Wolverine #27 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #27
“This Man, This Metal”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Julius Ohta
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Wolverine holding up his claws, with one of the other three Savage Champions – Wolf With A Gun, Red Hare and Boneclaw – reflected in each claw. It’s a loose homage to the cover of Incredible Hulk #340.
WOLVERINE:
His narration says that “I’ve recently learned that I’m one of the Savage Champions – warriors with the power and duty to defeat the Adamantine”. That’s his pep talk from Athena in issue #19, which is also the source of the material in this story about the Savage Champions embodying man, beast and metal. Broadly, the point of this story seems to be to convince him that he should get his adamantium restored, by reminding him that his status as a Savage Champion, and thus his ability to beat threats like the Adamantine, depends on being a combination of man, beast and metal. He seems ultimately to be won round to the idea that he can only fulfil his role as a protector by embracing his adamantium.
The other three Champions seem to defer to his leadership, despite the fact that he’s got the least experience with the Adamantine of all of them. This may just be because he’s the only one who’s actually voicing any sort of ideas. His approach is to go for the mammoth’s unprotected eyes, which is basically how he beat Romulus in issue #8.
When he requires to summon willpower in a mystical contest against the Adamantine, he can call on the nearby Savage Champions for support. Of course, they’re all supposed to be mystically destined to fight the Adamantine.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Red Hare. He and Boneclaw can both take a direct hit from an Adamantine-empowered mammoth and get straight back up. As Wolverine himself points out, it’s not clear whether they have the same power set as him, or whether they’re just superhumanly resilient.
Boneclaw. Well, he’s a growling cave-Wolverine, isn’t he? Wolverine gets him to take Colossus’s role in the Fastball Special – which means that he can understand what Wolverine is saying. That might be because of the mental link between them as Savage Champions, though. I hadn’t really picked up on this before, but his club seems to be metal, presumably to fulfil the man/beast/metal remit. God knows where he got it from, because he certainly doesn’t seem to have invented any form of metalworking technology.
Wolf With a Gun. He just randomly shows up to help, as the three Champions did in issue #20. His Spanish-language dialogue loosely translates as:
- Diablos, eso sí es grande: Damn, that’s big.
- En carne y hueso: In the flesh.
- Hecho: Fact.
- Ya lo creo: I believe it.
- Así nomás: Just like that.
Athena. After the Adamantine is defeated, Athena shows up with three other unidentified gods in tow, to declare that the Adamantine is defeated for now, and to send the Champions home. This is basically the speech that she gave in issue #20. The other three gods who are with her appear to be figures from the other Champions’ worlds.
VILLAINS:
The Adamantine. Last issue the Adamantine from Red Hare’s world just sort of randomly retreated to Boneclaw’s world and possessed a mammoth. Once driven out of the mammoth, it declares that it plans to wipe out both man and beast (i.e., the other two elements of the Savage Champions) and attempts to control the entire surrounding landscape in what it calls “the Final Silencing”. This seems to involve spreading itself across the entire area and making golden creatures out of its own body. These things are significantly weaker than the original Adamantine, presumably because it’s spreading itself so thin.
Despite this Adamantine coming from Red Hare’s world, it seems to recognise Wolverine, describing him as “he whom we once hoped could grow great”. The Adamantine did indeed show an interest in Wolverine as a possible champion in the course of its previous storyline. The suggestion seems to be that there’s just one Adamantine in all worlds. But if that’s the case, it seems odd that the Adamantine was so unfamiliar with the modern world in previous issues – hasn’t it encountered vaguely similar worlds before? Perhaps it only becomes aware of these things when the Savage Champions are actually in play; it did appear familiar with the idea of destined champions from other worlds in issue #20.
The Adamantine seems to think that Wolverine is even less worthy now that he has less metal, but ultimately appears to be overcome relatively straightforwardly by pure willpower, which magically renders it vulnerable. Frankly, it doesn’t put up anywhere near as impressive a showing in this issue as it did in the previous arc. Once again, we’re told that it will return in due course, and given how quickly it showed up for a second time, that’s not exactly reassuring.
Wolverine vol. 8: Groundhog Day by Saladin Ahmed
I genuinely don’t understand what any of this is meant to do. The “savage champions” concept seems both internally incoherent and needlessly complicated. It doesn’t really tell us much about Wolverine, since “metal” isn’t being used here as a metaphor or metonym for anything.
I could see treating it as the artificially engineered or “programmed weapon” element of Wolverine, adding to his traditional struggle against the “beast within,” but having him fight an ancient, sentient spirit of really strong metal seems to miss that possibility entirely.
The possibility of interesting themes is further diminished by the plot point that this is a destined battle, which means that Wolverine isn’t really struggling to reconcile his animal instincts, humanity, and artificially imposed or technological traits, but rather just playing out some kind of fated battle against a foe of rather limited personality.
The other “Savage Champions” just seem to dilute Wolverine, turning him into one of an infinite series of variations on his powerset and gimmicks, which here never quite develop into the features of a recognizable archetype.
In contrast, even returning to the well of using the likes of Sabretooth/Wild Child/Feral/etc. as “the beastly killer Wolverine could become” or Lady Deathstrike/Silver Samurai/etc. as “the living weapon running on impersonal directives of honor or an imposed sense of mission that Wolverine could become” at least brings the more interesting themes into view more efficiently.
The big dilemma is whether or not Wolverine wants to coat three of his claws in metal again or whether he’s like a bit of fashionable asymmetry for a while longer. That’s not a statement. That’s not a character struggling with competing drives or demands. It’s a character struggling with an arbitrarily occurring rehash of a 1990s plotline about a change in his powers, only this time it’s been diminished to the point that doesn’t even affect his other hand.
None of this is interesting. None of it says anything about the title character. None of it is original. None of it is even particularly exciting as mere action sequences, precisely because of all the vaguely justified plot points, half-baked conceptual clutter, and seemingly diffident gestures at familiar themes and storylines past.
It doesn’t even work as camp. It’s just below par genre fiction with an extra dose of boring plot convolutions and characters that no one will bother remembering once the next creative team arrives.
I honestly thought this story would resolve in him getting adamantine claws after being absorbed into the Adamantine, so he’d have one set of silver, one set of golden claws.
That might have been interesting. Or not. As long as they weren’t morphing claws or hot claws…
Next issue blurb was something like REFORGED and SHOWDOWN AT EAGLE PLAZA. I guess he’s off to see Forge to get his other set of adamantium claws back, but it won’t go as easily as expected.
I never have figured out just how the bone claws fit inside the adamantium claws, given that the bone are rounder than the thin adamantium ones. Artistic license, I reckon.
Omar-You’ve thought about this far more than Ahmed. After Luis mentioned that this seems to be a rip…err, “pastiche”, yeah, of Michael Moorcock’s “The Eternal Champion” series, I have become convinced it is true that Ahmed recently reread some Moorcock books and, running out of ideas for Wolverine, decided to turn Logan into Elric. Not even the most interesting versions. Listen, Elric is an absolute classic of epic fantasy and everyone should read it. Elric’s not Jerry Cornelius or Karl Glogauer though. Now, creating Wolverine versions of one of those two characters could have been interesting. More interesting than a plot that’s half as interesting (get it?) as a “jump the shark” moment from ‘90s Wolverine.
Considering that the X-Men ‘97 cartoon is apparently adapting the bone claw period for Wolverine, it does make me wonder if editorial told Ahmed he should tie his Wolverine into that plot somehow, and this was Ahmed’s best try (after all, he couldn’t just completely redo the original).
@Chris V: Your comment makes me think that a pastiche of the Eternal Champion, one gone sour as Elric is fated to go, would have worked well as a villainous foil for Wolverine. Playing Logan off against a decadent, fallen Byronic antihero whose talents are more mystical or perhaps psychic (for X-books theming) might actually be interesting. That’d be another take on Wolverine’s potential downfall, something he might become were he a bit more flawed or a bit less resilient.
I don’t think Wolverine’s yet had that kind of opponent, someone who’s fallen due to cynicism and the weight of a bleak fatalism rather than lapsing into savagery or lunacy, playing the good soldier, or leaning into a fanatical sense of obligation or hatred.
If he has been rereading Moorcock, Ahmed sure doesn’t appear to have hit on that possibility. The Adamantine isn’t exactly Elric, nor Monsieur Zenith.
The closest we’ve gotten is probably Solem, and he was more of a cheerfully amoral hedonist, someone who was never a champion. Something like Fantomex-gone–depressive-and-evil might also work for this. Given Moorcock’s feelings about Morrison, though, that’d likely be a pastiche too far.
And there’s still no clear explanation how Athena is here when last we saw her. she was trapped in Asgard.
@omar
I agree that’s a cool concept
I was thinking and I think it’s bin touched on at least a bit in the form of Solem from Arakko (and arguably original recipe Daken) but yeah it could definitely be given a new spin
Re: X-Men ’97 and bone claw Wolverine:
Prepare to be disappointed.
I wonder how much money Marvel makes from online games. Enough for editors to be pushed to find more slight variants that can be sold as a new skin? For example, mismatched claws Wolverine?
It’s interesting to go from that cover homage to a showdown at eagle plaza has that hulk issue is a tie in to the start of fall of the mutants. Maybe we will be seeing the adversary.
The wolverine episode of 97 season 2 was the the worse of the series by a longshot.
@ Si
It seems unlikely to me.The most popular is Marvel Rivals and most of their designs look very little like anything in the comics.