Will The NeXt Wolverine Be Female? Bryan Singer Weighs In...

Rumours have been spinning across the internet for some time; with Hugh Jackman soon to depart from his iconic role as Wolverine, who will take over? A popular fan-theory is that the next Wolverine could be female, a clone known as X-23. Now, Fandango got the chance to ask Bryan Singer about it. His response?

"I have discussed that with the studio. I actually initially pitched the... female."

It's exciting to learn that there are high-level discussions over at Fox about X-23. The female clone has been a popular character ever since her animated début in X-Men: Evolution.

It didn't take long for X-23 to make her way into the comics, and she's pretty much been in continuous print ever since. Her journey's taken here through NYX to New X-Men, on to X-Force, and then to an excellent solo series. From there, she wound up a core player in the controversial Avengers Arena, before becoming a mainstay in All-New X-Men.

Interestingly enough, in the comics Wolverine is dead, and X-23 has actually taken over his mantle there as well. Her focus is on honouring the memory of the man she views as her 'father'. It would be fun to see the movies take a similar direction.

So what's special about X-23?

At the heart of X-23's story is the discovery of her humanity. She started out as a killing machine, brought up to do nothing more than slaughter. But, despite all the best efforts of some pretty determined men, a core shred of humanity survived.

The X-23 series began with her quest for a soul. It opened with a beautiful mystical four-parter in which she was pitted against a then-demon-possessed Wolverine (it was part of a strange but entertaining arc called "Wolverine Goes to Hell" in which Logan's soul scrapped with the Devil himself). X-23 won when she discovered her soul, and from there she began a quest to relate to the world around her.

Over in the pages of All-New X-Men, that quest continued; she began a relationship with a time-lost younger version of Angel, although there have been a lot of wrinkles in that relationship. They're on a break right now, as Angel's gotten fed up of seeing her jump head-first into danger. The fact she'll just heal doesn't mean he likes seeing her get hurt.

X-23 has it all. She's a teenage girl equivalent of Wolverine, on a haunting and emotional journey. With female leads becoming popular (as seen with franchises like Divergent and The Hunger Games), the movie audience seems to be in the perfect place to meet her. I'm not surprised to hear that Fox are discussing the idea too!