Introspection - Heroes Part 3: The Artifices

I have a certain affinity for the characters on my list that I refer to as “The Artifices”. Not conceived or born of the traditional or standard means, no, these are not quite people as we would define them. They are clones or genetically-derived copies or reduplicates or even a fractured part of another being. No matter their exact origin, these characters struggle with finding their identities, their humanity, and their personhood. These are things that a good number of us take for granted on a regular and consistent basis — however, those of us who have (and still) work in retail understand what it means to be treated as if you are not a human being, as if you are somehow less than a person. It does not matter if you are the cashier, the trolley boy, or the proprietor, if you are working in retail, people are invariably going to undervalue you as a person and view you as a morlock.

People like to realize that we are unique. Fingerprints, DNA, birthmarks, scars, eye and hair all serve to physically separate us from one another. Life experiences add to that. Take myself and my siblings — yes, there are similarities in skin tone, eye color, hair color, but we were raised in the same household, with the same morals and values. But our experiences are vastly different, our approaches to situations are just as diverse, and the journeys that each of us have taken have, like our physical features, some similarities, but there are indeed differences.

Kaine Parker shares fingerprints and DNA with Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man. Conner Kent shares DNA with both Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. Laura Kinney has the majority of her DNA in common with James Logan Howlett, basically everything but the “Y” chromosome. These are clones, these are genetic mashups that were not meant to exist within the natural order of things. Let’s start with Conner Kent, aka Superboy.

Superboy appeared on the scene after the Death of Superman event. Doomsday comes rampaging across America, ends in Metropolis, where he and Superman trade blows and both of them are dropped like 3rd period French class. There becomes a rush to “find” a new Superman. One man, a brave soul who did not claim the mantle of the “S” shield but instead chose to honor Superman, was the only one of the four claimants to the “S” who was definitively not Superman. Superboy bore a striking resemblance to the thought-to-be-deceased Kal-El, and he claimed the name. The return of the real Superman debunked that claim, and Superboy was content to be the “junior”. His origins were revealed — he was from a genetic manipulation/cloning group, and further examination of him showed that he was not quite the same as Superman on a genetic level; partly, yes, partly, no. Eventually, it is discovered the Lex Luthor had a hand in Superboy’s creation, and the human part of his DNA came from Lex himself. Superboy was also programmed with a trigger that made him go off the rails. He also died at the hands of Superboy Prime, who was a survivor of the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” saga. He manages to come back because in comic books, as in soap operas, no one stays dead forever. Upon his return, he goes to live with Clark’s family on the farm, and takes the name Conner Kent. He analyzes himself based on his constituent parts — he is of Superman and of Lex Luthor, and he makes a pros/cons list as to how both of them would react or respond in given situations.

He eventually arrives at the conclusion that he cannot do exactly what Superman would do, and he does not want to do what Lex Luthor would do. Knowing that he can try his best, knowing that he can only do that which is within his limits, and knowing that even Superman is fallible certainly helped Conner to shape his idea of himself. But look at what he endured to discover the person that he is, and just as he is establishing himself as a person, that’s when DC decides to strike with a reboot and we get the New 52 version of Superboy, who is not quite the same guy.

Laura Kinney has a name. Similar to Superboy, she was not given a proper name right off the bat, instead referred to by her name from the project: X-23. She was the 23rd iteration of the attempt to clone Weapon X, aka Wolverine aka Logan aka James Howlett. She was made to be a weapon, of that there is no doubt — of any and all mutants that the Weapon Plus Project had met, captured, manipulated, et cetera, there are few as deadly and dangerous as Weapon X. Not only was she created to be the replacement for Weapon X, she was manipulated and abused by her designer, whose father had been killed when Logan escaped captivity. The son saw X-23 as the proxy and exercised his power and authority over her, abusing her to the point where he thought that keeping her conscious while removing her bone claws from her forearms, holding the incision sites open to keep them from healing, coating the claws in adamantium, and then placing them back into her arms was just another day at the office for him.

Yeah, the dude is beyond psychotic.

Like Superboy, X-23 was programmed with a trigger mechanism that drove her into an evil fit — she would be compelled to kill the target that was sprayed with a trigger scent, and she could not stop until she was successful in her mission. She struggles against being a programmed unnatural creature. She was conceived in a lab and gestated in the womb of one of the scientists involved with the project. She was trained and tortured, educated and evaluated, divested of any and everything that made her human. True to her Weapon X predecessor, Logan, she escaped the facility with gusto; in the process, she sees her mother for the last time, and Dr. Kinney gives her a name: Laura. She wandered and ended up in New York City in the mutant district, where she was once again treated as an object — not a weapon this time, but for the pleasure of others. She was pimped out and she would routinely cut herself with her claws, only to have the wounds heal up as if nothing had happened — the curse of her inherited healing factor. She eventually breaks loose from the life of prostitution and the streets and winds up with the X-Mansion. She owns the moniker ”X-23” as her field name, eventually taking on other code names as well. She learns to relate to her teammates, and despite multiple times that she is reminded of her life in the laboratory and in the sex trade, she holds on to her humanity and continues seeking to keep it properly grounded. She builds a relationship with Logan — they are either siblings or father-daughter, based on the DNA alone — and she has “sisters” that are cloned from her, which only adds to the confusion that she would feel. However, she suspends herself and realizes that her clones will be experiencing the same feelings of lacking humanity that she experienced, and she works to make sure to acknowledge them as her sisters, as family, as human.

Kaine Parker is not in much better shape. Cloned from a different process altogether than X-23, Kaine was the first attempt of Miles Warren to clone Peter Parker. He was flawed and deformed, suffering from a debilitating disease that ravaged most, if not all, of Warren’s clones. Kaine was treated by Warren like a science experiment — a rejected child, a thing denied personhood. His powerset was different from Peter’s, as the genetic damage from the clone disease altered the powers that he inherited from his genetic source. Kaine was driven to madness from the pain of the cellular degeneration disease, and it definitely affected his personality. At some point, he stops hunting fellow Spider-clone Ben Reilly, he sacrifices himself to save Peter, and then he is restored to life by Miles Warren once again. During the events of Spider-Island, Kaine is healed from the cellular degeneration and he is able to join the heroes in the fight to save Manhattan. He becomes a hero, but like most of my personal heroes, he shies away and has a plan to run to Mexico. Along the way, he gets sidetracked — and once again he is thrust into the role of the hero. He has “all of the power” but wants “none of the responsibility”. I do not blame him one bit — who wants to always be the hero? Who wants to be on-call all the time, to not be able to say “no” despite being exhausted, worn out, or stressed with bills? Kaine is not Peter; sure, he has Peter’s memories, but he also has a psyche that was twisted up from neglect and literal physical pain on the basest of levels. Kaine’s reluctance does not mean that he does not step up. He might arrive late to the party, but he certainly throws down to save the day. He is still not 100% certain as to how human he is, but he gives up on the philosophical musings and just sets out to enjoy himself and, when properly motivated (usually through being begged or nagged) to save the day. As reluctant a hero as one can possibly be, Kaine “Scarlet Spider” Parker is certainly one to whom I can closely relate.

Roxas is a completely different story. Honestly, it is a bit of a mess for him — his existence is the result of the Kingdom Hearts mythos in action. Sora, the hero of the main storyline, commits an act of self-sacrifice that splits his being into his own heart, a Heartless, and a Nobody. The first game shows the immediate effects of it, as he becomes a Heartless and the player has to run around as such. The Nobody enters into the series in a later game, and he comes to realize that without a heart, can he truly feel anything? Or is it just memories and an affectation of emotions? Roxas wants to know what his existence means, and he wants to know if he is meant to exist aside from Sora, or if he is just a component that was not meant to be separated from the whole, or if anything that he recalls or remembers or feels is even real. On top of that, does his continued existence threaten that of Sora, and would Sora being made whole again threaten the existence of Roxas? And thus he is faced with a moral dilemma, all the while not even knowing how much of him is real and his own and how much of him is borrowed from Sora

Struggling with one’s humanity and personhood is something that is not foreign to me. I’ve had many a person tell me, through words, deeds, or attitudes, that I am not, at least in their assessment, a person or a person worthy of being treated with respect and decency. I know that I am not alone in those experiences — everyone has someone in their past (and hopefully not in their present) who has treated them like Kaine, Conner, Laura, and Roxas — so I feel you there, brothers and sisters. Just remember that we are not clones, we are not genetic aberrations, we are not bi-products of someone else’s act of heroism. We are people, we have value just for being who we are, and just by our very existence. I thank God every day that cloning is not perfected yet, because I don’t think I would enjoy looking at “myself” with all of my memories and history, and seeing how I would be if something was tweaked for the worse.

Next time — The Redemptives!