Wolverine is widely considered to be the father figure X-23 needs, but the mutant thief Gambit once proved that he’s the better mentor and parent to Laura, not Logan. Laura is, after all, Logan's biological daughter and inherited some of the X-Man’s violent tendencies. But one thing the original Wolverine could not pass down to his successor is an enjoyment of life's simple pleasures, something that Gambit helped her discover.
Having been raised within the cold and abusive confines of a lab, X-23 aka Laura Kinney was conditioned to be an efficient and unstoppable assassin. If not for the kindness of her mother Sarah Kinney, who worked as a geneticist at the Facility, she would have never escaped and joined the X-Men. She was then recruited to the black ops wetwork team X-Force, where she continued to kill but this time in the service of mutantkind. Although she was content with killing for the supposed greater good, she was later removed from the X-Force roster by Wolverine, leaving her directionless and alone until she met Gambit.
Gambit Becomes X-23's Mentor
In the X-23 (2010) series written by Marjorie Liu, Laura leaves the island of Utopia that houses nearly the entire mutant population. She goes on a journey to find a life outside of killing and along the way is mentored by Gambit. He, along with his long-time friend Jubilee, lets her experience some of the small joys of life that she’s unfamiliar with: A quiet night on a boat in the ocean, window shopping for expensive clothes, and blowing out a candle on a birthday cake. Throughout their adventures, Gambit also guides her to draw her own conclusions on heroism, friendship, and morality, something her former X-Men mentors denied her in favor of rigid structures to keep her mind occupied.
From the beginning, Gambit understands what X-23 needs more than Wolverine does. Logan claims that because violence is all Laura knows, she needs to refocus her violence towards something meaningful in order to find herself - hence her membership to X-Force. When Laura is taken under Gambit’s wing, however, Remy suggests that X-Force was just another prison that had the opposite effect of what Logan intended for her. Gambit’s method of giving Laura the freedom to resist her violent instincts by her own will, changes her for the better as Wolverine even later admits. What makes Gambit’s friendship with Laura so effective is also the fact that he treats her as a person in need and not as a weapon to be made less dangerous.
Wolverine, of course, does understand Laura in a way no one else does, as the two were both mutants weaponized against their will and forced to kill for nefarious purposes. Wolverine worked through his trauma over time by joining the X-Men, so it isn’t unreasonable for him to believe that the same path would work for Laura. What he may not have considered, however, is the fact that he had independence and a mind of his own long before the Weapon X program, whereas Laura was essentially programmed to be a mindless killer from birth. However misguided Wolverine may have been at the beginning, he and X-23 would nonetheless develop a close bond over the years, but the role Gambit played in helping her become who she is today should not be forgotten.