Is Armor the new Shadowcat/jubilee?

[Mark Caringer]

If you follow the Astonishing X-Men book there is a girl(Armor) that Wolverine has taken under his wing and is basically training, will this grow into a shadowcat/jubilee like relationship, I hope so, but at the same time I'd like to see Wolverine give Shadowcat, Jubilee and X-23 some time as well

[Megalictis]

Hisako is as close to a Kitty/Jubilee type character as we've seen involved with Wolverine (in the sense of an adolescent girl as a foil) since - er - Jubilee. There was some talk about Angel Salvatore turning into the next Jubilee when she was introduced, but they barely spoke to each other after her introduction. Hisako seems to enjoy innocently needling Logan ("It's the beer.") as though she likes the idea of getting away with cracking on the "big, scary, Wolverine" when all the kids at the school seemed intimidated by him. I think she has that in common with Kitty and Jubilee. I think it all goes back to her calling him a "murderous gorilla" in Japanese during his class and finding out he's fluent in Japanese (and probably spent more years there than her). She was emboldened by having survived the exchange. And in Astonishing X-Men Logan did spend more time with her than the rest of the students (on Breakworld especially, where he calls her an X-Man). If you disregard Wolverine: First Class and the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine limited series then Hisako's relationship to Wolverine is similar to the relationship portrayed between Kitty and Logan in her early appearances in Uncanny X-Men.

But that's also where the similarity ends. I think Hisako is a couple years older than Kitty or Jubilee when they joined the X-Men (thanks to the Lobdell retcon). I don't know what Hisako's relationship with her parents is like, but she's apparently not an orphan like Jubilee and she's not dealing with her parents getting divorced as far as we know. She's not looking for a father figure. Logan hasn't spent anywhere the amount of time training Hisako solo as he did with Kitty or Jubilee. Jubilee and Kitty were the only kids at the mansion during their early years while Hisako was one of over 100 students (and one of 27 who was left after Decimation). Everyone took Kitty under their wing and Jubilee pretty much stuck to Wolverine every chance she could. Hisako is just one of many young mutants with the X-Men who just happens to be a little closer and more informal with Wolverine than most. Meanwhile Kitty is the one Logan can "sense" when she's in danger, the one who saved his broken bone claw, the only X-Man who ever proposed to him. And Jubilee is - if anything - closer to Logan than Kitty. She called him "the best thing that ever happenned to her" and promised never to leave him again when he began his first feral regression. Jubilee faced down "Death" by refusing to fight him - she's the one he wouldn't attack. In 35+ years of comics Wolverine has only admitted he "needed " one other person - Jubilee (GenX #6). So while Hisako may at least appear to be following in their footsteps, she still has a looooooong way to go. Maybe she needs to sign up for the next officially designated "Wolverine Rescue Team."

And I agree with you, I would like to see more development of the relationship between Hisako and Wolverine, but I'm more interested in seeing Logan spend some quality time with Jubilee and X-23 (Kitty is kinda'dead-ish right now and that relationship is getting plenty of expansion anyway in Wolverine: First Class). And with Jubilee in limbo (and de-powered) she hasn't got much of a shot at any serious page-time in the near future. So what I'd really like to see is some conflict between Hisako and Laura (once depicted as rooming together along with Pixie) over Logan. I really think Laura has some expectation/need to have Logan treat her as his family, and that need goes mostly unfulfilled (which is still more than she has otherwise). She may even wish he'd call her "Laura" more often instead of "X." Her childhood is mostly an emotional hole. Her "mother" is dead (by her hand). Logan is technically somewhere between an identical and frateral twin to her, but he's also the closest thing she has to a father. It seems reasonable to me that she might see Hisako (or any "outsider" who gets too close to Wolverine) as a threat, getting the attention, recognition and approval that should be hers. That could cause tension between Laura and Hisako. But Laura's unlikely to admit such emotional vulnerability, so her hostility may come off as an inate part of her nature until she's confronted directly about it. In just think the whole thing would be a good way to explore both characters (and their connections to Logan) and build a relationship between them.