The upcoming film Logan looks to be a wildly different take on the superhero genre. For Hugh Jackman's last outing as the iconic character, the man once known as Wolverine is older, wiser, and more melancholy than ever. He also has a new companion — a young mutant girl named Laura Kinney who possesses the same abilities that he does. Comic book fans know this girl will grow up to become the hero known as X-23, but they might not know her origin story. So is X-23 Wolverine's daughter?
It's complicated. In the traditional sense, she's not his daughter. In other words, Logan and a woman did not conceive Laura Kinney. She's actually a genetic clone of Wolverine, created by a program called The Facility which was attempting to restart the Weapon X program that had turned Wolverine into a living weapon by bonding adamantium to his skeleton decades ago. Using DNA from Wolverine, X-23 was created in a laboratory, and she was the 23rd attempt after 22 unsuccessful tries to isolate the genome (hence her name). So biologically speaking, Laura Kinney is Logan's clone — not his daughter. However, biology isn't the only thing that determines fathers and daughters, and their relationship certainly goes deeper than the genetic level.
After the pair meet in the comics and get to know one another, with X-23 moving into Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, she grows to look up to Logan, and even replaces him as Wolverine after he dies. And while he isn't always the greatest father figure, he in turn became protective of her as if she were his daughter while he was alive, since he sees so much of himself in her (not a shocker since they share the same genetic material). Their relationship was so close, in fact, that Wolverine made plans to legally adopt X-23 as his daughter in X-23 #2. The adoption was never completed, probably due to Wolverine's death, but at the time he proposed it, Laura noted that the two were already family even without any legal ruling.
So even though X-23 isn't technically Wolverine's daughter, they share identical DNA and they care fore each other as if they're family. That makes them father and daughter in my book.
Images: 20th Century Fox
