WOLVERINE vol 7 #18
“Clash of the Champions”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: That’ll be a picture of Wolverine.

WOLVERINE. 

He’s been protecting the New Morlocks’ encampment for “the past few weeks” by this point (though if you’re that bothered about fitting this into continuity, he doesn’t actually say he’s been there the whole time).

He still describes his relationship with Silver Sable as casual, but when she gets hurt in battle he flies into a rage which is uncharacteristic for him these days.

He spends most of the issue simply fighting a possessed Hercules.

SUPPORTING CAST.

Silver Sable. Wolverine claims to appreciate her professionalism and the fact that she’s happy to take a supporting role if that’s what’s best for the mission. When she realises that Hercules has no particular interest in the New Morlocks, she tries to talk him down so that they can at least have their fight somewhere else, and gets knocked unconscious for her troubles. She stays that way for the rest of the issue.

The New Morlocks. The community is looking a little more healthy, at least until this issue’s fight starts smashing up the encampment. Thanks to Tushar using his repair powers last issue, they seem to have reasonable homes to shelter in, though it looks like they’re still off the grid, so the homes aren’t actually heated or anything.

Wolverine’s narration says that the New Morlocks “are about as vulnerable as mutants come” because they include “[t]he people who can’t pass for human” and “[t]he kids who’ve had to grow up too fast because their powers showed up early”. We’ll have to take his word for this, because Tushar is the only child mutant we’ve really seen, and if anything, this group is unusually human-looking for a mutant camp, certainly by the standards of recent years.

Wolverine think they’ve “come a long way” in terms of their ability to protect themselves, thanks to his training, but clearly has in mind conventional forces and thugs, since he doesn’t rate their chances at all against a single supervillain.

Tushar gets a line of dialogue while everyone is running for shelter; his assignment in this situation is to help the other kids stay quiet.

Chowdown and Deepfake take more of a leadership role among the community, directing traffic as the group attempt to shelter. Chowdown pushes his powers to consume what appears to be a burning tree – or maybe a building, the art’s really not very clear – and manages it with no apparent ill effects.

Ape shows up again right at the end as a generic speaking part.

VILLAINS

Romulus. The last few issues have contained subplots in which the Adamantine hunted down various supposed champions who had allegedly been identified to it by Romulus. Romulus’s choices included retired boxers, MMA fighters and routine mercenaries, none of which came remotely close to impressing the Adamantine. It’s still not clear what he was trying to achieve by this, other than simply keeping the Adamantine occupied. At any rate, the Adamantine finally lost patience with him last issue, and declared his time on Earth over. It turns out that the Adamantine meant that literally, and Romulus’s bisected body is dumped in the woods near the New Morlock camp, apparently as bait to lure out Wolverine. Wolverine verifies for us that Romulus is very dead. What a shame.

The Adamantine. It claimed last issue that it would replace Romulus with “the godling”, which turns out to be Hercules. As usual, the Adamantine doesn’t speak directly, but is obviously influencing its host. In the past we’ve seen it possess adamantium users, but evidently it can also go after anyone using a weapon made of mythological adamantine. (The weapon doesn’t have to be incorporated into their body – Hercules just has a mace – but then Constrictor’s coils aren’t part of his body either, so this isn’t new.)

The Adamantine apparently wants Wolverine to defeat Hercules in order to prove that he is worthy of facing the Adamantine itself.

Hercules. The Adamantine has possessed him off panel, presumably on the strength of his mace. He claims that the Adamantine has reawakened him to the joy of battle. While possessed, he seems to relish in combat for its own sake and refers to Wolverine as “little wolf”. He appears to be both playing his role as Wolverine’s trial opponent and seriously trying to win in order to prove himself as the Adamantine’s rightful champion.

He claims that Wolverine’s fighting spirit is unmatched but his physical power lets him down – reasonably enough, given that Hercules is a literal demigod and famous even among gods for his physical strength. Wolverine’s claws can cut him, although he seems to regard it as superficial damage. More bizarrely, Wolverine also seems to be able to draw blood from him by biting, and the art has the two of them wrestling as if they were of comparable strength. If the Adamantine is meant to be giving Hercules a power-up, he’s done a shoddy job of it.

OTHER CHARACTERS

Athena. She shows up at the cliffhanger to stop the fight. I believe her current status quo is as Zeus’s jailer, set up in Al Ewing stories in Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor.