Wolverine #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 8 #6
“Lineage”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colourist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
WOLVERINE.
This time, he experiences the Adamantine’s call as a vision of being buried alive. Nightcrawler snaps him out of it, but it’s not clear whether he would have broken the spell on his own. For Wolverine, the call seems to be coming from the Earth itself.
When Laura shows up, he says that he didn’t realise until now “how much I needed to breathe the familiar scent of kin” – a slightly odd comment given that he’s next to Nightcrawler, whom he’s known far longer than Laura, but evidently the point is that he appreciates his family once they’re around.
SUPPORTING CAST.
Nightcrawler. He’s the only character aside from Wolverine that can get Leonard the Wendigo to calm down, and so he winds up babysitting the poor guy while Wolverine pursues the main plot.
Leonard the Wendigo. Still prone to losing self-control when he’s left alone. He tears his way out of the Blackbird and apparently goes hunting for food, but (so far as we can tell) the heroes catch him before he can do any harm. He’s still able to moan Logan’s name and he can be gently steered by Logan or Kurt, but he seems at best hugely confused.
Wolverine (Laura Kinney). Laura claims that she’s there to investigate an attack on some metallurgists the previous day, but she also says that she’s been feeling the Adamantine’s “call” in her skeleton – though evidently it’s faint.
VILLAINS.
The Adamantine. It’s trying to rid the planet of adamantium, partly by transforming everyone with adamantium in their body, and partly by killing all the scientists who know how to make the stuff. In his vision, Wolverine experiences adamantine making a ringing noise, compared to “the screeching of man’s false metal adamantium”. Basically, it sees adamantium as a blasphemous imitation.
Laura can sense its call even without being in its area, so it seems likely that as it’s growing power, it’s being picked up by people further and further away.
The Adamantine’s mind-controlled servants currently consists of Cyber, the Constrictor, Lady Deathstrike and newcomer Donald Pierce, but none of them displays any of their normal personalities.
Romulus. Oh lord, really?
Romulus shows up at the end of the issue, claiming that he has gained control of the Adamantine’s power. That makes some sense, since the Adamantine’s goal seems to be more of an instinct – but then again, it seemed to be thinking about Wolverine in the previous issue, at least as relayed through the narrator.
We last saw Romulus in Wolverine #313 (2012), when he was captured and sent to the Raft. In earlier stories Romulus didn’t have any adamantium of his own, but used adamantium weapons; in that one, however, he seemed to have given himself claw implants. The idea seems to be that he’s heard the call just like the others, but has the strength of will to simply overpower the Adamantine – more than even Wolverine, who can resist it, but only enough to break its spell.
Broadly speaking, there are two interpretations of Romulus in his earlier appearances. Daniel Way, who wrote most of his stories in Wolverine: Origins, had him as the manipulator responsible for all the ways Wolverine had been mind controlled and exploited over the years. Basically, he was the personification of all the faceless forces that Wolverine needed to overcome, giving him an embodiment of those enemies that he could actually fight and defeat. The problem with Origins was that it went absurdly over the top in working Romulus throughout Wolverine’s history. Later writers avoided the implications of this by simply never mentioning Romulus again.
Jeph Loeb, who wrote the first Romulus story in Wolverine #50-55 (2007), seemed to intend Romulus to be some sort of mythical figure of whom Wolverine was some sort of echo. This is an extremely generous reading of a storyline which was almost totally incoherent and unintelligible, but it perhaps explains the surprising choice to dust off this notoriously dud villain here – i.e., Adamantine is to adamantium as Romulus is to Wolverine.
FOOTNOTES.
Page 10. Laura did indeed get adamantium during the Krakoan era, originally through a continuity error in Gerry Duggan’s X-Men #5. The issue footnoted here, X-Men #10, has a flashback which tries to sort that problem by explaining that the Five got confused and gave her an adamantium skeleton by mistake.
Page 16. Donald Pierce added adamantium to his components in Wolverine #141.
Page 24. The last time Wolverine met Romulus was in Wolverine #313, as noted above.
I guess after trying to make Azazel into some sort of workable character, it was only a matter of time before some foolhardy writer attempted it with Romulus. I’d, personally, rather see a writer attempt to rework El Tigre than Azazel or Romulus. It’s been over fifty years since we’ve seen El Tigre. You think that isn’t long enough? It’s only been fifteen years since we last had to see Romulus.
I think the best way to make sense of Romulus from the Wolverine: Origins stories is to treat Romulus as the result of Logan having a breakdown and imaging this insane manipulator as behind all of his coincidental traumatic experiences.
Weirdly, Laura seemed to think that Logan was still in Canada in Laura Kinney- Wolverine 1, and that issue seems to take place after this one.
Donald Pierce appeared in Psylocke 1 a few months ago. However, since this story takes place before X-Men 1 and Psylocke 1 takes place after X-Men 1, this issue takes place before that appearance. But that means we know that Pierce survives this arc.
Romulus is back. But will we see him use his mutant power to found Rome?
Seriously, I cannot believe any writer would bring back Romulus. Considering how hated he was, Breevort should have rejected any writer’s proposal when they mentioned bringing back Romulus. What’s next- trying to attract readers with an issue featuring not only Romulus but also Paul Rabin?
Wolverine has familiarity with Nightcrawler, but presumably X-23 smells much like himself and therefore brings him a measure of validation and confort that Kurt can’t.
Didn’t we see Romulus (albeit in a time travel situation) in that couple of Wolverine series during Krakoa?
What if Romulus was behind Katie Vick this whole time?
What I meant to say is, Romulus is just fictional Vince McMahon in the “higher power” storyline combined with real-life pure evil Vince McMahon
Can we just cancel Romulus? Please?
Bringing back Romulus is an extremely bold move. But Saladin Ahmed is one of the few current writers I’d trust to not completely mess this up. But… we’ll see.
I’d write a story about Hercules and Magma fighting Romulus and Tyrannus (the underground bad guy not Richard Ayoade’s character). All of the dialogue would be in Latin as supplied by Google Translate. Nobody would read it.
@Si
Well, in Italy, where Latin is normally studied during high school (not all majors, but many), there have been a few examples of comics published in Latin (Asterix and Donald Duck among the most famous). It would probably sell enough copies through the schools!
I am quite puzzled about this series. It is well written with good narrative timing and good drawings, but I am increasingly puzzled about the antagonists and the mid- to long-term design for the character. Which are moreover the same perplexities I have about Daredevil, also written by Ahmed, which became quite tedious in the long run. I hope he doesn’t make the same mistakes with Wolverine.
I think the best way to make sense of Romulus from the Wolverine: Origins stories is to treat Romulus as the result of Logan having a breakdown and imaging this insane manipulator as behind all of his coincidental traumatic experiences.
Somewhere in this idea there’s a good story about delusional conspiracy theories. Romulus as a stand-in for Q-Anon, showing Logan spiraling into a misinformation delusion about his life. Romulus is real, and drops all these cryptic hints about how he has masterminded everything, and Logan makes all sorts of really bad choices because he believes the nonsense.
It is a great idea, but I am not seeing it published as a Wolverine story in main continuity.
Perhaps the shocking twist is that the Romulus in this story will reveal that he is actually Remus, Romulus’s twin brother! And he is responsible for…none of Wolverine’s trauma and backstory.
“The issue footnoted here, X-Men #10, has a flashback which tries to sort that problem by explaining that the Five got confused and gave her an adamantium skeleton by mistake.”
Sure, sure. Why would you want the godlike beings responsible for transferring your immortal soul into a new vessel to have quality control?
“Very sorry, hate to make a fuss, but in all the confusion, my left leg appears to be, er, a different ethnicity than the rest of me? Also I’ve somehow ended up with four penises. Is there a form I need to fill out, or…?
@Sam: Unfortunately, Remus, Romolus’s twin sister with red hair and suspiciously resembling Jean (or Rose or any other redhead Logan has fallen in love with over the years), has already been introduced in Loeb and Bianchi’s story in Wolverine 310-314, which we all preferred to forget about.
One day, someone’s going to write a team book consisting only of Jean and her look-alikes/stand-ins: Madelyne, Rachel, Rose, Remus, Emma in a Jean costume, …
Before Krakoa, I always thought someone should do a story about Romulus and reveal nothing he ever said was true and he was just Sinister all along. Hell, the Krakoan age might make that even MORE plausible.
Back when Marvel was randomly canonizing some bits from Earth X, I was somehow hoping against hope that the whole Lupine bit would end up in Romulus being revealed to be none other than Moon Boy — and then Logan would subsequently have to fight a truly-ancient Devil Dinosaur who now had adamantium claws and teeth. I’m not entirely certain why that made sense to me.
“Romulus. Oh lord, really?”
Paul shares the powers of Askani, travels through time and telepathically implants the exact quote into my mind forming my identical reaction when reading this.
I kind of suspect Jason Aaron has a notebook somewhere that has “ancient Devil Dinosaur with adamantium claws and teeth” written in it.
This conversation brings to mind Devil Dinosaur’s turn as the final villain of Nextwave, Agents of HATE.
I miss nextwave. I kinda hope Ellis and Immomen do a sequel at some point.
Well, the prospects of Disney being willing to hire Warren Ellis again have certainly increased of late, I’ll give you that.
Ah. Didn’t realize there were issues with Ellis. Just Googled the situation and I think I can live without him being hired again.
Has Disney also drank the MAGArbage Kool-Aid?!