Laura Kinney: Wolverine #10 annotations
LAURA KINNEY: WOLVERINE #10
“Blood Ties, part 2”
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Giada Belviso
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
This one really isn’t going to take us very long.
PAGE 1. Clea starts tracking Gabby.
The previous issue ended with Strega abducting Gabby and teleporting away. Supposedly Gabby’s healing powers mean that her blood strengthens Strega’s magic, and sustains Strega’s undead creations. The artefact that Clea mentions is the Sphere of Shooyen, which Strega grabbed in passing during the fight last issue, and which shows up again later in the issue.
While Clea merrily sets about tracking Gabby with blood magic, we’ll see shortly that Strega has simply gone back to her base in the Paris catacombs, which would have been the obvious first place to check anyway.
PAGE 2. Laura speaks to Xarus.
In the catchily named X-Men: Blood Hunt – Laura Kinney the Wolverine #1 (they ran out of punctuation marks halfway through), Gabby rescued Xarus from vampires who were experimenting on him by feeding him mutant blood in the hope of giving him powers, as a trial run for doing it themselves if it worked. He does indeed unleash a single blast of red energy at the end of that story, although since the first thing that starts glowing is his hands, it’s not at all obvious that the original story had Cyclops’ optic beams in mind.
Xarus also used the same ability at the end of the previous issue. There wasn’t any suggestion in that issue that he was having trouble controlling them. Cyclops’ inability to control his optic beams has traditionally been attributed to a head injury rather than an innate aspect of the powers, so it makes reasonable sense that Xarus would find them easier to control.
Laura spent much of last issue resenting Gabby’s bond with Xarus; she now seems to be moving on to blaming herself for leaving Gabby in Xarus’ company, while accepting that Xarus himself means well.
PAGE 3. Strega holds Gabby prisoner.
Strega seems to be saying that she would have been minded to leave Gabby cursed as a punishment for entering her sanctuary, and not take it any further. But she couldn’t resist the opportunity to use her link with Gabby to enter the Sanctum Sanctorum and steal stuff when Laura went to Clea for help.
Strega gives us a little speech about how she and her zombies are more of a family than Laura and co are. That’s obviously meant to be the thematic parallel here, but it doesn’t really take us very far because as far as we can tell none of Strega’s followers have personalities. The idea seems to be that she’s abducted all these people in an attempt to create her own family, but it isn’t really developed much beyond that.
PAGES 4-5. Clea takes Wolverine, Xarus and Jonathan to the catacombs.
PAGE 6. Strega is alerted to the attack.
All self-explanatory.
PAGES 7-17. They fight.
For some reason, Laura attributes Strega’s agility to the stolen artefact, even though Strega stated quite clearly last issue that Gabby’s blood would make her stronger.
Anyway, Strega is defeated and uses her magic to restore Gabby to normal.
PAGES 18-19. Epilogue: Clea warns Laura about Gabby.
Gabby theorised last issue that her (temporary) excess skin was something to do with her healing factor overreacting to the curse. Clea appears to endorse that theory here, on the odd grounds that Gabby is a “clone, not a ‘natural’ mutant”. It’s hard to see why that should matter. Possibly the idea is that the magical curse has had some impact on Gabby’s healing power, and that magic cares about the difference between clones and “natural” people, even if biology doesn’t.
Clea gives Gabby a necklace which seems to be significant, but if so, we don’t find out why. Gabby seems to take is as just a present.
The final page ends with a rather clunky monologue about how Laura is happy to have a family and a supporting cast again. She refers to telling Bucky that “I didn’t know where I was going”, which was a rather vague speech about “still figuring out who I want to be” at the end of issue 5. Ultimately, though, we seem to have spent ten issues for Laura to figure out that she wants to be a mutant superhero, which she’s been for years already.
This is the final issue of Laura Kinney: Wolverine for now; the “next” issue is Laura Kinney: Sabretooth #1, which is an “Age of Revelation” tie-in.
The problem I have with Xarus’s eye beams being derived from Cyclops’s is that Xarus was unable to stop his eye beams by closing his eyes or putting his hands over his eyes when they went out of control- Scott was always able to block the eye beams by closing his eyes or covering his eyes with his hands.
“This is the final issue of Laura Kinney: Wolverine for now”
It might be the final issue of Laura Kinney: Wolverine period- or at least the final issue written by Schultz. Schultz tweeted that Sabretooth will “extend the series”. Who knows if that means that this is her last issue on the title?
She made it sound like the book was cancelled. I can’t see it continuing past issue #10 with how poorly it’s been selling. I’m guessing if the AoR version does really well, Marvel will give it another shot, but I wouldn’t imagine it being a standout of the sixteen AoR books to
make Marvel decide there’s suddenly an audience for Laura Kinney book currently.
Why is that?
There are plenty of lower-selling series that goes on for longer.
Because Marvel has a new policy of allowing a title ten issues and then deciding if it should be allowed to continue. Added to Schultz basically stating that this series would have ended now if it wasn’t for it getting the AoR revamp.
No big loss – this wasn’t a very good book. As Paul points out, Schultz really hasn’t *done* anything with Laura, hasn’t developed her or her relationships in any meaningful way.
@Michael, No-Prize : Xarus is not a natural-born X-gene mutant , so he doesn’t have Scott’s complementary immunity to his own optic blasts . Either that, or as a vampire , he is really allergic to heat (and it’s been shown upon occasion in 616 that Scott’s optic blasts are BOTH concussive AND hot (like those of Alex and Gabriel) since they are still made of plasma after all (infused with exotic extra-dimensional energy from what I headcanon is obviously Cytorakk’s Crimson Cosmos)
I’ve always liked Clea and thought she should get more exposure. She’s probably too similar to the Scarlet Witch at this point.
In any case, I’m glad they went with her most beautiful and impractical costume here. Love it.
@Thom H.- Clea’s problems started in the last years of the Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme series. In David Quinn’s run on the series, in 1995, Clea was in a plot involving her fighting Dormammu in the Dark Dimension. Strange was unable to help so he changed a doppelgänger of himself into a being called Paradox and sent it to help Clea. But after Quinn left, no one knew what to do with it. We saw her briefly in issue 82 in a fill-in issue written by Ben Raab. And then JM Dematteis took over the next issue and she wasn’t mentioned before the series was cancelled in issue 90. Clea had a few appearances over the years but she was never a major player again until Jed MacKay’s Death of Doctor Strange story in 2021. So she was basically in limbo for 26 YEARS.
The last years of the Doctor Strange. Sorcerer Supreme series were a complete mess and did major damage to Strange’s world. Strange’s secretary/ business manager, Sara Wolfe vanished inexplicably and was never mentioned again. And the resolution to the who War of the Seven Spheres arc raised more questions than answers, which Jed MacKay only recently deatlt with. And after the series was cancelled in 1996, Strange wouldn’t get another ongoing series until 2015. (Before 1996, Strange either had an ongoing series or was a feature in an ongoing series since his creation, except for the years between 1969 when his first series was cancelled and 1972, when he got a feature in Marvel Premiere.) It really took decades to undo the damage that was done by the way the Sorcerer Supreme series ended.
@Thom H, The main difference between Clea and Wanda should be that killing is Clea’s first resort while killing should be Wanda’s last.
There should also be differences between their magic of course. Clea’s magic should be a darker riff on the Strange classics while Wanda tailors her magic around the threat. For an example, Clea uses the Crimson Bands of Cyrotakk to squeeze a Minotaur to death while Wanda uses Greek spells to trap it in a maze.
Michael-What was wrong with the way the Doctor Strange series ended? The book was really improving at the end. The problem was that Warren Ellis got removed from the series almost immediately (his Vertigo-lite inspired Strange was something interesting, at least), then the DeMatteis run was looking like the Dr. Strange character was being fixed again, but it came too late as the low sales had doomed the title before DeMatteis could do much with the character (only getting seven issues). DeMatteis ignoring the damage of Quinn’s run and sort of starting over was the best decision.
I’m not sure why Marvel didn’t attempt another ongoing Dr. Strange series for so long. It’s odd. Yes, the sales numbers on Doctor Strange were getting scarily low by the end of Quinn’s run, but the market had collapsed too. Sales were rapidly dropping on almost every title. The JMS series was apparently a strong seller, so it showed Marvel that the character wasn’t damaged. They could have launched a series with a new direction and strong creative team off the back of the JMS mini, and I’m sure it would have done fine. Marvel was still using the character quite often. I don’t understand the decision. A Marvel Knights Dr. Strange series written by Mike Carey sounds like it would have been a dream project around the time of Carey’s Lucifer. Marvel let it slip away.
Also, remember when Marvel decided to make Jericho Drumm the new Sorcerer Supreme? It was supposed to be a big deal. They launched the Doctor Voodoo series with Rick Remender as the writer, and Marvel cancelled it after the second issue’s sales figures. We think that Marvel giving a book only ten issues in 2025 is back, but in the late-2000s, Marvel was cancelling titles if the sales were anemic at issue #2. Doctor Voodoo was supposed to be something important in the Marvel Universe too, and the book still only got five issues. I was enjoying the book too.
@Chris V- When I said the “way the Doctor Strange series ended”, I meant the last few years of the Doctor Strange series. First, Kaminski’s run had Sara Wolfe disappear without explanation and introduced the Emancipation Incantation which caused Strange to lose the backing of the Vishanti. Then, as you mention, there was the Quinn run. Then, in Warren Ellis’s run, the War of the Seven Spheres was ended in a way which just raised more questions than answers. (Why couldn’t Strange use his powers again once he settled things with the Vishanti?) Plus Ellis left so quickly, there was a fill-in with Raab, and then we had DeMatteis’s run.
I do think there were some major issues from the previous runs that DeMatteis needed to address- Strange’s powers, Clea stuck in the Dark Dimension fighting Dormammu. And maybe if he had more time he would have. He did manage to address the issues of Wong and Imei and Victoria Montesi. But he didn’t and later writers had to.
@Chris V- Doctor Strange is a book that has a reputation as a low seller. Strange’s first two series were cancelled. And his second series was bimonthly for most of its run because sales were low. And the Sorcerer Supreme series had a reputation for low series before the market collapsed. For example, the 1991 statement of ownership averaged only 79,417- less than half of what books like Avengers and New Warriors were selling in 1991. But it’s still odd that it took 19 years for Strange to get an ongoing series when you consider all the characters that got ongoings between 1996 and 2015.
Aside from strange things, there’s an odd little editorial footnote in the Wolverines & Deadpools #3 that refers back to the Krakoa New Mutants series, and calls Gabby “Honey Badger”. Wondering if they’re letting the Scout thing go.
Well that footnote is odd anyway- in the Krakoa New Mutants issues it was claimed that the Shadow King that possessed Gabby wasn’t the real Shadow King but just a personification of Farouk’s fear of being enslaved by the Shadow King. But the footnote treats the Shadow King in that story as the real Shadow King. Maybe whoever wrote the footnote was in a hurry and just skimmed those issues?.
Paul’s reviews of this series has reaffirmed my belief I made the right call dropping the book after 3 issues.
As for Dr. Strange, I picked up the last 30 or so issues of that ’90s volume between late last year and early this year. It’s kind of a mess, to be nice about it. Salome poisoned his magic, he made a mystical forge somewhere to draw on the Earth’s power, catastrophe magic, no chaos magic.
Oh yeah, Wong’s hanging out with a skeleton he thinks is his dead wife, maybe Stephen should do something about that. Oh yeah, Vicki Montessi’s being pregnant with Chthon for 30 issues, maybe we should do something about that. And of course DeMatteis has to come on and add childhood trauma to Stephen’s backstory to let Baron Mordo have a redemptive death (hey, worked for Harry Osborn, right?) It’s not a dumpster fire; there are some interesting ideas. But it feels like half the ideas are dragged out too long and the other half are rushed and undercooked.
Also, wasn’t JMS going to write a Dr. Strange mini-series at least back when he was still writing Amazing Spider-Man? (We did get the BKV/Marcos Martin Dr. Strange: The Oath mini-series in 2006, which I loved.)
JMS did write a Marvel Knights miniseries called Strange that made his origin a lot more Matrix-inspired.
@Calvin Pitt, Ronnie Gardocki- The JMS miniseries that saw print was adapted from a movie screenplay.
However. there were two miniseries JMS teased while he was writing Spider-Man that never saw print. First, Strange told Spider-Man that he had an Appointment With Death, and we were told this would be dealt with in an upcoming miniseries. This miniseries never saw print.
The second miniseries was teased in a Spider-Man issue. Strange and Peter alter time to stop Dormammu but at the end we see that an alive-and-evil Mordo has trapped Strange and sent him back in time. There was supposed to be a miniseries to follow this up but it also never saw print. PAD confirmed in an issue of X-Factor that the reason Mordo was alive and evil again was because of Peter’s and Stephen’s messing with the timeline. (Nice job, guys.)
@Maaku J.: Oh, I definitely have room in my heart for two different female magic-wielders. I just don’t think the wider comics marketplace makes that much distinction between them.
Or maybe it’s not that interested in female magicians in general? I mean, Wanda’s just barely hanging on with her series of minis by Orlando. And over at DC, Zatanna keeps being featured in acclaimed minis, but no ongoing for her for some reason. Maybe they’re all meant to be supporting players.
In any case, it’s nice to see Clea back in a supporting role again.