This week’s X-Men Guide Update is my first major update to one of the last major X-Men pages I launched! At the time this character was early in a star-making, joyous run taking over a legacy name from her adopted (and maybe actual) father. Little did I know how much she would go through in the next half decade, including flip-flopping over her codename, being trapped in an alternate reality, being trapped in a time bubble, and… well, the next bit would be a spoiler! Of course, I’m talking about my Guide to X-23 – Wolverine!
I’ve always been a major fan of X-23, ever since first encountering here in the murderous 2008 run of X-Force and then backtracking to read her entire chronological history exactly as it is presented in this guide.
That’s why I was so pleased when Logan’s death stuck for four whole years, during which time Laura Kinney enjoyed the spotlight as Wolverine. It was just as thrilling to see her and Logan reunited at the beginning of Jonathan Hickman’s run and for Logan to affirm that she still held the title, only for Hickman to snatch her out of our grasp later than issue as she became trapped inside the accelerated world of the Children of the Vault for nearly two years of publishing.
Yet, it turned out to be worth out – as Laura emerged to be the Wolverine of the main X-Men squad, while Logan continued to anchor his combined mutant CIA/FBI in X-Force.
As I caught up on more-recent Wolverine reading to update this guide, I discovered the recent totally shocking revelation from just a few months ago! I won’t spoil it here, but it definitely changes the game for Laura’s character – and, it makes this the perfect time to binge her entire reading order.
It was interesting to revisit this guide, which I first crafted in the early days of my Patreon campaign. That was the beginning of my era of tackling solo characters with splintered bibliographies by summarizing all of their appearances as I still do today. Yet, this had many hallmarks of my older guides, like a vague Table of Contents, collections listed without ISBNs and digital links, and crowded reading order sections that didn’t separate recollections like omnibuses and Complete Collections out into their own section.
After a full day of work, my Guide to X-23 – Wolverine is now much tidier, updated with every notable appearance, and annotated with Marvel Unlimited links to help you with your next binge read.
