It's official - Dafne Keen is returning as Laura Kinney/X-23 in Deadpool and Wolverine, as revealed in the latest trailer for the upcoming film. Keen's been straight-up denying that she's in the movie for a while now, so we were shocked - and extremely excited - to see her show up.
And now that Keen is around the age of Laura Kinney in comics, we're also champing at the bit to potentially see a fully realized cinematic version of the character. Because here's the interesting thing: in comics, Laura Kinney now shares the mantle of Wolverine with Logan, and has for nearly a decade.
Dafne Keen showed her action chops in some memorable fight scenes in The Acolyte, so she's certainly got what it takes to potentially share the name 'Wolverine' with Hugh Jackman's Logan, much like her comic book counterpart.
But how did Laura Kinney become Wolverine? And what's her history in comics before that?
Interestingly enough, X-23 debuted outside of comics in the X-Men: Evolution animated series in 2003, in season 3, episode 10, created by writers Christopher Kyle and Craig Yost, who would also go on to write many of her comic appearances.
In X-Men: Evolution, Wolverine is one of a few older mentors for a group of younger X-Men depicted as teens, including Cyclops, Jean Grey, Rogue, and Nightcrawler. Laura is a genetic duplicate of Wolverine, kind of a partial clone with all of his abilities, plus extra claws on her feet, and her genetic designation is X-23. She has a few run-ins with the team (though the show's run was cut too short for more X-23 episodes).
From a very young age, she's trained and employed as an assassin, leaving her with a massive kill count by the time she is a teenager. Her killer instincts are activated by a pheromone response that sends her into a berserker rage. Though she's at first standoffish with the X-Men, and especially Wolverine, she eventually finds a bond with them.
This backstory is largely imported to comics starting with her first comic appearance in 2004's NYX #3, which focused on a group of teen mutants living in New York City.
Following X-23's initial appearances, she eventually becomes part of the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #450, and even goes on to join a revamped version of X-Force written by her creators Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost. This version of X-Force is led by Wolverine, and operates as a secret black-ops team taking on missions too violent and brutal for the core X-Men team.
Laura also spends time training with the teen heroes of the Avengers Academy, but this ends in tragedy when several Avengers Academy students are abducted by the X-Men villain Arcade, who traps them in a sort of superhero Hunger Games, forcing them to fight and, in some cases, even kill each other.
Then, in 2014's Death of Wolverine limited series, Logan is killed - or as close to it as he can get - when he is encased in molten adamantium, leaving the X-Men without a Wolverine. Following 2015's subsequent Secret Wars event, which provides inspiration for the upcoming Avengers 6 film (possibly to be directed by the Russo brothers), Laura takes up the mantle of Wolverine with the blessings of the X-Men, even headlining her own All-New Wolverine ongoing title.
Then, when Logan is freed from the adamantium and returns to the X-Men in 2018's Return of Wolverine, he also gives Laura his blessing to continue on as Wolverine, with the pair now sharing the name.
Interestingly, Laura Kinney/X-23 is not the only clone of Wolverine to come from the program that created her. Laura later adopted a much younger clone named Gabby who she rescues from the program, taking her under her wing with the codename Honey Badger, and later Scout. There's also an older duplicate of Laura herself, named Talon, who is created through some pretty strange comic book science involving the X-Men being resurrected from death and a separate dimension where time moves faster.
Now in comics, Laura's original title NYX is relaunching with a brand new #1 on July 24, just days ahead of Deadpool and Wolverine's July 26 release date. In the new iteration of NYX, Laura/Wolverine joins up with Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel and several other young mutants to form a community of their own. That's part of a whole line wide X-Men relaunch which just kicked off with a new X-Men #1.
With Laura Kinney joining the MCU in the same week she's teaming up with Kamala Khan in comics, it's hard not to see the potential in an eventual movie team-up between Wolverine and Ms. Marvel as two young mutants.
Deadpool and Wolverine have a secret comic book history that makes the movie even more interesting.
