This past week saw the release of the final issue of “X-23″(#21) written by Marjorie Liu and illustrated by Phil Noto. With it and Ghost Rider #9 next week also the comes the end of all Marvel ongoings named after and starring a female protagonist (although there are still books on the shelves with female leads), which will be the case until the release of “Captain Marvel” in July.
Of course, oddly little has been said on the “blogosphere” about it, and what can be found in a cursory Google search isn’t rather positive (I found but three positive reviews), and that’s really unfortunate. Given the upset that the cancelation of this and “Ghost Rider” initially caused (which, admittedly, ended up in really nice articles like this one), you would imagine there would be something to be said about the finale — yet, there was nothing. On the flip side, literally the first thing I did after reading the issue myself was let every other member of this site know how much I liked it to see if anyone else was reading the title (there was one “yes” and one “do I need to read anything else if I read this?”).
So with that in mind, take a look behind the cut as I dive into the loss of Marvel’s X-23 title, and why Marjorie Liu is a writer worth following around the Marvel Universe.
“X-23” has been a highly underrated title at Marvel for quite some time, but it didn’t start out that way. It debuted alongside a #1 “Wolverine” issue by Jason Aaron that unfortunately eclipsed all other books of that nature coming out at the same time (such as “The Best There Is” or “Daken: Dark Wolverine”), and it had a rather slow start overall with a Miss Sinister storyline. For all intents and purposes, X-23 — who had basically been “that Wolverine clone” for a while in comics like “X-Force” — was used not so much as a character with her own thoughts or feelings, but rather as a tool to accomplish Story Element X or provide a foil for Character Y. There was certainly a lot to her, but not much was being done with her. Now she was thrust into her own ongoing saga, immediately put in a crossover with Daken, and the initial output (while being enjoyable enough) didn’t eclipse the nine other titles published concurrently with ties to Marvel’s favorite Canucklehead.
Yet, as time went on and the story evolved, Liu and her collaborators Sana Takeda and Phil Noto took every chance they could to truly do something special with the character. As the book hit it’s 10th issue, the title really began to evolve X-23 as a character who could hold her own beyond a mini-series; while still sticking to a core cast of characters, Liu used the recent vampire-izing of Jubilee to parallel X-23’s own struggles as a young character in the Marvel universe, and the budding relationship between Jubilee and X-23, two young girls were similar but different tastes for blood was a strong selling point. The book immediately took off from there; it launched into an FF storyline with fantastic Phil Noto artwork, and it began really exploring Laura’s personal demons. This was followed by a story where she babysat Franklin and Valeria and battled against a cosmic threat, all before somewhat capping around issue #19, the emotional apex of her emotional story, which — despite assumedly being a bit rushed due to the cancellation (or maybe not) — really showed off all Liu had done with the character since taking over the title. Laura was very much becoming her own character, with an adamant disassociation from Wolverine and her abusive past, which had been a crutch for writers using the character for far too long (and, really, still is).
The final storyline, ‘Girl’s Night Out’, was basically billed as Laura deciding what side of the Schism fallout line she wanted to stand on. It seemed essentially like a nice way to close things off: Laura’s allegiance to Wolverine could be weighed against his new thoughts on child combatants, her relationship with Jubilee would certainly be touched upon, and the relationships she fostered throughout the entire series with the FF and Gambit could be embraced in a big series finale where everyone hugs and cries and smiles at the end. Yet, as #21 opens, we’re immediately taken away from that scenario. In a completely silent issue, we’re instead shown an entirely solo and personal journey for Laura; this isn’t a girl’s night out in the traditionally accepted sense of carefree dancing and/or drinking, but rather one girl’s night, out in the wilderness and combatted with her most personal of demons — which, in no light fashion, was always the very central story that Laura was on when the book began.
The key ingredient of the issue really is it’s lack of dialogue. I must admit — I have a personal bias towards silent issues. 9 times out of 10, I think they’re brilliant, and I have no shame in adamantly expressing that. Considering that comics are a visual medium first and foremost, some books often times feel the need to tell you more than they show, which often feels like a foolish endeavor. A comic can be over-burdened with too much dialogue, and it can be destroyed when it feels the need to take the time and explain everything; it’s all on the page for us to see, and having characters explain everything should never be necessary. That’s why silent issues to me are so great, or silent comics in general: these are books in which the writer has such implicit trust in the artist (who, admittedly, are sometimes one and the same) to carry the emotional resonance of the story through art alone. It is, in so many words, the perfect representation of the greatest strength of a comic book.
So with this issue, as we are given the final solo story of Laura as her journey somewhat reaches a conclusion (in the lightest possible definition of that word in a shared universe where characters live forever), Liu’s decision to trust Noto with the story somewhat on his own is a completely understandable one. Noto is a fierce talent in the industry, and one whose praises are certainly not sung enough. Anyone who follows Noto’s art blog knows that he can often time create powerful emotional resonance with a single still image based on his ability to calls upon enough personal memory and appreciation in a reader that fosters a positive and connected reaction immediately, and this entire issue is rife with that. For anyone who has read through every issue of the series, this entire issue is essentially a tribute to the reader; it’s full of quiet nods to Laura and her journey, where she started roaming a hellish dreamscape and how she ends it in the snowy tundra (which alone is a nice parallel). It’s a story that sees Laura face to face with her own mirror image, and one that’s ultimately highly evocative experience.
The ending is certainly bittersweet, though, and there is no doubt about that. All things considered, it would have been nice to see more stories of Laura by herself like this. Liu’s story certainly doesn’t feel finished, and you can tell that there was more she wanted to do. Yet, given the amount of time she had, the story here is incredibly satisfying. Even for someone who had never read an issue of “X-23” before, the final issue here is a terrific testament to Liu’s work with the character, and if the book was forced to end against it’s will, it certainly picked a nice way to ride off into the sunset.
Next week, the first issue of Marjorie Liu’s run on “Astonishing X-Men” begins with a new cast of characters for the title and some implied wedding bells. I can only imagine that this will probably be worth checking out, even for the casual X-Fan.
