Warning: Contains a preview for X-Men #10
Laura Kinney, currently Wolverine on the X-Men team, is about to get a rematch against a foe she brutally beat down in the past, as the adamantium-clawed assassin Lady Deathstrike makes her return in X-Men #10, by Gerry Duggan, Javier Pina, and Marte Gracia.
Laura Kinney is a female clone of Wolverine, created by a group of rogue scientists known as the Facility who wanted to have their own private, obedient assassin. Laura got over her conditioning and joined the Xavier Institute, where Wolverine took her under his wing. Logan helped Laura in overcoming her traumatic upbringing, knowing what it feels like to be used as a weapon. Eventually she grew into a valuable asset to the mutant community, becoming a member of the New X-Men, X-Force, the Avengers Academy, and she was most recently elected to be part of Krakoa’s official X-Men team. Out of respect for her mentor and adoptive father, Laura took the codename Wolverine, however, Logan’s legacy also includes a long list of deadly enemies, and Lady Deathstrike is one of those.
The daughter of a Japanese crime kingpin who was the first to perfect the procedure used to bound the indestructible metal adamantium to human bones, Yuriko Oyama hates Logan as she sees him as a living offense to her father’s legacy. Lady Deathstrike underwent a painful procedure to transform herself into a cyborg equipped with adamantium claws and became one of the worst enemies not just of Wolverine, but of all mutants, allying herself with extremist anti-mutant leaders such as Donald Pierce and William Stryker. Following Stryker’s orders, Lady Deathstrike tried to kill the mutant messiah, Hope, when she was a child, and that’s when she had an unfortunate encounter with Laura, who brutalized her. A preview for X-Men #10, shared by Marvel Comics, teases a rematch between the two deadly women.
The issue will see Wolverine go to Phobos, the moon of Mars occupied by the anti-mutant organization Orchis, to investigate an individual possessing adamantium who has appeared on the X-Men’s scanners. Laura probably thinks it is someone kept captive by Orchis but judging from the cover of the issue, showing a well-known set of adamantium-enhanced claws, she will find waiting on Phobos none other than Lady Deathstrike. During their previous encounter, seen in New X-Men vol. 2 #45 by Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, Humberto Ramos, and Edgar Delgado, Laura, who at the time used the codename X-23, made Deathstrike pay for hurting her friend Hellion, beating her and stabbing her through the chest. This time, Laura is going by the name Wolverine and wearing a costume inspired by Logan’s, which will just add even more fuel to the fire of Lady Deathstrike’s revenge.
Lady Deathstrike is a classic villain from Wolverine and the X-Men’s past, and it’s great to see her making a comeback. The fact that she and the new Wolverine, Laura Kinney, share a (bloody) past makes their upcoming encounter even more interesting. Blood will surely be spilled in X-Men #10, available starting from April 13.
