X Deaths of Wolverine #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE #2
by Benjamin Percy, Federico Vicentini & Dijjo Lima
COVER / PAGE 1. Moira caught between the techno-organic Wolverine and Mystique. In the solicitations, Moira was shown as a blanked-out silhouette, to avoid spoiling the plot. Ironically, in the final version, she’s still got brown hair (which she dyed blonde last issue) in order to make her more recognisable.
PAGES 2-4. Moira robs a convenience store and calls Jane Foster.
Presumably Moira is picking up the things she needs for her home surgery later in the issue. (But if she’s relying on theft for everything, how did she get to America?)
Moira has special Krakoan cancer, interwoven with “floronic matter”. “Floronic” isn’t actually a real word – the DC villain Floronic Man was named after his home dimension – but apparently it means something to people in the Marvel Universe. Let’s assume it’s come to be understood as the sort of stuff Krakoan technology uses.
“The No-Place biome.” Moira concludes that she picked up the cancer from the hidden biome within Krakoa, where she was living throughout the Hickman era, and that “[t]hey” did this on purpose. This begs questions. Moira presumably isn’t suggesting that Xavier and Magneto were trying to poison her all along. Mystique and Destiny can’t have used the biome to do this. Is she suggesting that Cypher and Krakoa were always planning this, at least once they found out what she was up to? That doesn’t really make sense either, given that Cypher let her escape. But the idea that Krakoa was doing it makes a bit more sense.
The Incomplete Wolverine – 1997
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
Last time Wolverine turned into an animal and then Marvel backtracked from the whole plot at tremendous speed. And so the search is on for a new direction.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #110
“Lesser Beasts”
by Tom DeFalco, Joe Bennett, Joe Pimentel, Joe Andreani & Paul Becton
February 1997
The January 1997 issue was the end of a storyline, and we covered it last time. So we kick off with… a fill-in issue. Wolverine and Shaman team up to deal with a couple of murderous robbers who have accidentally released one of the Great Beasts.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #111
“Restoration”
by Larry Hama, Anthony Winn, Dan Green & Dana Moreshead
March 1997
Logan returns home from his jaunt to Japan and Canada, in time for Iceman’s leaving party – though he leaves early to go and drink on his own and mourn his supporting cast. A package arrives for Logan from Zoe Culloden, asking him to look after an “artefact” whose “nature and origin are not necessary for you to know at the present time”. Zoe’s message says that a dark time is coming, and malevolent energies are converging on him. Seems like a bad idea to give him an important artefact to look after, then. It’s a box with something glowing inside, but we never find out what it is, beyond that it has some sort of connection with both Ogun and Lady Deathstrike.
Sabretooth #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
SABRETOOTH vol 4 #1
“The Adversary”
by Victor LaValle, Leonard Kirk & Rain Beredo
SABRETOOTH. If you’re wondering, volume 1 was the 1993 miniseries, vol 2 was a 1998 one-shot, and vol 3 was a 2004 miniseries. This is another five-issue miniseries.
COVER / PAGE 1. A grinning Sabretooth in hell, with Krakoa visible behind him.
PAGES 2-5. Sabretooth is consigned to the Pit.
This is a reprise of Sabretooth’s “trial” and banishment at the hands of the Quiet Council in House of X #6. Sabretooth’s narration is new and replaces most of the spoken dialogue. But what remains is taken directly from that issue, except for Sabretooth’s final line: “No prison can hold me. I’ll be free before you even notice.” In fact, that issue came out in October 2019 and we haven’t seen him since.
X Lives of Wolverine #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X LIVES OF WOLVERINE #2
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Frank Martin
COVER / PAGE 1. Teenage Logan howling at the moon or something, with the image of Jean Grey (wearing Cerebro) behind him.
PAGES 2-5. Present-day Wolverine jumps into the body of his teenage self.
As with issue #1, this story is non-linear not only in absolute terms, but also in from Logan’s personal perspective. We don’t actually know in what order he visits the various parts of his life yet, but presumably that’ll become apparent in due course.
This scene has teenage Logan fighting a chained bear in a bar in the far north of Canada, with the time given as 1900. This seems to take place in the period between Origin and Origin II where he’s living in the mountain with a bunch of wolves. The people watching don’t seem surprised by his claws, so it’s after Origin #6. That issue is also where he has his first cage fight. And Origin II covers his departure from the wilderness – plus, it’s set in 1907.
Logan’s narrative returns to the subject of time, the general point here being that we are all insignificant on the eternal scale.
Marauders Annual #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS ANNUAL #1
“Hellfire & Brimstone”
by Steve Orlando, Creees Lee & Rain Beredo
MARAUDERS ANNUAL. This is the first Marauders Annual, and something of an odd release in the Krakoan era, when the X-books haven’t generally been doing annuals at all. It seems to exist as a one-shot serving as the launch for the upcoming Marauders vol 2 – billing it as Marauders Annual #1 rather than as Marauders vol 2 #1 allows it to ship during the season break.
COVER / PAGE 1. Daken, Kate and Psylocke fight Brimstone Love.
PAGES 2-4. Daken is ambushed while investigating a mass grave.
Greenwich, Connecticut. It’s a wealthy, largely white area, something that Daken also notes on page 12.
Daken. Wolverine’s son is joining the cast of Marauders in vol 2, and this is his introduction. He was previously a member of X-Factor, which is why he’s looking for proof of death – his main job is to find evidence that mutants have really died, so that they can be safely resurrected without awkward doppelgangers resulting. Although he repeatedly calls himself “Akihiro” in this scene (his surname), the recap page still calls him Daken. However, he’s dumped his X-Factor outfit in favour of a variant of his costume from his Dark Wolverine days. To be precise, the opening panel seems to be loosely based on the cover of Daken: Dark Wolverine #1.
We see on page 12 that Daken specifically asked the telepaths he mentions to look out for his mental signals.
X-Men #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #7
“The Secret Origin of Captain Krakoa”
by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia
COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men fly into action, with Cyclops as “Captain Krakoa”.
PAGES 2-4. Dr Stasis drugs his chimeras before sending them to battle the X-Men.
Stasis’ use of animal chimeras sets him up as a parallel to the High Evolutionary and his New Men, who we saw in issue #3. It also echoes the references in House of X and Hellions to Mr Sinister developing “chimera” mutants as a way forward.
Bornan is the same aide we saw with Stasis in issue #2.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGES 6-7. Cyclops is resurrected.
This storyline isn’t told in chronological order, so this scene shows Scott being resurrected after his death at the hands of Dr Stasis (which he see later in the issue). Emma really just tells us what we already knew from last issue: Scott died in a way that was so public that he can’t simply go back to the X-Men in New York without giving away the secret of Krakoan resurrection.
X Deaths of Wolverine #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE #1
by Benjamin Percy, Federico Vicentini, Dijjo Lima & Frank Martin
X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE. This is the companion miniseries to X Lives of Wolverine, which started last week. The structure is obviously intended to echo House of X and Powers of X, the two parallel miniseries that launched the Krakoan era. As with that series, the first book is the relatively straightforward one, while this one seems to have a wider agenda. It also makes it rather clearer why these books were promoted as major stories for the line, something which wasn’t exactly apparent from Lives #1.
COVER / PAGE 1. A techno-organic version of Wolverine. We’ll see him later in the issue.
PAGES 2-6. Moira MacTaggert flees to Scotland.
This is a direct continuation from page 41 of Inferno #4, where Cypher and (very reluctantly) Mystique and Destiny depowered Moira, gave her the techno-organic arm we see here, and allowed her to flee Krakoa through the gate. Moira’s opening narration is just recapping the premise of her role in Hickman’s stories: she lived multiple past lives, she told Xavier and Magneto what she’d learned, and they were keeping her hidden beneath Krakoa until she was discovered and driven into exile.
Death of Doctor Strange: X-Men / Black Knight
THE DEATH OF DOCTOR STRANGE: X-MEN / BLACK KNIGHT #1
by Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn & Israel Silva
So here’s an early entry for 2022’s most “technically” technically-an-X-book. Tie-in to a wider event that doesn’t affect the X-Men in the slightest? Check! Co-starring with a character the X-Men have nothing to do with? Check! Written by that character’s regular writer? Well… as much as Black Knight has a regular writer. Spurrier wrote the recent Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade miniseries, after all. So sure! Check!
Don’t worry if you haven’t been following Death of Doctor Strange, because it’s one of those stories that’s set up to have a bunch of tie-ins around the margins. All you really need to know about the main story is that with Strange dead, his barrier spell is fading and Earth’s dimension is being invaded by weird stuff. That’s literally it.
So… it’s a team-up between the X-Men and the Black Knight, is it? Well… depends how generous you’re feeling, to be honest.
X Lives of Wolverine #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X LIVES OF WOLVERINE #1
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Frank Martin
X LIVES OF WOLVERINE is one of two linked miniseries running over the next ten weeks, the other being X Deaths of Wolverine. It replaces most of the regular X-books during this period (but not all) and effectively serves as a season break before the next relaunch. This issue has been made available on Marvel Unlimited on its release date. I can’t imagine direct market retailers are going to be very happy about that, but that – and the reasons why Marvel might have done it – are a matter for another day. At any rate, if you have a Marvel Unlimited subscription, there is no need to buy this.
COVER / PAGE 1. Ten incarnations of Wolverine, all entwined in Omega Red’s tentacles. Specifically, the ten incarnations are:
- At the top, present-day Wolverine.
- Row 2, on the left, Wolverine as Weapon X.
- Row 2, on the right, Wolverine as he appeared in his debut in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #181.
- Between them, Wolverine as Patch, in the white dinner jacket from the early issues of his solo series.
- Row 4, on the left, a soldier Wolverine – I think this is Wolverine as shown in flashbacks to World War I.
- Row 4, on the right, Wolverine as a member of Team X.
- Between them, a Logan with no shirt and ragged trousers – probably Logan as a wilderness dweller after Origin.
- Row 6, on the left, what seems to be a cowboy Logan, presumably from his early post-Origin days.
- Row 6, on the right, Logan in the clothes from this issue, when he shows up at the Xavier Mansion.
- Right at the bottom, a Wolverine in a light grey version of his costume, probably from X-Force vol 3 (the Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost & Clayton Crain run).
S.W.O.R.D. #7-11
S.W.O.R.D. #7-11
by Al Ewing, Stefano Caselli, Guiu Vilanova, Jacopo Camagni & Fernando Sifuentes
The period between “Hellfire Gala” and “Inferno” has been a mixed bag for the X-books. Several books feel like they’ve lost their way, or are marking time waiting for the new season to start. S.W.O.R.D. is the one that goes the other way, with its own stories and its future direction coming to the fore.
Up to this point, S.W.O.R.D. has been remarkably heavy on the crossovers. Its first seven issues include three tie-ins to King in Black, one to “Hellfire Gala”, and one to “Last Annihilation”. That’s over 70% crossover, which is a bit much. But with these five issues – yes, we’ve got a “Last Annihilation” tie-in in issue #7, okay. After that, though, the focus is squarely on Storm establishing her authority on Arakko, Abigail Brand’s inveterate scheming, and Henry Gyrich’s hamfisted attempts to outwit her. The direction of the book becomes clear, and it’s set up for next season’s X-Men Red.
Issue #7, admittedly, devotes a lot of time to “Last Annihilation” material that, with hindsight, isn’t all that important to the book. I do get the desire to ground S.W.O.R.D. in the Marvel Universe, and in particular in the cosmic events that Abigail wants to interact with – in a sense, her priorities lead S.W.O.R.D. to get involved in this stuff – but there’s a lot of Hulkling in that issue, and relatively little of Abigail’s manipulations at the end. Still, Al Ewing is really good at sketching out some of these characters we’ve never seen (in this book) before, and getting the point of someone like Captain Glory across quickly.
