X-23: Innocence Lost

X-23: Innocence Lost (2006) Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Billy Tan, Jon Sibal

I came across X-23 in NYX: Wannabe, and discovered that she had her own story arc. Since I liked the NYX stories so much, I decided to check out Innocence Lost.

I have to say, this was surprisingly good. I’ve browsed different superhero comics before, and was never that impressed by them. However, like NYX, the story occurs in the same world as X-Men, but is not predicated upon knowing much about the X-Men back story. Instead, you are simply following the story of X-23, a mutant created after the group lost control (and “possession” of) Wolverine.

X-23 is created in a scientific lab after experiments with Wolverine with terribly wrong. The story follows her from the failed experiments to her creation through her training. We also catch glimpses of the pasts of the two scientists most responsible for her creation, and how they came to create X-23.

The storytelling is very very good here. Although the main character is X-23, the point of view is primarily (but not always) from that of Sarah, the scientist. Although there is a “bad guy” in the story, he’s not a cardboard cutout of evil, and although he’s not as complex as Sarah, he is interesting. In an icky kind of way.

The characters also feel like real people. Not necessarily good people, but they seem to have human reactions–even X-23.

And the art–the art is also extremely well done. Although X-23 is in some places ridiculously skinny, through most of the story she actually looks like a human girl. Yes, of course the women are all to skinny, but they don’t feel like caricatures of women, nor do they act like them.

If you are not a big fan of superhero comics (like me) you still should check out X-23, as it’s a personal history, rather than the generic good guys going after the generic evil bad guys who are plotting to take over the world.
Rating: 9/10

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