“You Are Needed By Others”
Man, I love Phil Noto’s art. There’s just something about it. Not quite realistic, but not that cartoony. It really works for me and I don’t know why. Drawing X-23 is an interesting challenge because Laura doesn’t emote all that often. She keeps a fairly stoic pose 98% of the time. That’s why I thought it was neat that possessed Laura got a chance to contort her face a bit. Gives Phil Noto a chance to stretch his fingers. Well, that and the large, bloody, gory melee later on in the book.
There are other great art tricks in the book as well. I love how Chaos took on an astral quality with the whole space look while Laura gets a neat look when the Captain Universe power takes over. It’s well done.
Marjorie Liu has been doing a stellar job with the writing so far. I’ve only been reading since issue 13, but it feels like Laura may actually be growing as a character. She’s still not loose and she retains her hobby of never using contractions, but I think she might finally be opening up to people. The battle with Chaos was also a nice way of sidestepping the usual inner battle that you might see with a telepath. Chaos’ space represented the isolation and desolation that X-23’s life was before she broke free. A place where other men control her and she’s nothing but a killing machine.
It’s maybe not the most complex symbolism (light = good, dark = bad), but it’s nice to read that even though Laura’s friendship “light” is dim and far away, it’s not dead and it’s still got the power to save her if she lets it.
X-23 is the only X-Book I read and I think it’s definitely worth it for the muted character piece that we have forming here. Plus I think the next arc still has the FF in it even if it’s switching artists (so sad!). Definitely check it out if you aren’t reading it already, I don’t want them to cancel the book.