Origin
Alice is a Clone that was discovered by Miss Sinister in an abandoned lab in Arizona created by Mister Sinister. Besides the Alice Clones, there were many other children in stasis. Three Clones are shown in the comics although the 2nd Clone, Alice “2” clearly indicates there are more and that she remembers dying at least twice. The story of Alice is far from complete as her story, stories, diverge with one clone going with the X-Men to be protected while the other heralds the return of one of the biggest Marvel Villains of all time!
Creation
Alice was created by Marjorie Liu and Will Conrad and first appeared in X-23 issue 4(2011)
Major Story Arcs
The Lives and Deaths of Alice
Laura Kinney leaves the X-Men in Utopia literally on a soul searching mission to find out if she truly has a soul. As she is leaving Utopia, she heads east through San Francisco where she passes an unknown woman that takes notice of her and watches her walk past before a close up clearly shows the red diamond on the forehead of the woman and reveals her to be Miss Sinister.
Putting out the word that X-23 is now out of Utopia and unprotected, Miss Sinister has her tracked into Arizona where she is spotted by a secret team who are setting a trap for her for unknown nefarious purposes. That trap comes in the form of Alice, a young girl outside of a truck stop that is on the phone and pleading with someone on the other end of the line. Watching X-23 walk by and into the truck stop, Alice, who is wearing a hooded sweatshirt and clearly has a swollen, black eye, agrees with the caller and hangs up before entering the truck stop and approaching the table where X-23 is sitting.
Asking to take a seat, X-23 obliges her and then waits while the waitress takes their order. Alice, “Abused” Alice, order just a glass of water which prompts X-23 to request a second plate out of compassion or some other unknown emotion so that the girl can eat. As they eat their meal, they talk and X-23 queries the girl about her black eye which clearly upsets “Abused” Alice. X-23, in a leap of logic, asks her if her pimp abused her and that she had a pimp once, but he never used X-23 to lure other girls to him. Alice is clearly upset and then X-23 points out that a man outside has been watching them and that she should not be trying to trap her as she is.
This causes “Abused” Alice to flee and join the man leaving X-23 behind to watch them go. Finishing her meal, X-23 leaves and heads down the road as a police cruiser calls in that he has spotted her but does not pursue. Some time down the road, X-23 finds the car that Alice and the man left in and tracks them into the brush where he finds Alice on the ground with the man crouching over her. X-23 is told to leave by the man, that he didn’t mean to kill her (Alice) and that the situation is not what it looks like, but he does not elaborate as X-23 refuses to leave and pops her claws. Pulling a gun, the man shoots X-23 but it doesn’t even faze her as she attacks the man and immediately decapitates him.
Checking Alice, X-23 confirms she is dead and begins to dig a grave as lights approach her from behind. Turning, she finds that Gambit has arrived and tries to explain but Gambit is not interested in the explanation as he can see for himself what happened and trusts her. Quickly disposing of the bodies, X-23 and Gambit leave but quickly encounter a police road block from which Gambit wants to flee but X-23 tells him not to as she wants to know where this all leads.
They are escorted to a remote house where they stop near the porch and a woman steps from one of the police cars wearing shorts and a hooded sweatshirt with boots, attire that is familiar to X-23. It’s Alice. Quickly, X-23 explains that she knows it is not the same girl, that something about her is different, empty and that the other Alice was somehow more alive. Before Alice, Alice “2”, can explain, a woman steps onto the porch and offers them lodgings and information about X-23’s mother. Miss Sinister has made her appearance.
Although Gambit protests, X-23 insists that they go in and follow Miss Sinister as she takes Alice to the back of the room and asks if they are coming as the floor begins to lower into an underground chamber. Following by leaping down, X-23 and Gambit encounter more children, younger than Alice who looks to be a teen, that Miss Sinister explains she found after she was stabbed by Daken. Sorely injured, Miss Sinister says that she was compelled to come here and, although she would have healed, arrived to find these children in stasis with no knowledge of how they came to be or even that this place existed. She went on to explain that she did not have all of the memories or powers of Mister Sinister at which Gambit asked her about the town and the police that escorted them here. Miss Sinister gave the simple explanation that those that couldn’t be bought were Mind Controlled.
Continuing the tour, Miss Sinister takes them to a lab where there are many computers and a chair and tells X-23 and Gambit that she needs their help. Without X-23’s healing factor, the children will die as they are supposedly deteriorating though she is vague on the details. Although skeptical, X-23 agrees to help for the time being.
Continuing to a library, Miss Sinister continues to explain that she misled them about specific information on X-23’s mother, but that she had Mister Sinister’s journals which reveal a great deal about Laura’s mother as well as the plots of Malcolm Colcord and his plans to revive the Weapon X program. As they know, Colcord is responsible for the creation of Wolverine as Weapon X and his involvement with Mister Sinister. She expresses doubt that Colcord knew or cared that Mister Sinister was a scientist working in the concentration camps that Colcord set up and thinks that part of those experiments led to the secret base she now inhabits. Taking them to their rooms, Miss Sinister informs Gambit that if his accommodations are inadequate, he is welcome to join her as she has a very large bed. Gambit tells her to “Drop dead!” to which Miss Sinister replies, “You first.”, indicating an animosity between the two though they have never actually met and Miss Sinister confesses to not have all of Mister Sinister’s powers or memory.
Instead of accepting separate quarters, X-23 insists on staying with Gambit but they only wait for Miss Sinister to leave the room before investigating. Gambit heads to the kitchens while X-23 takes the hall that Miss Sinister walked away in. Not far ahead, and after leaving them, Miss Sinister is seen in the hallway apparently suffering pain as she grabs her abdomen before she raises her hand and touches her nose as it is bleeding and then gushes blood, she leaving a trail of blood down the hallway on the wall and floor which is quickly followed by X-23. X-23 loses the trail of Miss Sinister but stumbles upon the incubation chambers where she finds the second Alice sitting in a chamber reading a book. She is reading to the last Alice Clone from Peter Pan so that “she won’t be lonely.” Meanwhile, Gambit has found an underground chamber where there is a river and is approached by X-23. He quickly realizes that it is a shape-changed Miss Sinister when she tries to seduce Gambit, getting close and tiptoeing for a kiss. He grabs her and quickly pins her to the ground as he threatens to blow off her head but she quickly turns off his powers completely and gains the upper hand as she throws him away and threatens to gouge his eyes out unless he agrees to talk to her.
She never gets the chance to have her conversation as X-23 appears from behind her with Alice and Miss Sinister is stabbed and thrown away from Gambit. To their surprise, instead of rising as Miss Sinister, Mister Sinister rises from where the woman lies causing Gambit to rush him as Mister Sinister raises a hand and blasts him with energy. Quickly dispatching Gambit, X-23 rushes Sinister and attacks him, but he catches her by the throat and kills her by it before tossing X-23 on top of Gambit. But Mister Sinister does not maintain control for long as he realizes in horror that he is losing cohesiveness and quickly begins to melt down as Miss Sinister exerts enough will to transform back to herself. Crawling from where she collapses, she makes her way to where Gambit and X-23 lie on the floor.
Quickly, she answers Alice’s question that X-23 is dead but will not remain so long due to her healing factor so they move her to a lab where she is strapped into the chair Miss Sinister showed them earlier and Gambit is locked in a cell. When X-23 awakens, she is strapped to the chair as Miss Sinister informs her that she wishes to have X-23’s healing factor because of the immortality that it will grant her. She states that she only wants to live and can only do that by transferring her essence into X-23 and taking her body as it is inevitable that Mister Sinister will take over her body and she will cease to exist.
Starting the transfer, Miss Sinister feels the effects of the transfer begin and then it stops as she screams in frustration when nothing happens. Meanwhile, Alice is seen outside of Gambit’s cell. In the lab, it turns out that Mister Sinister has transferred his essence into X-23 as he tells Miss Sinister that she does not deserve her body and that he deserves to live, not her. But before anything can happen, the self destruct for the lab and house is activated by Gambit. Inside the lab, X-23 fights Mister Sinister and casts him out of her mind only to have Alice arrive to free X-23 as the lab equipment in the room begins to explode. Miss Sinister hits Alice with a pipe knocking her unconscious but Gambit arrives and X-23 finishes freeing herself only to stab Miss Sinister who quickly retreats as Gambit collects Alice and encourages X-23 to leave even though X-23 wants to rescue the last Alice Clone.
Gambit tells her to come on, telling her that sometimes you have to cut your losses and leave people behind. They do evacuate and it turns out that Gambit lied about the children that were in the house and that they were already gone. They leave taking Alice with them and make arrangements with Storm at Utopia for her care and that of the children as Colcord may wish to experiment on them in the event that they are “modified” as Gambit expresses his confidence that it will no longer be an issue and the children and Alice will be taken care of and protected. Behind them in the desert is a smoking pile of rubble that was a secret base. Gambit stated that Sinister always had self destruct in place in order to protect his data from his experiments.
Back in the desert inside the pile of rubble is an unconscious Miss Sinister with the last Alice Clone kneeling beside her telling her she will be alright. As they show Alice, her eyes are now bright blue and a diamond has appeared on her forehead indicating where the essence of Mister Sinister went when X-23 cast him out. At the end, Mister Sinister/Alice is seen with the unconscious Miss Sinister as he/Alice smiles down at her.
Powers
It is unclear what, if any, powers Alice has. However, she is a clone and Alice 2 spoke of remembering at least two previous deaths indicating either psychic or genetic memory of previous lives. She also shows that her memories returns as she changes quickly throughout the book to a degree that X-23 initially comments that she seems empty and later comments that she seems more alive.
“Last” Alice was also able to accept the essence of Mister Sinister and even manifested the red diamond on her forehead indicating that she is more than normal and able to contain his powers.