#x23

Laura🔥⚔️

The Legacy/Deadpool&Wolverine Marvel Legends are my favorite. Who’d have thought Dafne Keene’s X-23 would ever get her own action figure?? That wasn’t a pricey collectible or exclusive Minimate??

I’ve also seen a lot of weird implications that their relationship would turn abusive if it kept going which is so weird. There’s a double standard that people have about him where they think Julian isn’t capable of bettering himself as a person. I find that idea so weird when a huge part of Laura’s story is her trying to better herself even when others think she can’t.

Honestly I think the “Misadventures in Babysitting” panels are overblown by haters; Julian was kind of having a mental breakdown after losing his hands and thinking he killed Karima… and I thought her relationship with Warren was WAY WORSE!

I’ve always had more empathy for Hellion than I did Laura in “Misadventures”; I never really buy the fan argument that Julian was trying to pressure Laura into a relationship, if anything Julian really did just seem to want Laura to tell him he’s not a monster and did nothing wrong.

Laura basically spends the whole issue gaslighting him and telling him everything is fine while being weirdly angry at him. Honestly I never REALLY got why she in-story even bothered to see him (other than fans WANTED Hellion!), if she really was “done with” the relationship? She didn’t HAVE to see him when she was there? Julian probably wouldn’t have even known since he was staying in his room all the time depressed.

I kind of admittedly have a bias though (ironically people say Liu did too when she was writing this after a bad breakup! lol)- I first read Liu’s solo after a really bad “friend breakup”… so the story aspect of Julian feeling abandoned the minute he was struggling and feeling used by Laura after always being there FOR Laura… that REALLY resonated with me at the moment.

I think ultimately it taught me a good lesson that you need to have boundaries with how much you “do” for people and kind of realizing I was accepting toxic friendships because that’s what I subconsciously thought I deserved… but yeah 😐… it definitely colored and colors my reading.

I also really DON’T get fans arguments that “Laura shouldn’t have to be Julian’s therapist”- okay, fair… but anytime Laura acts shitty to someone else, they should have to accept it just because of her history of CA and because she’s a victim?

The harsh fact of life is, at some point… it doesn’t really matter WHAT the reason is that you’re doing what you’re doing. People can only put up with and tolerate so much. Most people aren’t going to dig deeper to figure out why you’re behaving a certain way… they’re just going to assume you’re a jerk!

While I think friendship is ultimately a “give and take” and “picking each other up at times”… I also don’t really get this argument that Laura doesn’t have to be sympathetic to Julian acting like an asshole because of trauma (again… fair!) but all the rest of the NXM need to give her a pass during this era of her talking shit because “Laura was traumatized”.

Greg Rucka. Greg Rucka. Greg Rucka!