The following contains spoilers for All-New Wolverine #33-35 by Tom Taylor, Ramon Rosanas and Nolan Woodard.
After holding the Wolverine mantle for four years, Laura Kinney's time as the Best There Is has come to an end. In the final three issues of All-New Wolverine, Tom Taylor, Ramon Rosanas, and Nolan Woodard have weaved a tale about accepting fate and death that'll sound somewhat familiar to most. Decades in the future, when superheroes have created a utopia, Laura's grown old as the queen of Madripoor and has come to accept the fact that she's soon going to die. And, like the Wolverine before her, she's got "One Last Time" for her to suit up.
And so the does, traveling to Latveria in order to rescue her sister Bellona from Victor Von Doom. Aided by Captain Marvel, Kate Bishop, Wasp, Maria Hill and her little sister Gabby Kinney (still using the codename Honey Badger as an adult), Laura infiltrates the deadly country and sets about fighting off Doom's horde of Doombots. Maria quickly becomes a casualty, which spurs Laura to finish the mission and bring Doom down so her friend can be buried in a truly perfect world. It doesn't take long for the team of heroes to draw out the attention of Doom, who chastises Laura for having abandoned her old life as a child assassin. But Laura takes that in stride, and to show how far she's come, she heads walks over to where Thor's hammer Mjolnir lies, grabs the handle...
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But no, she can't lift it, sadly. As awesome and perhaps perfect as it would've been for her to become the first Wolverine worthy to grab Mjolnir, it doesn't happen. She's come far, but she hasn't come that far.
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Doom, as it turns out, is also dying, albeit from old age. Despite everything he's done to stave off the passage of time, he released the information about Bellona to Laura so she'd come to Latveria. Doom pulls a Superior Spider-Man and tries to transfer his consciousness into her body so he can live on with the added bonus of having adamantium claws and regeneration to help him in his desire to take over the planet. The view shifts to a series of featureless panels where their silhouettes -- red for Laura, green for Doom -- are crackling with energy as they fight for control of her body. For a moment, it looks like Doom will win as his silhouette grows larger, but he becomes aware of Laura's own imminent death as he's wracked with pain. From there, Laura grows bigger than Doom and regains control of her body, while in the real world, his body is already lifeless.
With Doom dead and Latveria out of his tyrannical hands, Laura has completed her last mission. Cradled in Gabby's arms, she's prepared to die surrounded by rescued friends -- Miles Morales, Rocket Raccoon, Danielle Cage -- and Bellona is rescued. Here, Gabby sums up the reader's thoughts perfectly as Laura says she's content to die right then and there. "@#$% that...Seriously, @#$% noble sacrifices." Gabby declares that it's time for her sister to fight for herself and all the heroes make their way out of Latveria. Come hell or high water, Gabby will consult everyone she can think of to fix Laura. "You were the best there was at what you did," she tells Laura to close out the issue. "Now you get to be something better."
Gabby was a divisive character among All-New Wolverine fans when she first showed up. Little kid sidekicks are more often than not irritating, but the young mutant has been so endearing and adorable that she's charmed near everyone she's come in contact with. Laura was right to not abandon her in the early issues of the book, as it's Gabby's love for her sister that prevented the rescue mission from becoming a suicide mission. The future for Laura is much brighter, and it's thanks to Gabby that she'll get to enjoy the world she helped create. The two of them need each other, and this book ends as it should, eschewing the popular trope of the old hero dying valiantly after one final mission in favor of an upbeat hopeful ending. In a twist that essentially rebukes the ending of Logan, which saw that movie's Laura/X-23 unsuccessfully beg a dying Wolverine to try to continue to fight, Taylor and Rosanas close their series with the two sisters walking together hand in hand, the elder finding strength in the younger to continue.
Laura is taking back her X-23 mantle in July, and with this issue becomes yet another hero in the current Marvel Universe that stops operating under a legacy name. Miles Morales' future as Spider-Man seems to be coming to some sort of end, Sam Wilson stopped being Captain America months ago, and Jane Foster gave up being Thor in order to live her own life again. Whatever the future holds for Laura in the X-23 book, the one given to her by Taylor and Rosanas will remain the Best There Is.