X-23 By Hervé St.Louis Sep 2, 2006 - 3:34:00 PM

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X-23 is the female Wolverine clone aged to her teenage years who first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #451 in 2004. Unlike Wolverine, she has but two claws on the back of her hands and one in each foot. Although created by tenured X-Men creators, Chris Claremont and Alan Davis, I don’t like this character as it dilutes the uniqueness of Wolverine and is a clear attempt by Marvel to repeat the appeal that the cowled Batgirl had for fans of DC Comics.
 
Likeness
 
There are two head sculpts to this character. One looks more like a Latina while the other one more European. The Latina variant is influenced by artist Billy Tan. I don’t like this figure’s sculpt. There is also the real variant of this figure with the purple coloured jump suit.

Sculpt

X-23 is a petite teenage girl barely out of puberty. Her limbs are thin but her head big. Although it captures the age of the character, its head protrudes out and makes her look like a hunchback. Her limbs feel more like sticks than legs and arms. She’s supposed to be a dangerous looking and vicious character. Well, she doesn’t. I prefer the Latina head because it gives the character more personality and makes her look less plain.

Paint

This figure doesn’t have much paint, as her primary colours are moulded inside her plastic. The back of her hands have darker skin tone hues as if her hands were bloody. Toybiz gave X-23 a tan over her arms. Small details are painted properly, without bleeds. Bolts holding her limbs are coloured correctly to hide themselves within the figure.

Scale

X-23 is taller than the Astonishing X-Men Wolverine which is strange. Wolverine doesn’t suffer from dwarfism, but he’s quite small. If X-23 is a clone of Wolverine, shouldn’t her growth potential be similar to Wolverine’s. Here, she has the size of a regular teenaged girl. Yet X-23 is shorter than most Marvel Legends action figures. She also is about the same size as Sota’s Street Fighter Cammy.

Stability

X-23 is not stable. Because she lacks upper body weight to anchor her on the ground, she falls  constantly. Her legs and knees are too thin to support the little weight she does have. Making her stand up is a real balancing act. She will stand up, but not for long period. Also, as her nail claws bend under her soles, this increases the lack of balance. As she doesn’t have peg holes or an action figure stand, the only  way to make her stand properly, is to pull out the claws of her feet and use them to counter her forward pull.

Articulation

X-23 has useless articulations as the plastic is difficult to move and if one push too much will break. For example, the factory twisted her heck joint and head in off centre but I can’t get them to match without risking breaking the figure. Her large amounts of hair on top of her shoulders limit her heads mobility. Her knees’ articulations feel brittle and I dare not move them too much for fear of breaking them. I have the same problem with her elbows. X-23 has other articulations at the shoulders, the forearms, the wrists, thighs, calves, ankles, a rotating abdomen and waist, and retractable claws in her feet.

Plastic

The plastic is soft and therefore easy to break if one pulls too much on the limbs. Usually, I like this type of plastic although sculpting details are less pronounced - which is probably why it was chosen for X-23. She lacks definition. For thinner figures, I’d rather have the hollow type of plastic which is cheaper, but better for articulations.

Props

X-23 comes with Apocalypse’s head which one uses to create the giant 16 inch Apocalypse action figure. X-23 also comes with a copy of Uncanny X-Men 451

Packaging

The packaging is big, and it’s funny as X-23 occupies a limited space in the bow. Most of the packaging is to contain Apocalypse’s head and upper body. The card stock in the back features images of all the Marvel Legends Series 12 action figures necessary to create the large Apocalypse action figure.

Cost

This figure can cost anywhere from $10 to $25. The variants which are not exactly official at Toybiz probably fetch for more. However, large retail stores will sell them for same price, unlike specialized retailers who sell but action figures.

Availability

With so many variants available and no certainty in which is rarer or not, I wouldn’t worry much about chasing them unless one is a serious fan of X-23. As I got a Canadian Marvel Legends, it’s possible that the Latina head variant was introduced later. The Canadian distributor often gets its figure later than stores in the United States. One thing that makes X-23 valuable is the head of Apocalypse which is necessary to build the gigantic figure. It may be why Toybiz “wisely” decided to package it with a female derivative  character that’s not well known. That alone could make X-23 a difficult action figure to find.

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