The Incomplete Wolverine – 1999
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998
Last year was mostly random fill-ins and abortive stories. But as we go into 1999, Wolverine finally has a regular creative team again. Will this bring us direction? Will it heck.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #133-138
“The Great Escape”
by Erik Larsen, Jeff Matsuda, Jonothan Sibal & Jason Wright
January to June 1999
No, we’re not in the trade paperback era just yet. This arc is just very long. Take a deep breath…
Wolverine is out drinking with Carol Danvers – she’s going by Warbird at this point, she’s drinking heavily, and she’s just been kicked out of the Avengers. They wind up fighting Powerhouse (a rabidly anti-human mutant from Larsen’s Amazing Spider-Man), who Wolverine defeats despite Warbird’s drunkenly inept “assistance”. None of this has anything to do with the rest of the arc, in which Wolverine’s body is possessed by alien Aria. She spends an issue testing her new body by fighting assorted minor superheroes who have come to investigate – Wolverine ticks Solo (James Bourne) and Cardiac (Elias Wirtham) off his list here, and also meets Vance Astro as Justice. Eventually Aria explains that she’s escaped from “Prison World”, which supposedly holds thousands of innocent people. She wants help from the legendary X-Men, and Wolverine in particular.
Despite there being no evidence for anything Aria has said, and despite her having just wasted an issue making him fight other superheroes, Wolverine agrees to go. Remarkably, Aria is actually telling the truth, but as soon as they arrive on Prison World, she bounces off to possess someone else, leaving Wolverine with no clue what the plan is meant to be.
Secret X-Men #1
SECRET X-MEN #1
“The Secret X-Men”
Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Francesco Mobili
Colourist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan White
So, um. This. It came out back in February and I said at the time that I was going to review it and then I completely forgot about it. And then somebody mentioned it in the comments and I remembered I hadn’t done it.
Look, I’d have remembered when it showed up on Marvel Unlimited.But it’s fair to say the impact that this thing made on me was, shall we say, transitory. It vanished from memory awfully quickly. I can’t say the thought of re-reading it for this review filled me with enthusiasm.
The high concept is that this is a one-shot about the characters who were in the public vote for the new X-Men team, back when Marvel were promoting the Hellfire Gala, but who didn’t get in.
The plot, then. Sunspot is swanning around in the Shi’ar Empire, claiming to be the leader of the X-Men in order to impress girls. So Deathbird enlists him to help defend Empress Xandra against yet another assassination attempt, and asks him to bring the X-Men to a secret location. Of course, Sunspot doesn’t have an X-Men team to bring, so he sets about calling the guys who wanted to be on a team. It kind of makes sense for the characters who were particularly keen to be on the team, or who feel aggrieved that they’re overlooked. You can see it for Sunspot. Maybe Marrow, who would insist she doesn’t want to be on the team, but is also Professionally Aggrieved. Tempo, though? A character who had to be needled repeatedly just to join the Marauders? Forge, who’s rushed off his feet in other books? Hmm.
X-Men Legends #12
X-MEN LEGENDS #12
“Start Again”
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciller: Scot Eaton
Inker: Lorenzo Ruggiero
Colourist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
With hindsight, the tricky thing about the X-Men Legends format is that it’s trying to bring back former creators to do something that recalls their original run, but in most cases those original runs had ongoing soap opera storylines. So a one-off short story is already a bit off model. Fabian Nicieza got round that problem with his arc by simply resolving an actual dropped plot; Larry Hama just did an episodic story. And other stories have kind of invented a gap for the sake of plugging it.
This is kind of in that territory. It fills a gap between the end of Fall of the Mutants (when Nightcrawler comes out of his coma, just as the X-Men are believed dead in Dallas) and Excalibur Special Edition #1, the origin story of the spin-off team Excalibur. It’s a real gap, but it’s not exactly one that was crying out to be filled – nobody at the time felt that we were skipping over important stuff. But then again, if you’re looking for potential gaps, this isn’t a bad choice. It’s a big moment for Kurt and Kitty and you can do a little bit of work here to set them up for their return to action.
Immortal X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORTAL X-MEN #1
“The Left Hand”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan D White
IMMORTAL X-MEN. Despite the name, this is a series about the Quiet Council – and not all of them are exactly X-Men. It’s the first series with this title, not to be confused with just-plain-X-Men, which is about the New York based superhero team.
The series logo – an X with twelve dots around it – represents the twelve members of the Council in their groups of three.
COVER / PAGE 1. It’s the Quiet Council doing Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, albeit somewhat compressed to get it onto a double page spread. The original painting, specifically, is meant to show the moment after Jesus has announced that one of his apostles will betray him. It’s probably not desperately important which apostle is represented by which Quiet Council member, particularly as most of the Apostles can only be identified by external sources rather than from the painting itself, but that’s no reason not to tell you anyway, right? More fundamentally, the original painting groups the apostles in threes, which mirrors the division of the Quiet Council – and that’s sort of reflected here. Working roughly from left to right along the table (and going by the rather more spaced out arrangement in the original painting):
- Colossus is Bartholomew.
- Storm is James the Less.
- Nightcrawler is Andrew.
- Mr Sinister is, of course, Judas Iscariot. He’s knocked over his wine glass; in the original painting, Judas has knocked over his salt cellar.
- Exodus is Saint Peter. Befitting his religious bent, he’s the only character to be drawn with a halo.
- Death – who is absolutely not a member of the Quiet Council and whose attitude to this whole “resurrection” thing remains unclear – is in John’s position.
- The empty chair in the centre, with a Phoenix emblem on the back and Magneto’s helmet sitting in front, is where Jesus would be.
- Sebastian Shaw is Thomas, the doubting one.
- Emma Frost is James the Greater.
- Kate Pryde is Philip.
- Professor X is Matthew.
- Mystique is Jude.
- Destiny is Simon.
X-Men Legends #11
X-MEN LEGENDS #11
“Monsters”
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Walter Simonson
Colourist: Edgar Delgado
Letterer: John Workman
Editor: Mark Basso
“Monsters” is the second X-Men Legends issue by Louise and Walter Simonson, and takes place at around the same time as their previous story. The two aren’t really connected, though, or at least only by slenderest of margins. The previous issue was basically an issue of X-Factor, the book they worked on together back in the 1980s. This is a New Mutants story, a book which Louise Simonson wrote, but which was being drawn around that point by Bret Blevins.
If the premise of this book is to recapture something of a classic run… well, Bret Blevins and Walt Simonson are very different artists. Blevins’ New Mutants run veered to the spindly and grotesque, and it has to be said that his costume designs were a bit of a mess. (I always liked Mirage costume, but that’s very much the exception.) Perhaps that’s one reason why this story revolves around villains from X-Factor, namely the original Horsemen of Apocalypse.
Wolverine #14-19
WOLVERINE vol 7 #14-19
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Penciller: Adam Kubert (#14-16), Lan Medina (#17), Paco Diaz (#18), Javi Fernandez (#19)
Inker: Adam Kubert (#14-16), Cam Smith (#17), Paco Diaz (#18), Javi Fernandez (#19)
Colourist: Frank Martin (#14-16), Espen Grundetjern (#16), Java Tartaglia (#17-18), Dijjo Lima (#18), Matthew Wilson (#19)
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
I know. This review is so late that the trade paperback has been out for over a month. But still, it’s the last really late book on my review backlog, and better late than never. So.
Benjamin Percy’s approach to his ongoing titles has always involved cutting back and forth between different story threads every few issues or so. It’s not so much a case of everything dovetailing together. It’s more a way of doing lengthy storylines without devoting 12 straight issues to them. In theory, at least, if you don’t like this one, there’ll be another one along in a minute. Here, we have two arcs from ongoing storylines plus a curious little final issue experiment – and yes, they are indeed different.
I find Percy’s work a bit of a mixed bag. You certainly can’t accuse him of taking the line of least resistance. Both here and in X-Force, he’s not a writer given to replaying the hits – which is a bit ironic, considering that he’s just done X Lives of Wolverine, but we’ll come to that. He likes the organic tech, the big ideas like fiction-themed mind control, the new characters like Solem. That’s a big plus. On the other hand, not all of those ideas are winners, and the execution can be patchy. Still, it’s good when it all clicks, and it earns some goodwill from me, even if there’s other stuff that frustrates me.
X Deaths of Wolverine #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE #5
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Federico Vicentini
Colourist: Dijjo Lima
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine fights Omega Wolverine. This is the other half of the image from the cover of X Lives of Wolverine #5, with elements of a fight between Wolverine and Omega Red spreading onto the page.
PAGES 2-4. Moira’s life flashes before her eyes as she dies.
She’s inside a sort of Krakoan battle suit thingy that she stole last issue.
Page 2, and the bench panels on page 3, are a parody of the flashback from Powers of X #1 in which Moira approaches Charles Xavier and reveals her previous lives to him.
X Lives of Wolverine #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X LIVES OF WOLVERINE #5
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colourist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine fights Omega Red, with a Russian skyline and Omega Wolverine in the background. Needless to say, this is a companion to the cover of X Deaths of Wolverine #5, which will have the other half of the image (Wolverine fighting Omega Wolverine, with present-day Wolverine and a Krakoan skyline in the background).
PAGE 2. Omega Red possesses Wolverine and attacks Professor X.
Picking up directly from the end of issue #4. The background is a montage of images of Wolverine (or Logan) at various points in his life, mostly fairly generic. To the extent that they’re recognisable, starting top left on the first full row:
Sabretooth #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
SABRETOOTH vol 4 #2
Writer: Victor LaValle
Artist: Leonard Kirk
Colourist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Angry Sabretooth in jail.
PAGE 2. Opening quote. This is a quote often attributed to the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass (1817/8-1895). It’s been circulating in his name for decades but those online sources that actually check these things seem to agree that it’s apocryphal.
PAGES 3-5. Sabretooth’s fellow prisoners are banished to the Pit.
This is a flashback which leads in to the end of the previous issue. It doesn’t really fit with any of the other times that we’ve seen people sent to the Pit, in which the whole Quiet Council was present. The previous examples are Sabretooth in House of X #6, Toad in X-Men: Trial of Magneto #5, Orphan-Maker and Nanny in Hellions #18 and X-Men Green in X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #12. Krakoa let them go, but it’s not obvious what happened to Toad – given that he was being set up by Magneto and Scarlet Witch, maybe he was quietly smuggled out too.
X Deaths of Wolverine #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE #4
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Federico Vicentini
Colourist: Dijjo Lima
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: Omega Wolverine going through a Krakoan gate.
PAGES 2-4. Flashback: the fall of Krakoa in Omega Wolverine’s timeline.
Although the caption calls this the “near future”, the grey hairs on Forge suggest that we’re a good few years into the future. Wolverine is also shown with some grey hairs, though not as many. Despite the suggestion in X Lives that Wolverine is basically immortal, that’s not really true; we’ve seen in Old Man Logan that his natural lifespan is still something under 200 years.
