Both the cartoon and comics have the same basic origin for the character. The Weapon X program that originally bonded adamantium to Wolverine, Sabretooth, and other characters takes a different approach to creating the next great super soldier, and instead decides to clone Logan. After 22 failed attempts, the 23rd attempt yields an embryo that geneticist Dr. Sarah Kinney carries to term. Dr. Kinney gives birth to a daughter named Laura, but the program’s head Dr. Rice continues to develop her into a weapon, activating her mutant gene and bonding her with adamantium at age seven.
Rice brainwashes Laura to make her into a killing machine, and even forces her to kill her mother, Dr. Kinney. After some even more unpleasant events, including her becoming a sex worker in her first comic book appearance, Laura eventually makes her way to the X-Men, where Wolverine takes her under his wing.
Like her father, Laura finds a way to reconcile her savage impulses with her noble nature and, when Logan dies, she takes on the mantle of Wolverine. She even keeps the name after his inevitable return, a decision that he supports. Along the way, Laura discovers more clones like her, including one who takes the name Gabby a.k.a. Honey Badger, and becomes her sidekick and a member of the New Mutants.
With more than two decades of quality stories under her belt, Laura has become a mainstay of Marvel’s mutants. Yet, for general audiences, she’s mostly a supporting character in Logan, as demonstrated by Keene’s return in Deadpool & Wolverine. Yes, Keene gets to play Laura as a well-rounded, but still formidable adult in that film, but she largely existed as a bit of key-jangling to get the audience to applause.
X-Men ’97, a show that’s not above jangling some keys, might be the perfect way to introduce the masses to the older, more complex X-23. While her addition would break from the ’90s theme, even this version of the X-Men has plenty of time-travel, and they’re already adding elements of Grant Morrison‘s run and Krakoa, both of which arrived well after the show’s current ’90s setting. X-23 would fit particularly well alongside Jubilee, Sunspot, and the other young mutants rounded up by X-Factor earlier this season. She’d help the show explore the next generation of mutants, those living in the shadow of Professor X and Magneto’s debates about the viability of Xavier’s Dream.
If the show can integrate X-23 into its universe, then the raid on Weapon X will prove to be fortuitous, not just for discovering more about Wolverine’s past, but also by addressing his future and his legacy.