Innocence Lost . A top-secret program is tasked to replicate the original
Weapon X experiment that bonded adamantium to the skeleton of
Wolverine. The project is taken in a new direction: Dr. Martin Sutter recruits renowned mutant geneticist Dr. Sarah Kinney to develop a clone of Wolverine. Also on the team is Sutter's protégé, Dr.
Zander Rice, who was raised by Sutter after his father was killed by the original Weapon X. Since the only genetic sample from Weapon X is damaged, Kinney is unable to salvage the
Y chromosome. Kinney proposes the creation of a female genetic twin. Her request is denied; Rice is opposed to the idea. After 22 failed attempts at reconstituting the DNA using a duplicate X chromosome, the 23rd sample yields a viable sample to combine with an
embryo. Although Kinney is allowed to proceed, Rice exacts revenge for her insubordination by forcing her to act as the
surrogate mother of the specimen. For nine months, Kinney's every move is monitored. Finally, she gives birth to "X-23". After seven years, Rice subjects X-23 to
radiation poisoning to activate her mutant gene. He extracts her claws, coats them with adamantium, and reinserts them back into her hands and feeta procedure performed without affording the child any
anesthetic. Rice creates a "trigger scent" that drives X-23 into a murderous rage when she detects it. X-23 is then trained to be a hired assassin, ordered to kill "anyone ... everyone ... for a price." Debbie's boyfriend turns out to be an agent for the Facility who has been instructed to manipulate Laura into killing Megan and Debbie using the trigger scent to activate "X-23". The agent fumbles the assignment by spilling the trigger scent on himself and is killed by Laura. Facility agents storm the house, led by the woman who served as Laura's handler as X-23,
Kimura, who had treated her harshly in the facility, punishing her even if the missions went according to plan. Laura manages to get Megan and Debbie to safety by handcuffing Kimura to a radiator and then triggering an explosion in the house, buying some time. After Laura and Megan part, Laura decides to confront the man who made her creation possible, Wolverine. Laura tracks Wolverine to Xavier's mansion and engages him in a battle, defeating him using tactics and maneuverability. She does not kill Wolverine, instead telling him why she came. Wolverine reveals that he is aware of Laura's ordeal, having received a detailed letter from her mother. The talk is then interrupted when S.H.I.E.L.D. agents led by Captain America come to arrest Laura. Despite the mayhem in her past, Matt Murdock accepts Laura's innocence. Captain America wants Laura to atone for the murders she has committed, but ultimately frees her both due to realizing the true situation of her brainwashing, and to avoid S.H.I.E.L.D. exploiting her as their own weapon. He takes Laura to a bus station and tells Laura to return to Logan. While on the bus, Laura pulls out letters from her mother and begins shedding tears as she reads them.
NYX Laura surfaces in New York City and is again brainwashed, this time by a pimp named Zebra Daddy who exploits her as a
prostitute catering to
sadomasochistic patrons. In her spare time, Laura continues to
cut herself with her own claws; unable to free herself from Zebra Daddy's control, she becomes mute and withdrawn. Upon meeting
Kiden Nixon, a young mutant with the ability to freeze time when in danger, and
Tatiana Caban, a mutant who can take on the physical attributes of whoever and whatever she comes into contact with via their blood, X-23 starts to come to her senses. Although she runs away from Zebra Daddy, he tracks her down. With the aid of her new-found friends (and the mutant named
Bobby Soul), Zebra Daddy and his thugs are defeated: Laura kills him to save the lives of her friends. Laura abandons her new friends, but years later would eventually bump into them one last time when on an investigation with Wolverine.
X-Men Laura takes a job as a waitress at the mutant-themed "Wannabee's" nightclub in the
Mutant Town district of New York. She defends Jade Parisi, daughter of mob boss Don Parisi, against some thugs who berate her for having a mutant boyfriend. Laura kills some of the thugs and helps Jade escape and go into hiding. The deaths inadvertently implicate Wolverine, prompting his teammates to investigate. Laura attacks Wolverine on sight, but he eventually calms her down. She leads the X-Men to Parisi's daughter. After aiding the X-Men against Parisi's mutant enforcer Geech, Laura flees the scene. This encounter is later revealed to be partially arranged between Laura and Wolverine in order for her to encounter and ally with the X-Men without revealing her past. She later returns to help the X-Men save victims of a car accident, after which she is enrolled at the
Xavier Institute and assigned a room with
Rachel Summers and
Kitty Pryde. Laura behaves protectively towards Wolverine, observing him on the mansion's security monitors and even attacking his teammate
Bishop after he floors Wolverine during a training session. During one of her sessions at the mansion's monitors, an anomalous energy spike prompts Laura to investigate. She encounters
Spider-Man at the source of the signal; mistaking him for an enemy, she attacks him. The pair ultimately team up to save the young mutant
Paul Patterson from an alternate reality version of
Iron Man known as
Iron Maniac. The arrival of Captain America and the super-spy
Black Widow help turn the tide, with Spider-Man and Laura destroying Iron Maniac's equipment using their own version of the classic Fastball Special. Laura secretly follows Wolverine on his investigation of strange activity in the
Canadian Rockies. Ambushed by the Hauk'ka, evolved Saurians from the
Savage Land, Laura manages to escape and alert the X-Men. Traveling to the Savage Land, Laura and the X-Men team-up with the Savage Land's lord
Ka-Zar and his allies, the
Savage Land Mutates, to prevent the Hauk'ka from destroying human civilization by exerting control over the weather-manipulating X-Man,
Storm.
Captain Universe Laura is later empowered by the cosmic Uni-Power to become
Captain Universe. She quickly learns that
A.I.M. is seeking the Uni-Power in hopes of using it against their enemies. She agrees to help the Uni-Power, and travels with a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent called the
Scorpion to a secret A.I.M. hideout. There, they discover information on the Uni-Power that is being transferred to another facility. The Scorpion attempts to copy the information, but is stopped by Laura. The Scorpion is then ordered to take her into custody, but covers for her instead and allows Laura to escape. At the close of the issue, the Uni-Power bids farewell to Laura, and parts ways with her.
Decimation After the events of "
House of M" and "
Decimation", Laura was one of the few mutants to retain her powers. Having previously left the institute off-panel, she returns to the X-Mansion at Wolverine's insistence. Laura develops an attraction towards Julian Keller, aka
Hellion. Following a bombing at the school by anti-mutant religious zealot
William Stryker, Laura confronts Stryker at his compound, and kills three of his
Purifiers, rescuing her comrades. When Surge receives a distress call from
Forge, Laura accompanies the New X-Men. Although the team disables the
Nimrod unit, Laura is grievously wounded and is unable to heal herself. To save Laura, Hellion convinces Emma Frost to unlock his telekinetic potential, increasing his powers (and thus, his speed) to a level thought impossible by a
Sentinel guard working for the
Office of National Emergency. This allows them to fly back to the mansion in time for Laura to be healed by
Elixir.
Mercury Falling While Laura is bonding over coffee with
Cessily Kincaid, the cafe is attacked by
Kimura and her minions, who in turn capture Cessily. After Laura returns to the school, she and Hellion go off to locate the Facility's whereabouts. Laura interrogates a man at gun point, and upon securing the information, shoots him in the head. Hellion informs her that killing will no longer be a part of their interrogation technique. Laura and Hellion infiltrate the Facility and after an encounter with Kimura, the two soon find Cessily in liquid form, barely able to compose herself. They are attacked by
Predator X, who has absorbed Cessily's liquid mercury skin. Laura and Hellion decide to fall back, but are pursued by the Predators. The group is once again ambushed, only to be rescued by the
Astonishing X-Men and
New X-Men. The two teams turn the tables on the attackers, and defeat the remaining facility troops. During the scuffle, the remaining Predator escapes. Sometime later, Emma Frost finds Kimura trying to assassinate Laura, and confronts her, erasing the one happy moment in Kimura's life from her memory, and psychically suggesting that Kimura's assignment now is to hunt down the remaining members of the Facility and kill them.
Messiah Complex Cyclops assembles a new incarnation X-Force team that includes Laura, Wolverine,
Wolfsbane,
Caliban,
Warpath, and
Hepzibah. During the team's confrontation with
Lady Deathstrike, Laura nearly kills her in revenge for Deathstrike's attack upon Hellion. Laura also saves Wolverine's life by killing
Scrambler just before he scrambled Wolverine's healing factor. Following the event of "Messiah Complex", Cyclops forms a black ops incarnation of X-Force to deal with threats preemptively. He drafts Laura Kinney for this team, though this puts him into conflict with Wolverine, whom he did not consult on this decision prior. Wolverine asks Laura to reconsider this, warning her of the life she is giving up should she continue on this path, but Laura ultimately decides to take her place on this team. Her conflict with Wolverine recurs over his observation that she is reckless with the lives of others.
Messiah War The X-Men moved to San Francisco, where they are accepted as heroes by the mayor, having rejected the
Fifty State Initiative. Laura is finally reunited with Kiden Nixon, who herself makes her first appearance outside the
NYX series. This future version of Kiden is revealed to be a disruptor of time travel technology, which threatens to trap X-Force,
Cable and
Hope in this era. While Laura agonizes over whether to kill Kiden,
Domino fatally shoots Kiden herself. In a subsequent storyline, Laura goes back in time to save
Boom Boom when Domino and
Warpath are neutralized. During the course of this mission, Laura's left arm is severed from her body. She is rescued by the X-Force, leading into the 2009 - 2010 "
Necrosha" storyline, which sees Laura reunited with her friends from the
NYX series.
"Second Coming" Laura is shown to be part of Cyclops' "Alpha Roster" in the course of the "
Second Coming" story arc. Along with the most of X-Force, Laura accompanies Cable and
Cypher to the future in an attempt to shut down the Nimrod invasion. Following Cypher successfully over-riding the programming, Laura attempts to return through the temporal portal, only to sustain horrific injuries. The portal prevents any organic matter traveling through it. This leads Cable to sacrifice himself, allowing his techno-organic virus to overwhelm him, forcing the portal open and making it possible for the team to return to Utopia. In the fallout of "Second Coming", Wolverine cuts Laura from the team, explaining to her that after a lifetime of following orders from others, she needs to learn to make her own choices and follow her own path. Laura subsequently tracks former Weapon X scientist Detlef Metzger, intending to capture him before he can perform experiments using a vial of Wolverine's blood. Instead, Metzger is kidnapped by a group of US soldiers, while Laura notices that
Daken has been watching her.
X-23: Deadly Regenesis During the time of
schism between Wolverine and Cyclops, Laura is separated from the division. Wondering where she truly belongs in life, Laura decides to leave the island of
Utopia. However, she shortly finds herself dealing with Kimura,
The Kingpin, and a new deadly enemy harboring a personal vendetta against her.
X-23 (Volume 3) autographing a copy of the
Daken/X-23: Collision trade paperback at a signing at
Midtown Comics in Manhattan Laura begins having horrible nightmares for mysterious reasons, then finds herself on a journey to self-discovery and begins a friendship with
Gambit. They eventually travel to
Madripoor to find clues to her nightmares. Laura continues having strange dreams once again, this time about a strange symbol, so she befriends the
Fantastic Four and gets the job of babysitting
Franklin and
Valeria Richards.
X-23: Girls Night Out Laura is asked by Wolverine to join his side. She replies by asking if there is any other choice. While she thinks about what choice she will make, Laura goes for a walk with
Jubilee and asks her why she chose Cyclops' side. Jubilee tells her she chose to stay with Cyclops because, as a vampire, she can hear the heartbeat of everyone around her, and it makes her hungry and wants to eat them. Laura tells her that she will not hurt them but Jubilee tells her that the urge is there and that she needs to fight as much she needs blood. She cannot be with Wolverine because she is afraid to violate his new philosophy: if you are a kid you do not fight, and he sees her as a kid. Jubilee tells Laura that Logan sees her the same way, they both agree that it sucks. Laura's phone rings as the others need an answer, but they ignore it and Jubilee tells Laura to go and have some fun and dance. Laura explains that she cannot dance, but Jubilee tells her it does not matter because she is hot. Laura tells her she is not hot. However, as they go, someone follows them. While Jubilee was dancing, Laura becomes distracted by looking at someone and recognized him as the person who took over Zebra Daddy's operation. She and Jubilee attack him and his men and take the girl who was with him since she knew where the other girls were and how to free them. As they think about what to do with the girls, because they cannot just call the police, the
Black Widow and some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents appear and take the girls to help them. Natasha offers Laura to come to the
Avengers Academy and she accepts. The next day she tells Logan what happened, and Wolverine tells her he is going to miss her and he is sorry he could not do better by her. She tells him she is going to miss him too, then she takes a motorcycle and drives to the academy.
Avengers Academy Following the "
Fear Itself" storyline, Laura appears as one of the students at the new
Avengers Academy. The academy sees she does not need any combat training after she fought
Tigra. After she introduced herself to the other students, she explained to Mettle the difference between killing an innocent and killing to protect an innocent, telling him that he is not a psycho killer, and that they can talk more about it another time. This makes
Hazmat feel jealous.
Finesse became friends with Laura due to their lack of emotion. Finesse also stood by Laura when she opposed the X-Men locking their students on the academy grounds during
Avengers vs. X-Men. However, their friendship took a turn for the worse when
Jeremy Briggs tried to release a superhuman cure. After Briggs took out Laura and tried to acid burn her, Finesse grabs Laura's arms and fatally stabs Briggs in the radial and femoral arteries, making him bleed to death. Laura first thought she killed him, but when she finds out it was Finesse, she was furious. Laura agrees to keep Finesse's secret, but declares they are no longer friends, upsetting Finesse.
Avengers Arena After
Avengers vs. X-Men and the conclusion of
Avengers Academy, Laura was part of the students abducted by
Arcade in
Avengers Arena. Arcade turns them loose for 30 days in Murderworld to fight for survival. In a flash forward, it is shown that on the penultimate day, she attacks Hazmat and is badly burned, but the results are unknown as the flash forward then ends. The academy students set up camp and face off against the Runaways when
Chase is framed, but Laura is soon separated from
Reptil and Hazmat when Arcade covers the group in trigger scent and Reptil evacuates Hazmat. Laura then finds
Juston Seyfert and helps him strip down his Sentinel. After
Apex kills Juston and takes his Sentinel, Laura goes to track them and get them back. After nearly being killed by Apex, Arcade unleashes a trigger scent to send Laura in a berserker rage, causing her to injure Hazmat.
Cullen Bloodstone turns into his Glartrox form and fights Laura, defeating her and powering her down from her rage. After that, Laura continues to injure Hazmat until
Anachronism steps in. Angered over Nara's death and holding Laura responsible, Anachronism attacks Laura, inadvertently saving Hazmat. By this point, most of Laura's body is badly burned with radiation, and she is still in this state when the competition ends and
Nico Minoru, Chase,
Cammi,
Death Locket, and Anachronism call
Hank Pym,
Abigail Brand,
Maria Hill,
Captain Britain, and Wolverine to pick up the kids. Laura is loaded onto a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter and is taken away to parts unknown, ending her affiliation with the Avengers Academy.
All-New X-Men Unlike the other Arena survivors, Laura did not join the group in
infiltrating the Masters of Evil in
Bagalia. After the events of
Avengers Arena, Laura is found by Kitty Pryde and the time-displaced original X-Men. She is amnesiac and being hunted by the
Purifiers. After being found by Kitty, Laura was taken to their base to recover. When Laura wakes up, with her memories now returning, at the former Weapon X facility she immediately tries to escape. Teen Cyclops goes to talk to her, while he is gone Teen Jean mentions to the team that Teen Cyclops "fancies" Laura. As Laura makes it outside she's met by Teen Cyclops, who was waiting for her. Teen Cyclops tries to calm her down but Laura only ceases hostility after getting Teen Cyclops scent and figuring out that Teen Cyclops is who he says he is. The two talk, with Laura telling him that she does not want to talk about her past or what happened to her. Suddenly Teen Cyclops awkwardly hugs her, when she was distracted and looking sad, because he thought she needed a hug. Laura tells him that she does not do hugs, especially not with an audience as Kitty, Teen Jean, and Teen Beast were watching them. Teen Jean expressed a very conflicted look upon her face due to the hug and having read part of Laura's mind, thus she knows what happened in
Avengers Arena. Laura thanks them for helping her and suggests they take the fight to the Purifiers, but in order for her to track them down, they will have to return her to where they found her. Later, she is attacked by Raze, who disguises himself as her to infiltrate Cyclops's base. She subsequently begins to date the younger
Angel, and meets
Jimmy Hudson—the son of the Wolverine of the
Ultimate Marvel universe—when the team are transferred into the Ultimate Universe by accident. She and the All-New X-Men team up again with the
Guardians of the Galaxy in search of
The Black Vortex, during which Angel submits himself to the Vortex and almost dies, but instead is granted golden light wings. She asks him why he endangered himself, and he tells her that he wanted to change himself so he will not turn into Archangel and that he can stay himself forever since he is in love with her.
All-New Wolverine The series opens approximately eight months after "
Secret Wars", and reveals that her healing factor is working normally again after having been drained by Siphon in the Nexus of All Realities. Laura later discovers that Robert Chandler of
Alchemax Genetics had made three clones of her named
Bellona,
Gabby, and Zelda who did not manifest the same mutation as her. This led to a fight with Alchemax Genetics, during which Bellona escapes, Gabby is taken in by X-23, and Zelda is killed.
The Hunt for Wolverine During the
Hunt for Wolverine storyline, Laura attends a disguised black market auction in a submarine off the coast of
Guam. After a disguised Tony Stark wins the genetic material of
Luke Cage and
Jessica Jones' daughter
Danielle Cage in the auction, she advises Tony Stark to drop out of the auction afterwards. When the unidentified seller of the genetic material meets with Tony Stark, he is attacked by
Mister Sinister for stealing the genetic material of the original Wolverine. Laura sheds her disguise and assists Iron Man in fighting Sinister, slicing off Sinister's left hand. Iron Man finds information in Sinister's database which reveals that part of her genetic material was provided by Sarah Kinney, the scientist who created her and carried her to term. This makes her the
biological daughter of both Sarah and Logan, and not strictly just a clone.
X-Men Red Laura and her sister Gabby Kinney appeared as members of
Jean Grey's
X-Men Red team.
X-23 (Volume 4) Laura returns to the X-23 codename as she, her sister Gabby, and their pet Jonathan go on an adventure to prevent others from being experimented on. Laura, alongside
Synch and
Darwin, were tasked to venture into The Vault, as their powers assures their chances of surviving the temporal disparity created by said place. As soon as the three entered the Vault, they lost contact with the X-Men, and because time moved much quicker inside the Vault, the trio were stuck within for centuries. Confirming their assumptions, the trio went on to survive as centuries went on, fighting different iterations of the
Children of the Vault and growing close to Synch, until Darwin got captured and experimented upon by the Vault's artificial intelligence in order to create an evolved batch of the Children, forcing Laura to sacrifice herself to give Synch enough time to escape and reach Xavier. With her status in doubt, Laura was revived by
The Five without her memories of her time inside the Vault or the relationship developed between herself and Synch, who still had his memories intact. There are some awkward encounters between the two because Laura is aware of the missing memories and relationship Synch had with the original version of her. At the next Hellfire Gala, Laura decides to leave the X-Men team. It remained unknown to anyone that the newly-resurrected Laura was a duplicate, as the original Laura was not killed but instead captured and kept alive by the Children inside the Vault. Forge eventually discovered her on a rescue mission and took her back to Krakoa, where she was reunited with Synch. Afterwards, she moved with him into the X-Men's Treehouse in New York City. while they were part of the mutant resistance following the attack on Krakoa by
Orchis. Talon and Synch successfully steal technology to nullify Orchis' poisoned medicine from the
High Evolutionary, however, he retaliates and disintegrates Talon's body. Synch initially is able to support a psychic imprint of Talon's mind that he can communicate with but without a way to download it into a new body, there is no way to bring Talon back to life. The Talon in Synch's mind convinces him to let her go so that he has the power to fight Nimrod. After the Sabretooth Army is driven away from the Arctic Base but manage to slaughter many of its inhabitants and abduct Laura, Logan falls into despair and Aurora mourns Fang's death, which is rendered permanent as Krakoa's Resurrection Protocols are no longer an option. Later in the conflict, during Sabretooth's absence, Laura escapes and kills the Savage Sabretooth before sending a distress signal to X-Force. Fang's death is avenged when Logan kills Sabretooth at the end of the conflict.
From the Ashes In the post-Krakoan Age, the surviving Laura (codenamed Wolverine) is now a hero in
Brooklyn focused on "saving mutants from harm on the streets of
Bushwick", starring in
NYX. Kiden Nixon emerges from her
timestream to help Laura and her friends prevent Mojo's technopathic lieutenant Local from hijacking a
Dazzler concert. While en route to
Graymalkin Prison, the prison convoy escorting Julian is ambushed by Laura,
Sophie and Kiden to rescue him. Although Julian is initially refuses to be rescued and is unrepentant for his actions as the Krakoan, he changes his mind after an emotional talk with Laura and leaves with the group. Later on, Mojo uses the last seed of Krakoa to transform New York into Mojo City; however, Laura, the other NYX mutants, and their allies break Mojo's influence over the city and defeat him. She also headlines in
Laura Kinney: Wolverine where she has decided to protect mutants on her own and follows up on hidden pleas for help that were inside the Krakoa Treehouse in New York City. Laura initially teams up with
Elektra Natchios (as Daredevil) in Hell's Kitchen to investigate and stop the anti-mutant militia called Humanity First. ==Powers and abilities==