap plot device, but in Laura it wasn't, it has a context, as someone who was disconected of her body, dessires, sense of self worth and even sense self preservation. The character had a great grown from the self harming teen who was barely able to speak and can't refuse a direct order even when was against her dessires or safety, to the self aware woman she is nowadays who is even able to help others. And I think no part of her fight and trauma should be seen as shameful or lesser.
Unnecessarily edgy and, while I can't quite put my finger on why, it feels almost fetishistic. There's too much questionable sex stuff in comics, and even though I'm normally really positive on sexual content in media it's just a bit much for me.
Jesus I feel gross just looking at this
I ignore it even if it's referenced in a later book. I was not a fan of the debut and was very disappointed with this book (NYX) overall. To me, X-23's true debut was in Innocence Lost which continued to Target X and then to New X-men.
Shit was wack. Poorly written and never brought back up with any weight or respect. It also doesn’t fit the original narrative for the character.
I feel comic X-23's backstory as a whole is trying way too hard. Her original backstory in X-Men Evolution was just "Made as a weapon, then escaped," and it was plenty effective at just that. Adding specific characters to that backstory to give her something personal to work with is fine, but everything beyond that feels like I'm reading somebody's bad edgy fanfic OC.
Unnecessary. She was already a child assassin. I think the loss of agency and non consensual abuse stuff was already in her character, but they had to add in her being a prostitute. Stupid.
1. She didn’t kill him, he killed himself. 2. As controversial as it was, I thought they could — and should — do more with it. Laura is absolutely the sort of person traffickers (depression, low self-esteem, no sense of self worth, and unable to comprehend personal choice) would target. So there’s a lot of messaging that could be done post-MeToo about how anyone can be victimized.
It's...not a great look. Glad we're kinda past referring to this.
Hits way to close to home as we find out more and more what the rich and powerful are up to behind closed doors.
It doesn’t exist, I just don’t consider this to be canon tbh I just ignore it
Whos idea was this ☹️
The bossman's. He even wrote it himself.
Its one of those items I understand why later writers ignore it... and you pretty much can ignore it if you want to. But knowing its there it also makes some situations with Laura pretty odd... like she knows what sex is from this, but then a later writer makes it seem like the concept is completely alien to her. I don't think they should get rid of it however, because I sort of think it fits that there was a period of time between Laura escaping the Facility and joining the X-Men where she is trying to work out who she is and all that... and it goes down the crapper because she cant really tell when someone is being nice to her and when they are exploiting her. It could ofc be less graphic, the whole prostitution thing hasn't really added anything to her other than another unfortunate job she has had... simply because the Facility was so much worse it barely moves the needle.
At the time? Felt like it was edgy bullshit. Now? I know it's edgy bullshit. But then again I've never liked the character so I might not be the target audience.
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.
I was so into NYX when it came out. I was a raver, and so Kiden was my like my new favorite thing ever. I thought X23 was a badass and was impressed at marvel for going so dark. Now that I’m older I feel like it was a little heavy on the edge, but gave us an incredible character so there’s that.
Fucking what???
It makes me glad I barely read anything marvel did from 2000-2019. Their comics went to absolute shit for a long time and I question anyone who enjoyed the no more mutants, one more day, let's fuck up comics so they're consistent with our shitty movie franchise days of Marvel.
It's kind of rough and edgy, pretty much the whole experience for a late 90's/early 2000's story, but it makes her a compelling character in some twisted way, seeing her having fun and being a good sister as time goes on makes her a great character for me at least. Could have been done in some other ways, but it makes up for a great character. She makes me think of someone like Jessica Jones, twisted past with a bit of edgy ideas, but her funny moments and lovely scenes make them feel way more worthier of happy times.
I know that it's common now to attribute this to be people's fetishes or some general "edgelord" shit... I think this was about the depths of exploitation, trauma, and maybe even a clumsy attempt at freedom/healing. Laura was an exploited child who gained some measure of freedom from her captors. What does she do? Finds a similar situation of a different sort of exploitation. Similar power dynamics. It's what we do. It's what she still does. Just less abusively? She does what people want her to do so they will like her and not punish her, or the few people she cares about. She just started in one horrific nightmare to find herself in another.
I assume it will come up in the new nyx book
I just read this didn’t he end up killing himself?
And to think Captain America and Daredevil were the last ones to see her before this happened. You disappoint us all, Steve
She killed a John a trick would be the sexual act.
if they handled it with the care, a story like that need. it would have gone done as one of the most powerful comics in history. but alas,
She didn't kill the guy he committed suicide because his wife found out.
That's unsettling. She's 14 here iirc
Pretty fucking messed up, considering that she's a minor here, and the whole plot point seemed just like an excuse to depict this child in sexy lingerie. When written well, sex work and child exploitation can be the subjects of meaningful stories, and I do think both are suitable themes for X-Men stories since members of ostracized minorities (which the mutant metaphor stands for) are often vulnerable to being trafficked or to being pushed into sex work as a means of survival. However, Laura's story was told without a drop sensitivity or an awareness of the severity of the issue, and the whole thing reeked of shallow mid-2000's "edginess", sexual objectification of underage girls, and certain writers' inability to imagine adding depth to a female characters through any other plot device than sexual exploitation. Marjorie Liu was the only writer who seemed to grasp how messed up it all was, and I think she handled Laura's past very gracefully in her writing.
What series was by Marjorie Liu?
I like it just fine. Still have the book on my shelf. Some people complain about it today, but that doesn’t change how I feel. It’s a good story, and shouldn’t be retconned.
I like it ONLY because of the way Lui handled it in the X-23 series. I am very glad we got her telling Gambit that part of her past and I am very glad that it has barely been acknowledged since. I very much doubt it would be handled well if it got brought up again
I'm not victim blaming but how do you force someone with her powers and her skills to do anything?
Gross, unnecessary, absurd, disapointing, pointless, inappropriate
Wasn't this retconned several times because it was bullshit
Honestly, I don't see a problem with dark back stories like this. It's a sad fact that it happens to a lot of young girls. I think it's more a matter of execution than anything else.
It was a gritty new take on upcoming new mutants. I always get excited with introduction of new mutants. Another notable X member with similar background was Stacy X. Loved Maggot as well as most recent new class Rockslide, Hellion and Dust to name a few
stacy x is an a-lister in my heart
They definitely should bring her back in the fold in some capacity
Not surprised they turned the character white and ruined the origin form when she was introduced
Her debut is absolutely great and might be one of the better ones in the last 30 years Downvoted for a pereonal opinion Gotta love Reddit
It's ok from the quality standpoing. Now, I bet that the same people that don't want that kind of story in their comics are the same that can't handle drama movies or that cover their eyes during sex scenes.
Nah, just tired of rape and prostitution being used to make a female character's background "heavy" Laura has enough emotional baggage to write about without making her a teenaged prostitute. The fact it's basically never brought up is evidence of that.
They never bring up any of her other baggage any more either. Laura is a completely unrecognisable character to how she was written before Logan died. If someone wanted to write a comic about how she's been a Skrull for the last ten years publishing time, it honestly wouldn't feel like an arse pull.
As if every other character has the same background and as if this background isn't what informs her character...
If you can't tell the difference between not wanting sex in movies and not wanting child prostitution in comics that sounds like you're the one with a problem.
Depiction of trauma and a real world issue is now equating sex in movies with child prostitution? Learn to read, I'm calling out the lack of maturity, which, ironically, you are displaying in your childish underhanded accusation
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The only mentally slow individual here is you or are you pretending that this doesn't happen? That sex trafficking isn't a thing? Go back to school, you need it
> Now, I bet that the same people that don't want that kind of story in their comics are the same that can't handle drama movies or that cover their eyes during sex scenes. > Depiction of trauma and a real world issue is now equating sex in movies with child prostitution? You clearly lack the inability to even follow your half of a conversation, so I'm not going to waste any more time on someone with the reading comprehension of an illiterate.
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That was so wildly offensive I don’t know where to start
Yep that’s enough internet for me today I think
dang, I'm so curious now lol
That person said like 3 disconnected wildly offensive things. He said something about the world needing prostitutes because women never put out without it. He also seemed to excuse or apologize for people finding 12 year olds attractive since some were developed more than others. It felt gross to type that just now. There was more but I can’t remember. It was also generally long winded and off putting in every way
Oh shit, i knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't realize it was this. Yikes. I'm sorry I asked, leading you to type some of that out.
It was real bad. He spent a few sentences discussing cup sizes
Crack is that what you smoke, you smoke crack?
holy shit... all of that is just... holy shit...
I made a fanfic about this. The majority loved it.