WOLVERINE vol 8 #28
“Reforged”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: Just a Wolverine pin-up.

PAGES 1-2. Wolverine and Forge have dinner.

Yeah, I feel like going back to this format for a while.

The previous issue ended with Wolverine deciding that he should have the adamantium restored to his right-hand claws. Understandably, he’s approached Forge to sort this out for him. Forge was closely associated with X-Force during the Krakoan era, and he’s as good a choice as anyone to sort this out. We’re also told later on that he has “the world’s only store of liquefied adamantium on the planet” (sic). This is the first significant appearance he’s made post-Krakoa, although he did have cameos in X-Men: Hellfire Vigil and X-Men United #1. No, of course it isn’t, what was I thinking? It’s his first appearance since the previous run of X-Force, and he’s looking rather happier than he was in those issues.

Forge is back living in Eagle Plaza in Dallas, which was his home base in his early appearances back in 1980s Uncanny X-Men. We did see it briefly during that X-Force run. The name “Aerie” for Forge’s penthouse also dates from around that period, I think.

Despite having gone to the trouble of tracking down Forge, Wolverine is still dithering about whether to go through with the procedure. As referenced last issue (and mentioned again later in this issue), this is to do with his conflicted feelings about his adamantium skeleton, given that it was imposed on him against his will.

PAGES 3-4. Wolverine and Forge are attacked with a missile on their way back.

It makes sense for Wolverine to take the hit in order to save Forge, since he knows he’ll heal, but his clothes seem remarkably undamaged.

PAGES 5-8. Wolverine fights his way into the Aerie.

Wolverine identifies the villain of the issue immediately by scent, but we don’t find out until later on, so I’ll come back to that.

Eagle Plaza seems to have an X-logo themed piece of public art outside it.

Lady Deathstrike is using sword-wielding henchmen.

PAGES 9-10. Wolverine makes his way through a room of Forge holograms.

The Forge AIs are wearing his costume from the 1990s, which fits with X-Men United #1. They don’t actually make any pretence of being the real Forge, and seem to act on their own initiative. Wolverine tells us that they’re hard-light holograms similar to the Danger Room. Once Wolverine actually sees through the disorienting illusions, he seems to be able to dodge them very easily.

PAGES 11-15. Wolverine confronts Lady Deathstrike.

So the villain is Lady Deathstrike, who we last saw in issues #3-8 as one of the adamantium-themed villains controlled by the Adamantine. Following that experience, she seems to be back to a version of her classic motivation. In that set-up, she wanted revenge on Wolverine because she believed that he had been given his adamantium skeleton using a technique stolen from her father, Lord Dark Wind (who, in turn, had given an adamantium skeleton to Bullseye in Daredevil #198).

In this version, however, the Adamantine has somehow left her convinced that adamantium has become so commonplace in the Marvel Universe as to become a debased. There’s obviously a degree of truth to that, but Deathstrike speaks here as if her father had invented adamantium itself, which he certainly didn’t. She does seem a bit disturbed here, though, and Wolverine specifically suggests that she’s talking like the Adamantine. Her immediate goal now seems to be to try and take control of the world’s adamantium in honour of her father.

It doesn’t come across very clearly, but the idea seems to be that Yuriko correctly anticipated that Wolverine would come to Eagle Plaza to get his adamantium restored, and she’s engineered this attack to manipulate Wolverine into getting through the last line of defences for her. That’s why, when Wolverine asks how she got through the defences, she replies “Why, you breached them, Wolverine.” But this simply doesn’t match what we see on the page, where she’s clearly ahead of Wolverine, and doesn’t seem to benefit from anything that he does.

The concept of a tank of “liquefied adamantium” is a bit weird, since traditional continuity would hold that adamantium is locked in shape except for a short period after its initial forging, and can’t even be melted again. Nonetheless, Forge did have something like this on Krakoa, and it’s possible that the tank is doing some sort of subatomic manipulation thing – certainly, nobody acts as if it’s giving off searing heat.

Deathstrike’s priority really does seem to be to escape with the adamantium rather than to fight Wolverine. Her plan is apparently to teleport it into a getaway plane using what Wolverine somehow recognises as a “micro-teleporter”, though the art shows something more like a Game Boy.

Yet again, Wolverine breaks his bone claws – to be fair, it’s against Deathstrike’s adamantium, which ought to be able to cut straight through them. This seems to be intended as yet another reminder to Wolverine of the importance of having his adamantium restored.

PAGE 16. Forge and Wolverine meet up again.

For some reason, Forge is offering to compensate everyone for the damage caused by the attack on his house. Perhaps the idea is simply that he needs to keep the authorities on side to shut down awkward questions about whether he’s a danger to have around. He seems to have vast reserves of money in this story; this may be from his weapon-designing days back in 80s continuity or he might just be doing the Reed Richards deal of using his powers to generate patents.

Wolverine’s claws have grown back already (after several hours, admittedly).

PAGE 17. Wolverine and Nightcrawler.

Again, Wolverine is conflicted about being happy to have his adamantium back, and seems to wonder whether his attachment to his adamantium is unhealthy given the way that he got it.

PAGE 18. Wolverine gets a call from Leonard.

This is Leonard Two Bears, the kid who got turned into a Wendigo in issue #2, and was cured in issue #8. Wolverine asked him to get in touch if he felt his bloodlust returning, which is why he’s initially alarmed to get the call. But Leonard is just calling to thank Wolverine again and report that his life is getting back on track.

PAGES 19-20. Wolverine walks through the swamp.

And he does indeed have his adamantium claws back on both hands.