The second miniseries by Christopher Yost and Craig Kyle, Target X was a 6-issue series running from March to June 2005. It served as Part 2 of her origin story, continuing the story of Laura's escape that began in Innocence Lost.
Unlike the former series, Target X brings Laura much more into contact with the larger Marvel universe. Wolverine, Daredevil, and Captain America all play significant roles; indeed her interrogation by the latter two forms a framing story for the rest of the story. It also retcons Laura's first introduction to Logan, showing her meeting him under completely different circumstances than their encounter with Claremont's Uncanny X-Men, while also skirting around her appearance in NYX.
X-23: Target X provides examples of:
- An Arm and a Leg: Kimura handcuffs Laura with adamantium cuffs, intending to force her to watch while she tortures Megan to death. Laura cuts off her own hand to escape.
- Arrow Catch: Kimura tries to shoot Megan with a crossbow in the climax of her attack on the Kinney household. Laura snatches the bolt out of the air just as it leaves the bow. More impressive: She did it from her back after Kimura had just broken her neck.
- Boom, Headshot!: Laura pulls this off on a helicopter pilot in flight. From the ground.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: Laura thought she could safely go to ground with her family. Too bad the Facility had an agent planted with them even before she turned up at their door for just such an eventuality. In the end, the only way she could protect them was to send them into hiding and go on the run again, leading to nearly two years of misery as a homeless prostitute.
- Cassandra Truth: Because Sarah covered up her kidnapping in Innocence Lost, no one believed Megan's story about him, or of her rescuer (Laura herself). This is a substantial part of what led to her troubles with her mother and in school, as they all thought she was simply making it up. Laura assuring her it did happen helps bring her comfort, and straighten up Megan's relationship with her mother.
- Catapult Nightmare: Megan awakens from a nightmare/flashback of her kidnapper with this trope.
- Codename Title: Codenamed for being Sarah's 23rd attempt to create a female clone, a.k.a having the X chromosome instead of a male / Y chromosome)
- Continuity Snarl:
- A minor one between Innocence Lost and Target X with Laura's age. Based on the timeline given in the former, Laura was nine years old at the time she's sent on her field test to assassinate candidate Johnson, while in the latter Laura's age is stated to be eleven. In fact, Target X tends to make her two years older during events referenced in both books in general.
- Target: X also causes confusion over where NYX fits into Laura's background in relation to Uncanny X-Men.
- Covers Always Lie: X-23: Target X #5 shows Kimura triumphantly holding two of X-23's claws, having apparently just ripped them out of her hand. The closest thing to this in the actual story is X-23 cutting off her own hand (and promptly reattaching it) to escape Kimura.
- Despair Event Horizon: Laura hits one at the end. After all the torture and dehumanization the Facility put her through, being forced to kill her mother by the Trigger Scent just as they were about to escape, having to give up all that remained of her family and the normal life she was starting to build to protect them when her Axe Crazy former handler came looking for her, and possibly spending an unspecified time on the streets as a prostitute under a sadistic and abusive pimp (it's unclear where exactly this series falls in her history), Laura finally reaches her breaking point, and seeks out Wolverine believing that all she has left is to kill him and herself. Logan manages to talk her down, but it's implied she has an ongoing battle with severe, if not suicidal, depression, and much of her character arc focuses on putting the pieces back together after all that was done to her.
- Driven to Suicide: The events of Target X finally push Laura to her breaking point. After escaping Kimura and severing contact with her only remaining family, she seeks out Logan with the intent of killing him and then herself to put a permanent end to the Weapon X project. She's so broken by everything that's happened to her by this point, that the only release she sees now is death. Logan manages to talk her down, but there's hints in later stories that Laura may still be prone to bouts of severe and possibly even suicidal depression.
- Dysfunction Junction: This is the state of Megan and Debbie when Laura first arrives at their house. Megan is troubled and still suffering severed PTSD over the trauma of her kidnapping, Debbie is struggling to help her as best she can, and her boyfriend, Desmond, is generally apathetic.
- Fanservice: X wears a school-girl style outfit — featuring a very short pleated skirt and a tight white shirt — in one of the flashbacks to her missions, that leads to several aversions of Magic Skirt during the subsequent fight scene. To say nothing of the corset, miniskirt, and thigh-highs she raids from her cousin's closet.
- Fast-Roping: The first Facility troops to respond to Laura's escape are delivered in this method by helicopter in the woods outside the bunker.
- Framing Device: The story is told in flashback, with the events depicted being what Laura reveals under interrogation to Captain America and Daredevil.
- Hair-Trigger Avalanche: After being cornered by Kimura during her escape from the Facility bunker, Laura grabs a gun from Kimura's belt. Kimura mocks her by reminding her that she's indestructible. Laura simply responds, "I know," before aiming off to the side and firing to trigger an avalanche.
- Hellish Copter: Laura shoots down a helicopter gunship pursuing her through the woods outside the Facility's bunker...by capping the pilot from the ground with a perfect headshot.
- Immediate Sequel: Partly: Target X fills in a few gaps in Laura's training and conditioning by the Facility, before picking up immediately after Sarah's death.
- Interrogation Flashback: As noted above, Cap and Daredevil's interrogation serves as a Framing Device while most of the story are flashbacks as Laura relates their past to them.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: She was developing a good relationship with her aunt and cousin, so getting as far away from them as she could was the best thing she could think of doing for them. Of course, it didn't help that Kimura was chasing her and had already tried to kill them.
- It's Raining Men: The Facility attempts to cut off Laura's escape by Fast-Roping soldiers into the woods from a helicopter gunship.
- Meaningful Rename: At one point Captain America asks Laura during her interrogation if she is X-23. She tells him no. Daredevil, who Steve brought in to act as a Living Lie Detector, ascertains she's telling the truth. It's a very subtle moment, but one which establishes Laura has decided that she truly is Laura Kinney, not X-23.
- Mob War: The Facility is hired by The Kingpin to put an end to one between himself and Fade, a mutant gangster attempting to muscle in on his territory. X assassinates Fade in his own office, and later takes out his wife and child, as well.
- Mook Horror Show: Laura subjects some Facility goons to one when they attack the Kinney household; she sends Megan and Debbie into the basement and turns on the sprinkler system to mask them from thermal goggles. She then stalks through the house picking off mooks one by one. She's only stopped when Kimura herself intervenes and breaks her neck.
- Murder-Suicide: Laura intends to kill Logan and then herself to put a permanent end to the Weapon X project, but Logan talks her down.
- Mythology Gag:
- Neck Snap: Kimura snaps Laura's neck like a twig when she attacks the Kinney household in Target X, then unceremoniously dumps her body down the basement stairs to menace Megan and Debbie. Laura survives because of her Healing Factor.
- Perp Sweating: Done by Cap while questioning Laura about her identity, and ascertaining that she is, indeed, X-23.
- Pinned to the Wall: Kimura pins Laura to a tree with a crossbow bolt during her escape from the Facility.
- Retcon: In Uncanny X-Men, Laura first meets Logan when her killing of some men who attacked a woman she was protecting draws the X-Men's attention. He, Nightcrawler, and Rachel track her to a restaurant, and it's implied Logan had never even heard of her before then. However Target X reveals that Sarah sent Logan a copy of her letter in case something happened to her, and that they first meet alone when she tries to kill him. New X-Men further refines the story by suggesting their encounter in Uncanny was a show for the others.
- Rain of Blood: This is what tips Cap off that he let Johnson's killer escape: As he's consulting with a grunt on the killings he notices blood dribbling from between the rear doors of the ambulance where he just left the only "survivor" of the attack. He opens the door to reveal the inside of the ambulance covered in blood, and the two EMTs dead inside.
- Room Full of Crazy: Megan's room is plastered with pictures she drew of her kidnapper, revealing just how deeply affected she is by the trauma. There's also a few of Laura, as well.
- Shout-Out:
- Laura's French teacher is Jaimie Hyneman, and her science teacher is Adam Savage.
- And a kid seated behind her and Megan at the movie theater wears a Firefly T-shirt.
- Skipping School: Laura and Megan in Target X. Technically they get suspended, but rather than heading home like they're supposed to, they steal the principal's car and take it on a joyride across San Francisco.
- Speech Bubbles: While everyone else has the traditional white bubbles, Fade's bubbles are in a very light green to set them apart.
- The Stakeout: Laura does this twice:
- The first is when she observes Debbie's family before revealing herself, which she does for nearly a month.
- She does it later with Logan, however a freak shift in the wind she couldn't account for tipped him off, and led him to lure her away from the school where he could confront her with less risk of collateral damage.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Laura cuts a gas line and blows up Megan and Debbie's house with Kimura (and possibly herself) inside it. Kimura obviously survives because of her indestructibility, while Laura uses it to help Megan and Debbie escape, masking it with a gas explosion.
- Super Hero Origin: Target X serves as the second half of Laura's origin, depicting the immediate aftermath of her escape from the Facility, and the loss of the last of her family.
- What Are You:
- A part of Cap and Daredevil's interrogation of Laura hinges on this question.
- Fade asks her this when she's set off by the trigger scent, and is able to track him even after he becomes invisible.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: While Logan is mentioned by Captain America and Daredevil throughout their interrogation of Laura, the last we actually see of him is when S.H.I.E.L.D. attacks him while trying to convince Laura to join him at the Xavier School. That he's not there raising hell with Steve over the matter is quite jarring.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Target: X reveals that this was Laura's exit strategy for her first assassination detailed in Innocence Lost. After slaughtering a political candidate, his entire family, and dozens of security, staff, press, functionaries, and other guests, Laura escapes by pretending to be the lone survivor of her own rampage. It's so convincing she even fools Captain America and slips his grasp just before he discovers the ruse.
