In the reality of Marvel, Mutants are meant to represent the next state of human development. While there are many sources of superpowers, Mutants are the only ones that are naturally born with special abilities. However, the new X-Men series Generation X-23 just revealed a new form of Mutant with a strange tie to the legacy of Wolverine.
Written by Jody Houser, with art by Jacopo Camagni, Generation X-23 centers around the Marvel character of Laura Kinney. First introduced as X-23, she was presumed to be a female clone of Logan. However, she was ultimately revealed to be his biological daughter by a woman named Sarah Kinney. She later adopted the Wolverine name at a time when Logan was dead.
The first issue of Generation X-23 found Laura and her sister, Gabby (aka Scout) tracking an unknown Mutant. Once located, the Mutant child reminded Laura of a younger version of her best friend, Kiden Nixon. The girl led the heroes to a strange lab full of more Mutant children.
Naturally, having been raised in similar labs, Wolverine and Scout had strong opinions about this. However, things took a curious turn when it became clear the Mutant children were not prisoners. More, they knew who Laura Kinney was!
What are Marvel’s new form of Mutants?
Wolverine soon learned that none of the children had real names; only designations like X-66 or X-99. The lab that they were in was called Facility 23, which the kids’ leader, X-Infinite, claimed was “named after their greatest success or greatest failure.” This made it clear that whoever ran Facility 23 was behind the same experiments that created Laura Kinney and Scout. The children reportedly liberated themselves after one of their number accidentally killed the scientists running the facility.
However, these Mutant children were not natural Mutants like Marvel’s X-Men. They were genetically engineered from material taken from Mutants. X-Infinite gave them the name “the Generated” since they were something entirely different from Human or Mutant.
In theory, the Generated are more powerful than Mutants, since they have at least two individual power sets. X-66, for instance, has telepathic powers and a bird-like form that allows her to fly. However, most of the Generated proved unstable and died after being put through extreme physical stress. Wolverine agrees to try and help train the Generated community to better defend themselves, but it is unclear how long Marvel’s new class of Mutant might last.
Generation X-23 #2 is now available at comic shops everywhere.
