X-23 - Personality

Personality

Upon initially encountering her, X-23 might be mistaken for a typical young woman, calm and quiet. However, as her character evolved, she has become somewhat darker and more complex. X-23 is very taciturn, rarely uttering more than one sentence or two at a time. Because she grew up in a controlled environment, she speaks using perfect grammar, rarely using slang. She also engages in self-injury, cutting herself with her own claws; this is something she has done since a very young age. X-23 is a highly trained and skilled combatant; she is able to kill dozens of heavily armed opponents during a single encounter.

X-23's mother, Dr. Sarah Kinney, did her best to ensure the child retained some semblance of humanity, but her efforts appeared to be in vain. X-23 rarely spoke, or expressed much interest in her mother, who was forced to reject any emotional advance the girl might make, such as laying her head in her mother's lap, because of the Facility. Despite the upbringing X-23 received, she has always shown signs of humanity. In one particular mission when X-23 was assigned to assassinate Martin Sutter and his family, she killed Sutter and his wife without hesitation, but she spared their young son, Henry.

X-23 seemed to have taken up a better disposition since joining the New X-Men. She became a student at the Xavier Institute, found friends in Dust and Mercury, and developed apparent romantic feelings towards Hellion. Being a central part of a team helped her adjust to the world. However, she still retains the cold, no-nonsense attitude that was evident in the Mercury Falling arc which, along with the Children of X-Men arc, showed that Laura also has trouble comprehending and expressing the many new emotions she has been experiencing for the very first time.

When Blackheart forced her to face her fears embodied in a single, perfect "adversary", her fears took the form of "X-666", a stereotypical cheerleader with murderous intents. X-666 then explained how she was meant to be the thing lacking to Laura to be truly human: while every human is "nuanced", possessing a dark side and an inner self rarely shown to others, Laura's upbringing left her utterly bidimensional, driven and apparently lacking any other personality trait beyond the ones she's already showing, unable to grow further as person.

One thing that Laura has shown frequently is selflessness. Laura puts the safety and well being of her friends, family, and teammates above her own. However it is also accompanied by low self-worth. While Laura values the lives of those around her, she places little value on her own and sometimes makes suicidal decisions. Since leaving Utopia Laura has come to value her life more and become happier, though her social skills and grasp of emotions remain somewhat dull but nowhere near as bad as when she first started.