LAURA KINNEY: WOLVERINE #6
“My So-Called Perfect Life”
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Giada Belviso
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

WOLVERINE

This won’t take us long, by the nature of the story.

The previous issue ended with Laura returning home and getting shot by a mysterious hooded figure with a hi-tech gun. We don’t find out who that was, though, because… well, you know the story where the lead character is in a version of the real world, or a psychiatric hospital or something, and everyone tells them that the events of the regular story are a hallucination that they’re being treated for? It’s that one, though with the slightly different approach that Laura is living a happy suburban life with her father and sister and doesn’t even remember her “hallucinations” until she’s reminded about them. The “real” world setting continues for the whole issue, so I’m just going to assume for present purposes that nobody appearing here is real other than Laura herself. It’s possible that some of them might be other characters also trapped in this world, but we have no way of knowing at this stage.

Her “father” is Logan, her biological father, though acting like a normal middle class father. Her “sister” is Gabby, her clone. We haven’t seen the real Gabby since Blood Hunt, when she was still hanging around with Laura – she vanished off panel somewhere before NYX. Although everyone in this world is entirely depowered, Gabby still has the two vertical scars on her face.

Her absent mother is identified as “Sarah Kinney-Howlett”, obviously a version of her biological mother and creator Sarah Kinney from the 2005 X-23 miniseries. The supposed back story of this world is that Sarah was killed in a car crash when Laura was driving, causing her to become obsessed with stories about her life as a supposed superhero, convince herself that they were true, and lead her to nearly kill herself while testing her supposed healing powers.

Laura’s doctors are the Xavier Medical and Emotional Network – nobody spells out that the acronym is XMEN, but they do have the X-in-a-circle logo. We see Charles Xavier and Emma Frost, both presented as expert psychiatrists. Or at any rate, Logan relates having met them – note that it’s only this flashback, narrated by Logan, that takes us outside the house at all. Curiously this scene includes Logan picking up unprompted on a logic problem in the scene, where Emma starts offering a diagnosis before properly examining Laura.

Ms Marvel shows up as a delivery girl, with her lightning bolt symbol appearing on her cap. She claims to have gone to “Worthington High School” with Laura, presumably funded by Warren.

This panel, with Gabby answering the front door, seems to be the only clear view we get of what’s outside the house – a tree and a normal-looking city street can be seen behind her. Curiously, despite the fact that it’s apparently Christmas and therefore winter, other panels showing the windows have light streaming in to an extent that obscures everything outside, and other panels seem to be going out of their way to stress the light coming into this house. The final scene, where the front door opens again, doesn’t show what’s outside, but does show lighting flare effects coming from behind. In contrast, the (presumably false) flashback to Laura in hospital shows a normal view out of the window. This is consistent enough that there seems to be some significance to it – when Logan hugs Laura and Gabby after explaining the back story, the background shows bright lights for no apparent reason.

Scout is still professing her favourite takeaway to be “number 25 with chicken”, as in All-New Wolverine.

Hellion shows up at the end of the issue to kiss her, and she immediately reacts to him as a beloved boyfriend. NYX seemed to be gearing up to rekindle that relationship. Since her happy reaction to his arrival is played as vaguely disturbing, there’s a definite possibility that he’s behind this somehow, though that would be odd given the efforts made in NYX to rehab him after his alliance with Empath.