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Sarah Kinney lived a life of trauma like the one her daughter later would, and while’s she now forgotten, she was integral to X-23 becoming a hero.
Of all of the X-Men, the cantankerous Canadian Wolverine has ironically had more biological and surrogate children than anyone else. The first of his offspring to debut was X-23, a.k.a. Laura Kinney. First introduced in the X-Men: Evolution animated series, X-23 would later be brought into the comics and featured in other adaptations such as the 2017 film Logan. As important as Logan is to his daughter, her other parent has been largely forgotten in the comics.
Sarah Kinney lived a life of trauma much like the one her daughter later would, and while’s she now mostly forgotten, she was integral to X-23 becoming a hero. Ironically, this minor character had much more to do with X-23’s raising than Logan did, although this didn’t afford mother and daughter a happy ending together. With X-23 again using her father’s name of Wolverine, here’s a look back at her birth and the woman who raised her.
Sarah Kinney, the Mother of X-23
Like her daughter’s comic book counterpart, Sarah Kinney was created by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, debuting in X-23 #1. Her father Ronald was incredibly abusive toward her, with neither her mother or her sister Debbie coming to her defense. Even after Ronald’s death, the broken Sarah was resentful toward her family, refusing to get close to them and not wishing to have children of her own.
Becoming a prominent figure in the field of genetics, Sarah was brought on board to attempt to replicate the success of the Weapon X program that turned James Howlett into Wolverine. She had become an expert in mutant biology and sought to clone Wolverine, as other subjects rejected the adamantium skeleton bonding process. Even though the idea was vetoed by higher-ups, Sarah circumvented the cloning process’s issues by creating a female clone with her own genetic tissue added to Logan’s. The Facility program let her do this, but only in exchange for her physically carrying the child as punishment.
The Death and Life of Sarah Kinney
Sarah birthed the mutant that was dubbed X-23, with the feral young mutant promptly being turned into a living weapon by her handlers. Sarah, once adamant against having children, tried in vain to give X-23 a proper childhood by reading to her. Not only was X-23 tortured with radiation in order to draw out her claws to coat them with adamantium, but a trigger scent was also created with the purpose of sending the little girl into a killing rage.
X-23 was used on several missions to kill whoever the Facility wished, and one of her victims ended up being her own mother. This unintentional murder happened after the trigger scent was activated while X-23 was in Sarah’s presence. Having truly accepted her as her daughter, the dying Sarah bequeathed her with the name Laura before passing away.
Sarah seemingly returned in a storyline in which Laura and her half-brother Daken were attacked by the Orphans of X, whose family had all been killed by Wolverine, Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike. Laura would eventually broker peace between the Orphans and her family, with Daken urging them to give Laura the body of Sarah that they had cloned. From there, the girl once known as X-23 finally gave her mother a proper burial and rest. When Wolverine returned from the dead, it was revealed by Iron Man to Laura that Sarah was in fact her biological mother, bringing the formerly troubled young lady a sense of closure and true family.
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