The Incomplete Wolverine – 1997
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996
Last time Wolverine turned into an animal and then Marvel backtracked from the whole plot at tremendous speed. And so the search is on for a new direction.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #110
“Lesser Beasts”
by Tom DeFalco, Joe Bennett, Joe Pimentel, Joe Andreani & Paul Becton
February 1997
The January 1997 issue was the end of a storyline, and we covered it last time. So we kick off with… a fill-in issue. Wolverine and Shaman team up to deal with a couple of murderous robbers who have accidentally released one of the Great Beasts.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #111
“Restoration”
by Larry Hama, Anthony Winn, Dan Green & Dana Moreshead
March 1997
Logan returns home from his jaunt to Japan and Canada, in time for Iceman’s leaving party – though he leaves early to go and drink on his own and mourn his supporting cast. A package arrives for Logan from Zoe Culloden, asking him to look after an “artefact” whose “nature and origin are not necessary for you to know at the present time”. Zoe’s message says that a dark time is coming, and malevolent energies are converging on him. Seems like a bad idea to give him an important artefact to look after, then. It’s a box with something glowing inside, but we never find out what it is, beyond that it has some sort of connection with both Ogun and Lady Deathstrike.
Later on, Wolverine watches the dawn and takes it as a symbolic reminder that things are bound to improve. He returns to the Danger Room wearing his normal costume for the first time in ages. Other books take a while to catch up with this, hence the Wolverine Index being forced to suggest that he’s using his image inducer around the house, but as far as Wolverine itself is concerned, we’re back to his normal status quo and the “degeneration” arc lingers only as a new font for his dialogue.
The Danger Room session is interrupted by a demonic figure (obviously Ogun, though Wolverine somehow fails to recognise him), who offers to resurrect Mariko in exchange for a favour; then, Stick interrupts that and reiterates Zoe’s warning about the cryptic stakes.
There’s some nice character work in this issue. Wolverine thinks of the Mansion as his home, but Iceman regards it as just Wolverine’s latest address in his long life. We get the impression that Iceman doesn’t really like Wolverine much, and thinks Wolverine never made much of an effort to get to know him. Wolverine seems to be a bit hurt by that. He also doesn’t like parties generally, which he ascribes to “not being properly socialised”; and he dismisses the X-Men’s favourite bar, Harry’s Hideaway, as “a nice enough place if you like bad pub food served in a place where the quaintness is mostly made of plastic”. And Storm pretty much tells Logan that he’s a “hothouse flower” who can only survive in the weird environment of the X-Men.
This is all leading to the epilogue, where Logan decides to leave the Mansion for a while and move to New York to prove to himself that he can in fact live with normal people. That’s the new direction for 1997, and this is a good set-up issue for it. But there are a few other stories to shoehorn in before we get there.
MARVEL: SHADOWS AND LIGHT
“The Spoon Job”
by John Paul Leon
December 1996
A HYDRA chemist tests a special poison on Wolverine, designed to kill people with healing powers. But he leaves behind the crucial clue that will lead Wolverine first to the antidote, and then to the chemist. A simple anthology entry, notable mainly for the art.
BALLISTIC / WOLVERINE
“Devil’s Reign, part 4”
by Larry Hama, Joe Benitez, Aaron Sowd & Dean White
February 1997
“Devil’s Reign” was a crossover between Marvel and Top Cow. Responding to an urgent call from Zoe Culloden, Wolverine follows through a portal to the Top Cow Universe. He teams up with Ballistic (Cassandra Taylor). She’s looking for her missing teammate Heatwave (Dylan Cruise), who in turn has been installed by Mephisto as mayor of New York. They rescue Zoe, but can’t prevent everyone in Times Square from vanishing as the new year begins. (Wolverine’s entry into the story is also shown as a cameo in the previous chapter, Ghost Rider / Ballistic.)
WOLVERINE / WITCHBLADE
“Devil’s Reign, part 5”
by David Wohl, Christina Z, Michael Turner, D-Tron & Jonathan D Smith
March 1997
Wolverine tracks down Mephisto, who is impersonating Ian Nottingham, and who is trying to convince Sara Pezzini that she imagined her superhero career as Witchblade. Then, Wolverine and Witchblade team up. It’s mostly an issue of Witchblade angst.
WITCHBLADE / ELEKTRA
“Devil’s Reign, part 6”
by Christina Z, David Wohl, Michael Turner, David Finch, Joe Benitez, D-Tron, Joe Weems & Jonathan D Smith
March 1997
Elektra shows up. Logan is consumed by fire and plays no further part in the crossover, which continues into Elektra / Cyblade and Silver Surfer / Weapon Zero. Presumably he just gets restored at the end.
X-MEN vol 2 #61
“Bolt”
by Scott Lobdell, Cedric Nocon, Dave Hunt, Mike Miller & Joe Rosas
February 1997
Wolverine, Cyclops and Phoenix arrive just in time for the tail end of a fight between Storm and Candra.
X-MEN ’97
“Not a Cloud in the Sky”
by John Francis Moore, Steve Epting, Dan Green & Brad Vancata
1997
The Gamesmaster creates a small-scale paradise in Salem Center, where everything starts to go improbably well for the X-Men. Joseph figures it out, and the Gamesmaster is defeated without Wolverine having any direct involvement.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #112-114
“The Light at the End of the Day” / “The Wind from the East” / “The Snark was a Boojum, You See!”
#112 by Larry Hama, Anthony Winn, Dan Green & Joe Rosas
#113 by Larry Hama, Leinil Francis Yu, Edgar Tadeo & Joe Rosas
April to June 1997
Back to the main series, then. Logan arrives in the East Village, and immediately encounters Kirsten and her boyfriend Clive, two characters from Hama’s Venom run. They tell him about a vacant apartment. He settles in and, with some prompting from Kirsten, decides to get a job. He goes to work for a co-op construction site run by Helen Bach, and insists on not being paid. (Logan claims to be “independently lower middle-class”.) Helen is impressed by his work but understandably sceptical about his vague blather about running from something and trying to reconnect to the world.
Ogun shows up, possessing a mime. He tries to steal the box that Logan got from Zoe – Logan now remembers having seen it before, when he first met Ogun decades ago. Remarkably, it still takes him a while to figure out that he’s fighting Ogun now. Storm and Phoenix show up for no particularly clear reason. Logan takes a knife meant for Storm, and Ogun is momentarily shocked into realising his own moral deterioration. That allows Jean to drive him away. Lady Deathstrike also show up to claim the box, which is, apparently, something to do with the legacy of her father. Oh, and Daimon Hellstrom shows up briefly, to emphasise how very, very important the box is. Shame we never found out why, really.
But… to all intents and purposes this is the end of the Hama run. He writes the next five issues – the Flashback Month story, and an “Operation: Zero Tolerance” crossover – but he never gets the chance to return to these storylines, and the issues that follow will instantly dismantle the East Village set-up.
The next issue box in issue #113 is telling: “Wolverine, back the way you like him!” Phoenix tells us outright that “Wolverine’s feral regression has pretty much halted itself… He’s more competent now than he ever was.” And his font has been toned down, too.
X-MEN UNLIMITED vol 1 #15
“Second Contact”
by Howard Mackie, Duncan Rouleau, Rob Hunter & Shannon Blanchard
June 1997
Wolverine and Iceman track down teenage Legacy Virus sufferer Chris Bradley, who has run off with Maverick. By the time they catch up to the two, Maverick has taken Chris under his wings, and Wolverine decides to let them go.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #342
“–Did I Miss Something?!”
by Scott Lobdell, Joe Madureira, Tim Townsend & Steve Buccellato
March 1997
Wolverine is among the X-Men at the Mansion when Cannonball reports back that the other half of the team have been teleported off into Shi’ar space. Since Uncanny follows the spacebound half of the cast, Wolverine won’t appear in the book again until issue #350.
PSYLOCKE & ARCHANGEL: CRIMSON DAWN #1
“Before the Break of Dawn”
by Ben Raab, Salvador Larroca and various
August 1997
Wolverine shows up briefly to check on Psylocke’s recovery, and to warn Archangel not to push her too hard. Wolverine and Archangel seem to be on relatively good terms here, for once.
STAR TREK / X-MEN: SECOND CONTACT
by Dan Abnett, Ian Edginton, Cary Nord, Scott Koblish & John Kalisz
May 1998
The X-Men and Excalibur team up with the crew of the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation to fight Kang and the Borg. Although it came out in 1998, it expressly precedes Operation: Zero Tolerance, so it’s placed here. Unusually, the book ends by leading into Star Trek: The Next Generation / X-Men: Planet X, which wasn’t a comic, but a licensed novel.
INCREDIBLE HULK vol 2 #454-455
“Best Intentions”
by Peter David, Adam Kubert, Mark Farmer, Dan Green & Lovern Kindzierski
June and August 1997
In the Savage Land, the Hulk sets himself up as the god of the Locot tribe, upsetting the balance of power in their feud with the rival Nowek tribe. Wolverine and Ka-Zar try to persuade him to leave the tribesmen alone, without success. When a giant monster attacks, the tribes team up to defeat it, leading to a celebratory dinner afterwards. Unaware that both tribes have actually poisoned each other, Wolverine mistakenly thinks the Hulk was planning to unite them against a common enemy all along – but the Hulk then collapses too. Wolverine brings him back to the Mansion, to the X-Men’s horror. Wolverine argues that the Hulk simply needs to be treated with respect, and that any attempts to control him are doomed to backfire. The rest of the X-Men don’t listen, try to trick the Hulk with the Danger Room, and wind up proving Wolverine right. At the end, the Hulk simply vanishes. (He’s teleported away by Apocalypse, to become the new War.) During this story, Wolverine also encounters Cary St Lawrence, leading US forces pursuing the Hulk.
July 1997 was “Flashback Month”, when most books shipped #-1 issues set before Fantastic Four #1. That’s why this two-issue arc covers three months, and why there’s no July 1997 issue of Wolverine in this post.
X-MEN vol 2 #62-64
“Games of Deceit & Death”
by Scott Lobdell, Ben Raab, Carlos Pacheco, Art Thibert & Chris Lichtner
March to May 1997
Following a lead from British secret service veteran Clive Reston, the X-Men team up with Shang-Chi to investigate Sebastian Shaw’s schemes in Hong Kong. Shaw is trying to get his hands on Fu Manchu’s Elixir Vitae as a potential cure for the Legacy Virus, which he intends to use as leverage to control other mutants. The X-Men fight Fu Manchu’s Si-Fan Ninja, including four Cyber-Ninjas, only three of whom get names: Bludgeon, Fist and Katana. It’s that sort of story. Shaw persuades the X-Men to steal the Elixir Vitae from Fujikawa Enterprises, currently under the control of the Kingpin, and eventually Storm destroys the thing rather than let either villain have it. Slight but pretty.
(Several earlier stories claim to lead into this story, but it can’t come any earlier because it leads directly into the next arc with no break in the action.)
On their way back to America, the X-Men’s jet is intercepted by the anti-mutant military outfit Operation: Zero Tolerance, who demand surrender.
X-MEN vol 2 #65
“First Blood”
by Scott Lobdell, Carlos Pacheco, Art Thibert, Chris Lichtner & Aron Lusen
June 1997
Operation: Zero Tolerance pursue the X-Men’s jet, shoot it down, and capture the whole team. It’s intercut with the public announcement of OZT, and various reactions, but that’s basically the plot. As already noted, July 1997 was Flashback Month, so the story picks up again in…
X-MEN vol 2 #66
“Start Spreadin’ The News”
by Scott Lobdell, Carlos Pacheco, Art Thibet & Liquid
August 1997
Wolverine appears in a single panel as a prisoner of Operation: Zero Tolerance.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #115-118
“Operation: Zero Tolerance”
by Larry Hama, Leinil Francis Yu, Edgar Tadeo & Joe Rosas
August to November 1997
These four issues, all part of the “Operation: Zero Tolerance” crossover, complete the Larry Hama run. The official timeline places another flashback in Wolverine vol 3 #58 of Wolverine fighting Lazaer right at the start. That’s fair enough, since issue #115 does indeed begin with Wolverine seeming to have died from his injuries.
Of course, his healing factor kicks in eventually, and he frees his captive teammates. Escaping across the desert, they come upon a trailer park. A blind man called Mustang explains that the residents are all being treated by Prospero, a supposed doctor who is actually an OZT scientist. Investigating Prospero’s facility, the X-Men find that he’s turning his patients into Prime Sentinel cyborgs. OZT activate the Sentinels whose “treatment” is far enough along, but the X-Men defeat them. Mustang, who is still in the early stages, is naturally upset at the loss of his humanity, but Wolverine tells him that whether he is still a man depends on how he acts. When OZT try to activate Mustang, he resists and is shocked back into his senses.
OZT are defeated by other X-Men in other titles, but Cyclops is shot with some sort of nanotech implant that might be a bomb. The X-Men give Mustang a box of floppy discs with Prospero’s records before flying home in a stolen OZT ship.
It’s not the way you’d want Hama’s run to end, given that it started all the way back in issue #31. Issues #116-117 in particular are X-Men stories, not Wolverine stories. But at least Hama tries to give it some closure by using Mustang to remind us of Wolverine’s own journey, and the Prime Sentinels have some resonance with Wolverine’s back story. Bastion also gets to spell out that Wolverine “is a perfect symbol of what humanity fears in mutants.” And here end the Larry Hama years.
Well, mostly. There’s a coda, and we’ll come to that.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #350
“Trial & Errors”
by Steve Seagle, Joe Madureira, Tim Townsend & Steve Buccellato
December 1997
Wolverine’s group of X-Men appear in a single page subplot, still on their way home.
X-MEN vol 2 #70
“Homecoming”
by Joe Kelly, Carlos Pacheco, Art Thibert & Chris Lichtner
December 1997
The X-Men arrive back at the Mansion to find it stripped bare by OZT, meaning that there are no medical facilities to treat Cyclops. Iceman, Marrow and medic Cecilia Reyes (who debuted during OZT) are already there. Logan takes an immediate dislike to Cecilia, who doesn’t want to be there, and who’s trying to pull rank in the emergency without actually explaining who she is. Eventually she guides the X-Men in combining their powers to perform an operation that saves Cyclops’ life (with Wolverine acting as scalpel). The Juggernaut shows up halfway through, as do the rest of the X-Men, who now include Maggott (Japheth). But after taking a look round, Juggernaut just leaves, amused by the pathetic state that the X-Men have been reduced to. Later, Cyclops and Phoenix privately worry about whether this dysfunctional new line-up is remotely viable.
Trish Tilby is also there, so Wolverine gets to yell at her for breaking the Legacy Virus story, and accuse her of ignoring the consequences of her actions. She’s very upset, and Hank defends her, but Logan doesn’t back down.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #351
“Hours & Minutes”
by Steve Seagle, Ed Benes & Chris Sotomayor
January 1998
Cecilia decides to try and return to her day job. Logan discourages her, but gives her a lift into town afterwards, and gives her a fairly standard liberal pep talk about how to stand up for yourself. Cecilia promptly gets fired after an incident with Pyro and Daredevil, and when she arrives back at the Mansion, Logan is only surprised by how quick it was. Cecilia now accepts that it’s her best chance of doing good. At this point the X-Men are basically sleeping on mattresses in an empty building.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #352
“In Sin Air”
By Steve Seagle and various artists
February 1998
This is a Scott and Jean story with an absurd number of artists in completely clashing styles. In a subplot, Wolverine is irritated that Angel has only just got around to showing up; Marrow takes some comfort from seeing Wolverine behave just as aggressively towards a veteran.
GHOST RIDER vol 3 #88
“A Kind Face”
by Ivan Velez Jr, Josh Hood, Derek Fisher & Brian Buccellato
September 1997
Just a cameo as a pedestrian.
ELEKTRA vol 1 #10
“Flowers & Flamethrowers”
by Peter Milligan, Mike Deodato Jr, Scott Koblish & Christie Scheele
September 1997
Logan drops by once again, and has the obligatory fight with Elektra’s new boyfriend McKinley Stewart before she calms them both down. Logan is amused by the whole thing, and says that the guy seems okay.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN vol 1 #429
“The Price”
by Tom DeFalco, Joe Bennett, Bud LaRosa, Al Milgrom & Bob Sharen
December 1997
A cameo by Beast and Wolverine, reading the newspaper.
X-MEN vol 2 #71
“A House in Order”
by Joe Kelly, Carlos Pacheco, Art Thibert, Chris Lichtner & Aron Lusen
January 1998
Logan discusses the newcomers with Ororo. He doesn’t trust Maggott, while she doesn’t want Marrow around. Scott makes the usual argument that the newcomers deserve the same chance that Logan got – only for Logan to point out that the last person to get the benefit of that argument was Sabretooth, and didn’t that turn out well? Kelly was good at inverting some of these tropes.
Eventually, Wolverine agrees to stay and help keep the team together while Scott and Jean recuperate. But he warns them to expect a different approach from him. Then, he promptly goes to confront Marrow (who is sulking in the basement) and tells her that if she’s going to stay, she’s got a lot to learn. The relationship between Wolverine and his brattish shadow Marrow is a key focus of Kelly’s early issues.
By this point the Mansion has been somewhat re-furnished – there are at least beds and a proper kitchen. Word also breaks during this issue that the Avengers and the Fantastic Four have returned from “Heroes Reborn”.
X-MEN vol 2 #72
“Life Lessons”
by Joe Kelly, Carlos Pacheco, Art Thibert & Liquid!
February 1998
Wolverine tries to connect with Marrow. He brushes aside her nihilist ramblings and tells her that if she’s going to stay with the X-Men, she needs to live by their rules. She responds by fighting him, and he seems quite enamoured of that side of her. When Marrow rants about the Morlocks’ treatment by humanity, Wolverine replies that the Morlocks may have had it tough, but at least they had dignity – while Marrow, apparently, is a “disgrace to [her] people”. Wolverine defeats Marrow and tells her that she doesn’t understand her cause, hasn’t earned her hate, and isn’t even a good enough soldier to die at his hands – rather, her recent actions show that she knows she needs to improve herself, and he’s offering her the chance to join the X-Men and learn.
At which point, Marrow rejects the offer and stabs him in the throat. Wolverine flies into a berserker rage, and Cannonball has to step in to save her life. It’s a nice little inversion of the usual trope.
X-MEN UNLIMITED vol 1 #17
“Alone in his Head”
by Terry Kavanagh, Tom Lyle, various inkers & Ariane Lenshoek
December 1997
To clear his head, Logan takes a skiing break in Aspen. Really, he does.
It’s a mind-swap story, as Sebastian Shaw gets his mind-swapping aide Ms Hoo to swap Wolverine’s mind with Sabretooth’s. “Wolverine” then tries to get Angel to let him into a Worthington Industries factory which, apparently, is trying to reverse-engineer Forge’s Neutralizer. The real Wolverine catches up with him and of course the minds get swapped back in the end, though the plotting on that bit is seriously ropey and drags the issue down. Otherwise, it’s a sound fill-in story based on a neat idea that Sabretooth and Wolverine both have similar feelings about Angel.
WOLVERINE ’97
“Heart of the Beast”
by John Ostrander, Joe Edkin, Leonardo Manco & Shannon Blanchard
1997
Former Russian agent Volk is hired to kill Wolverine; the two crossed paths years ago when Volk stopped Logan from rescuing defector Smitri Suhkarov, but allowed him to escape with Dmitri’s daughter Viktoria. Meanwhile, Viktoria tells Logan that she has finally tracked down Volk, and that Volk is now a werewolf. This all leads to Volk taking Viktoria hostage and leading Wolverine back to the site of their previous encounter. During their fight, Wolverine continues to resist his animal rages and retains his humanity, while Volk willingly succumbs to his rage and turns permanently into a wolf, at which point he just leaves, because he’s a wolf and doesn’t care about his mission any more. Wolverine concludes that all Volk really wanted was to lose his humanity; Viktoria is furious that Volk survived the encounter and remains determined to hunt him down and kill him. The idea is that maybe Wolverine’s anger and rage are his human traits, not his animal ones. It’s quite a good story, with some lovely art.
KITTY PRYDE: AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
3-issue miniseries
by Larry Hama, Jesus Redondo, Sergio Melia & Glynis Oliver
December 1997 to February 1998
This is the aforementioned coda to Hama’s run. Ogun seizes control of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier – he apparently got techno-powers by briefly possessing Lady Deathstrike in Wolverine #114 – and poses as Kitty Pryde to lure Wolverine to the Brooklyn Bridge. Seeing the Helicarrier behave erratically, and improbably picking up Kitty’s scent on board, Logan uses the bridge as a ramp with which to jump his bike onto the Helicarrier. He can do all that. It’s canon.
Once on board, he meets Kitty and S.H.I.E.L.D. intern Rigby Fallon, a potential rival for Pete Wisdom in Kitty’s affections. Ogun possesses Rigby, but Kitty defeats him on the astral plane. Once again, Ogun is shaken by the realisation of what he has become, and leaves. It’s an amateurish looking book but actually more fun than I remember it being.
SPIDER-MAN / KINGPIN: TO THE DEATH
By Tom DeFalco, Stan Lee, John Romita, Dan Green & Steve Oliff
1997
The X-Men have a one-panel cameo pursuing Spider-Man, who’s been framed for murder.
ELEKTRA vol 1 #14
“A Hand Raised Against Her!”
by Larry Hama, Mike Deodato Jr, Scott Koblish & Christie Scheele
January 1998
Wolverine helps Elektra to hunt down the Hand, and gives her the usual sage advice on her problems – mainly, to try to move on with life.
MAVERICK #4
“Found and Lost”
by Jorge Gonzalez, Jim Cheung & Andrew Pepoy
December 1997
In the East Village, Logan stumbles upon a fight between the Friends of Humanity and a group comprising Maverick, Chris Bradley (now calling himself Brian Johnson), Elena Ivanova and Donna Funaro. Maverick’s condition has improved, and he’s got his powers back. Elena, Maverick and Brian/Chris cover their escape when Elena uses a psychic illusion to make everyone think they’ve died – including Donna, who is left behind. Afterwards, Logan tells Elena that this is cruel but necessary. Maverick admits to Wolverine that he hasn’t revealed his remission to Brian, who believes they’re both dealing with the Legacy Virus together; Maverick doesn’t want to take that emotional support away from him. Not an issue that really needs Wolverine, but he serves as a sounding board from outside the regular cast for a lot of their emotional baggage.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #119-122
“Not Dead Yet”
by Warren Ellis, Leinil Francis Yu, Edgar Tadeo & Jason Wright
December 1997 to March 1998
After Larry Hama departs, Wolverine enters another phase of rotating writers which will last until issue #133. We kick off with a very good and well remembered fill-in arc by Warren Ellis. It has little impact on continuity, except for the fact it blows up the East Village flat – you suspect Ellis had a remit to dismantle that status quo and chose to dispose of it in passing rather than try to tell a story about it. Ellis isn’t exactly a superhero enthusiast, but he seems comfortable on Wolverine, probably because the character can be written without much stretching into the ex-spy genre where Ellis is more at home.
Logan is stalked by McLeish, a mercenary assassin who he met and seemingly killed many years ago (as documented in extensive flashbacks). McLeish is back for revenge. An extended chase sequence has McLeish anticipating Logan’s every move and manipulating Logan in an attempt to prove his superiority; eventually Logan prevails with mindgames of his own. McLeish takes great pride in the supposedly small number of people he’s killed, and part of his point seems to be to provoke Wolverine into killing a load of henchmen in order to prove his lack of discrimination. But Logan has no real view on whether he’s ultimately a better person than McLeish.
With that, we enter 1998, in which confusion reigns.
I bought the Wolverine comics of late 96 and early 97, basically just to have a comic to buy, after Infinity Watch ended and before Thunderbolts and Kurt Busiek’s Avengers reignited my love of superhero comics. I’ve still got them now and haven’t looked at them for years, and find on reading this that I don’t remember a single thing about them at all…
So 25 years ago Marvel had an event called Devil’s Reign that involved the mayor of New York…
Getting close to that weird Viper marriage arc.
X-Men #72 was one of the first X-Men comics I ever bought, after becoming a fan thanks to the Fox Kids cartoon. I also bought an Uncanny issues in which they fight Sauron, which we’ll presumably see next time. Loving the nostalgia trip!
Maverick #4
“Maverick admits to Wolverine that he hasn’t revealed his emission to Brian”
Emission should be remission.
Unless Maverick was particularly gassy at that point.
_____________________
Now we’re firmly into the period where I bought every X book.
Ah, the memories.
I have nothing but love for the brief Kelly (and to a lesser extent Seagle) era.
Marrow, Maggots, and Reyes remain my D List favorites.
And Not Dead Yet is still one on my favorite Wolverine stories.
Thanks, I’ll fix that!
The Warren Ellis story explicitly sets up a mystery– where did McLeish get all the Adamantium used in his plan — that i don’t think is ever followed up on.
Of course, there seems to be plenty of it around the Marvel universe whenever it’s needed, and Mark Gruenwald had even established an actual factory in Quasar, I suppose it’s not that much of a mystery.
I think at the time I missed that the Hulk/Apocalypse thing started with a 2-parter guest starring Wolverine. I got the first issue of the Apocalypse War-Hulk story, then couldn’t get the next part with Juggernaut.
But I did manage to get the X-Men/TNG novel.
The structure of the early Kelly X-Men, where it’s basically one-and-done stories, helps it age better than a lot of other X-Men runs that get derailed by editorial meddling. Even though his long term plans go nowhere, there’s still solid character building work on Marrow, Maggott and Cecelia Reyes, and good turns for standbys like Wolverine. It’s not often that post-80s Wolverine is allowed to fail as completely as he does in the Marrow story.
The other thing is that Marrow’s introduction to the main cast feels like a admission that they now realize that their attempt to devolve Wolverine into a more violent, unstable version of himself, more like his original incarnation, was a failure. Far too much maturation of the character has been done to roll Wolverine back to that state, so we get Marrow as an ultra-violent, unstable hair trigger in the ensemble. For all the 90s comics (especially early Image) had a slew of superhero books which wedged in a violent loose cannon, a Wolverine Type, into their casts, Marvel’s now accepted that they need someone else for that role now in X-Men.
Logan uses the bridge as a ramp with which to jump his bike onto the Helicarrier. He can do all that. It’s canon.
BRB, just googling if there are sharks in the East River for no particular reason.
Someone was doing their research. There were some reports of sharks injuring people in the East River dating from the late-1800s. I would guess the artist was commemorating some little known historical incidents and not just trying to make the scene even more “extreme”. Sure.
The weird thing about Marrow is you have to quietly ignore how psychotic she was in her early appearances. She killed a lot of innocent people. It’s one of those things where you’re either able accept the revision or you aren’t.
I remember thinking the Kelly/Seagle era was where the series stopped being Star Trek the Next Generation and started being Star Trek Deep Space 9. There was far more conflict between the characters.
I quite liked Marrow. She wasn’t quite the Wolverine-type Image Studios violence machine. She was one of those guys when they were still young and hadn’t yet become slave to their severe mental health issues. She was certainly violent, and enjoyed making people uncomfortable, but you got the impression it was all just a shield she put up because of her horrible childhood. And she was slowly being encouraged to become more healthy before it was too late.
Then it was revealed that all her problems were that she wasn’t pretty.
That’s Marrow as an X-Man, I don’t think I ever read her first appearances as an enemy, but I understand the character is quite different.
The sad thing about the early Kelly/Seagle stories which saw publication is that they show so much promise for an interesting way forward for the books.
Unfortunately, because they were clearly both gearing up for long runs on the books and spent their first few issues planting seeds/dropping hints about long-term storylines, the fact that they got cut short and had plans changed due to editorial oversight mean their runs end up as footnotes in the history of the X-books.
Essentially, they don’t go anywhere particularly and are chock full of foreshadowing and hints for stories that never got published.
It’s part of what makes the mid-late 1990s X-books so frustrating. Very, Very little of it tells coherent stories.
I imagine if Kelly/Seagle had been given a few more years they would have done some really interesting stuff. Unfortunately then we wouldn’t get the Morrison run. Those years had a lot of seemingly big stories that turned out mostly inconsequential, like the Alan Davis era having to go through the motions with “The Twelve” or Claremont making his grand return with the Neo or whatever.
Not Dead Yet is one of my favorite Wolverine stories ever, I still have the tpb somewhere I think
Wolverine Annual ’97 highlights an interesting theme for pre Weapon X Wolverine. He seems to consistently get beaten up by non powered humans, and just demolished by anyone with even a smidgen of power. Volk, Sabretooth, Dog. Eh, that list is shorter (and more powered) than I thought it was. But still, it seems like an accepted character feature that Wolverine was kind of crap before he “got” claws. Just a guy who couldn’t die.
Or am I completely mistaken in that?
The Kelly run was pretty good and still holds up well today. The Seagle run…not so much. Though to be honest, I wasn’t sad to see them go at the time, as I enjoyed the Davis run overall that followed, even if ended with the Twelve story which was underwhelming at best.
I do remember Kelly and Seagle revealing some of the plans they had for the titles had they continued, with one thing they said they wanted to do was kill off Storm.
Was it one of Kelly’s early issues, somewhere in X-Men #70-72 I think, where Wolverine pulled out an ID that said his name was “John Logan”? I remember being all “HOLY SHIT!” at the time, and then it was never mentioned again…
I don’t mind people heaping praise on the potential of Seagle/Kelly. I didn’t think as much of their run, but I don’t dismiss the potential.
But I feel like not enough people focus on how horribly fill-in plagued it was.
Bachalo and Pacheco are great, but . . .
Pacheco took off after four issues (he drew X-Men 70, 71, 72, and 74), with five different artists until Kelly’s departure. Granted, some of them were great, but there was no consistency.
Bachalo managed a decent 9 1/2 issues from Uncanny #353 to 365, except Seagle’s run starts at 350 or 351 (depending on how charitable you’re being). That’s 5 1/2 issues of fill-ins, not counting the mishmash in 352 and departing artist Joe Mad only managing half of 350. Again, some good artists in there, but such poor consistency.
Count me as another fan of the Kelly/ Seagle era. Maggott was both fun and tragic, while Dr. Reyes brought an adult outsider’s perspective to the series. Marrow’s arc was compelling, and I especially liked her bond with Cannonball. Kelly had a good ear for dialogue, and Seagle injected a tone of foreboding into the series. It’s a shame the editors started dictating what stories they would tell and drove them off the books.
I read at least half of the comics from this entry, mostly for the art. Pacheco’s bold, clean visuals were a favorite, and Yu seemed to be following in his footsteps while having a grittier style. The Adam Kubert Hulk issues are underrated, especially with Mark Farmer’s slick inks. Kubert blended cartoonish exaggeration with over-the-top action, and I don’t think his work has looked as good since. While I’m a fan of Bachalo, this era was not my favorite. He was changing his style, mixing manga influences with his unique sensibilities. It was like every other panel and page was great, but the rest were awkward. His work got better in later years. I bought the Wolverine annual drawn by Manco because I loved his moody, grotesque art on Hellstorm. It did not disappoint.
I love the original Joe Mad design for Maggott so much.
Then the decided to make him blue, a teenager, give him glasses, and have him go to Strong Guy’s barber.
Ditto to all of the above. I remember my heart lifting at the news that Kelly was writing X-MEN, as I was a huge fan of DEADPOOL, and of course Pacheco was/is top-shelf. Seagle I didn’t know.
Kelly leaving X-MEN was when I finally dropped the title. I came back for Claremont’s return and stayed through Morrison. Everything I missed, such as like “The Twelve”, I only know about from such helpful resources as Paul’s summaries on The X-Axis.
I was shocked to see Seagle writing Uncanny X-Men. I wasn’t reading any Marvel books at the time, having dropped out after Onslaught. I was reading House of Secrets from Vertigo. I couldn’t stay away though and heard the new creative teams on the X-Men titles were a nice jumping on point. I never expected to see one of the creative teams on a X-Men book to be Seagle and Bachalo. I ended up disappointed pretty quickly, but continued to collect most of the X-titles.
Seagle’s Alpha Flight was better than his Uncanny X-Men, I felt. And his House of Secrets, the most 90s adult comic I’ve ever read, is interesting.
He can be a bit pretentious though… and he had the misfortune of having to start his run by wrapping up one of Scott Lobdell’s dodgier story arcs.
Honestly, I’m surprised that when discussing the O:ZT arc that’s Hama’s last story on the Wolverine book, you don’t mention Jubilee getting worked in as part of his goodbye.
Seagle had a run on Sandman Mystery Theatre I really liked, first co-writing along with Matt Wagner and then taking over completely. He’d also done a Grendel miniseries for Dark Horse (another Wagner connection, not sure which came first). Not the sort of person you’d peg for a mainline X-Men series at the time, which was intriguing, and a sign of things to come with Vertigo or adult-focused indie creators being brought into the X-world (Wood, Morrison, Milligan, Carey).
But Seagle’s early run bounces around, including storylines for Bishop and Deathbird, the original five X-Men (with a Phoenix/Jean story clearly in the offing), and Rogue. But then editorial intervenes to force a more traditional roster and everyone except Rogue gets dropped. Kelly at least got to keep Wolverine, Storm and Marrow and keep rolling with his ideas for them. So the Seagle run’s hard to revisit because it’s very obvious where he got cut off and the first half of the run is basically unrelated to the second. Kelly gets cut off nearly as hard, but due to its narrower focus and structure, you still get the single best Cecilia Reyes story, the single best Maggott story (not a high bar), and both of the best Marrow stories.
Seagle’s next – and arguably last – prominent comics work was The Kingdom with Kelley Jones under Vertigo, which was awful, so he may well have ended up doing a lousy X-Men run in the end even if not derailed. Or maybe he had brilliance. We’ll never know.
Correction: the Seagle/Jones series was The Crusades, not The Kingdom.
Oh, yeah. That series was terrible. I was wondering what the Kingdom was, other than the non-Vertigo Waid series.
Seagle also wrote that It’s a Bird graphic novel for Vertigo. It seemed to get a lot mainstream attention, but I found it highly over-rated.
Yeah, I can’t think of many Seagle comics which impressed me. I didn’t read Sandman Mystery Theatre past the solo Wagner issues. Mainly, I really enjoyed House of Secrets.
Re: Maggot’s redesign: If you’re a mutant, there’s a non-trivial chance you’ll end up blue at some point.
Having missed the entire Kelly/Seagle era, I have a question: what was the reason editorial got so heavy-handed *after* they started writing the books? Did sales flag really quickly or something?
I just remembered movie Beast is blue because he injected Mystique juice and I’m mad about it again.
@ Thom H. We don’t really know the answer, but we have the perspective of Seagle and Kelly:
“Joe (Kelly) and I, along with (editor) Mark Powers, proceeded to produce two detailed, yearlong plans for the two X-books which were filled with interesting stories, sweeping long-range character arcs, shorter stories, one summer “big event” crossover, and enough marketing spikes to make any retailer happy without irritating the fans,” Uncanny X-Men writer Steve Seagle added in Wizard #90. “I was led to believe this plan had been accepted, and proceeded to start laying in the threads of these stories in the issues I was writing. Then all four tires blew out from under our wagonload of good stuff.”
“You never know what it is, but (Editor-In Chief) Bob (Harras) was answering to other people and this was a chaotic time at Marvel,” Seagle continued. “Certainly the redirected lineup which neither Joe nor I were too happy about I don’t think that came directly from editorial. I think that came from outside forces, whatever they may be marketing or people above Bob, or who knows what.”
Given what follows, someone at Marvel clearly wanted a refocused, traditional pair of X-Men titles, as Excalibur got cancelled and Kitty, Nightcrawler and Colossus rejoin the main roster (along with Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Marrow, and then Gambit). But what prompted this exactly, we likely will never know.
“I don’t think I ever read [Marrow’s] first appearances as an enemy, but I understand the character is quite different.”
Well, she murdered innocents, so yep. In the same issue that Storm ripped her heart out of her chest (Uncanny 325). Marrow and her cronies killed a hapless cyclist and used his body as a roadsign.
I did like the idea of there finally being a female X-Man who was along the lines of Beast and Nightcrawler, though. Because up to that point, not only could every female X-Man pass for a non-mutant in public, most of them could’ve landed careers as supermodels.
But still… Marrow shouldn’t have been an X-Man.
@Josie
I entirely agree with you.
There was a weird period circa the early 2000s when people online were talking up the Kelly/Seagle stuff like it was this lost gem which collectively was among the best things the X-books ever did.
I’d only read a handful of issues from around that era, having largely abandoned the books around AOA/Onslaught but having read it in the years afterwards, I’ve always felt people graded it high and projected a lot of goodwill onto the issues we got based on the potential for what could have happened, rather than what actually got published.
And you’re right, the art fill-in wasn’t great either.
When I look back at that very late 90s era of comics, the stuff I tend to think holds up the best overall is what was happening over at Wildstorm – Warren Ellis’ StormWatch (and later, The Authority) and Joe Casey’s Wildcats are absolutely stand-outs
There were quality comics being published in the late-1990s….Grant Morrison’s Invisibles holds up better than WildStorm’s output….it just wasn’t being published by Marvel. That’s usually the case though. The early to mid-1990s were an atrocious time in superhero comics, but it was also the time that Vertigo launched and Hellboy was starting.
“Seagle’s next – and arguably last – prominent comics work”
Superman, no? I mean, his run is entirely forgotten by now, but it got promoted with a 9-cent comic, I think? That was pretty big at the time.
“I’ve always felt people graded it high and projected a lot of goodwill onto the issues we got based on the potential for what could have happened, rather than what actually got published.”
Absolutely. And while we’ll never get to see the un-interferred comics they intended to write, it’s really weird to imagine they would’ve been particularly great. I mean, both creators have written some good books, but not as many as the forgettable dross they’ve written. Joe Kelly at the time was starting on Deadpool’s awful final half-year, a completely ignored run on Daredevil, and a few Spider-man comics that were liked well enough at the time. His Action comics had more misses than hits. His JLA was a big disappointment for many, although some were fans.
“After Kelly and Seagle were bounced from the titles, X-Men fandom retroactively decided that they were slighted geniuses and that their run had been magnificent. That’s not my recollection of the reaction at around this period, when people were mainly just grumbling about the slow pace.”
^Paul said this in his index of Uncanny X-Men #353
I wonder how much of those ideas about Seagle and Kelly on the titles come from people who felt alienated by Grant Morrison’s New X-Men? A lot of the people who hate Morrison’s run seem to feel so affronted by Morrison’s work on the book that perhaps they have placed the much more traditional aborted Seagle-Kelly period on a pedestal in opposition.
I think those ideas about Seagle and Kelly started long before Morrison’s run.
Looking back, it’s interesting that Kubert is still providing the covers for almost a year after he left the title, up until #114.
“I think those ideas about Seagle and Kelly started long before Morrison’s run.”
As soon as they were out the door, practically.
I recall the Seagle/Kelly “what could have been” thing ramping up fairly quickly too, definitely pre-Morrison. The tail end of the editorially-driven run between them and Morrison was the start of it, I think. The fizzling out of the “Twelve” storyline created some real backlash.
That was also the era when vocal online fans revolted against the editorial interference in the X-books more generally. A lot of the early “Seagle and Kely wuz robbed” thing came from the perception that editorial had derailed their runs just after that promising start. I think Seagle and Kelly had even said as much in interviews not too long after the mess that was Uncanny #350.
And to Josie’s points, both Seagle and Kelly are very hit-and-miss. That last bit of Kelly’s Deadpool is a mess, since it’s the big mess of the “he’s not really Wade Wilson” plot idea. But basically everything before that is gold. And Kelly weirdly ended up being the bright spot in the later Brand New Day Spider-books, even as he seems to have gotten stuck trying to sell storylines whose original planners had departed, like the “return of Kraven” thing.
Seagle is rather more “miss” for me. His Superman stuff was, to my mind, absolutely awful. But I liked his Sandman Mystery Theater stuff and, of all things, a weird and truncated DC series he did, Primal Force. He’s fun and even innovative on those kinds of lower-key projects, and he has a striking talent for subtle horror. But I find that he’s not good for the kinds of bombastic action plots needed for marquee superhero books.
@Allan M: Thanks for the explanation. I forgot that 1997 was early to mid-bankruptcy for Marvel, so lots of corporate reorganization and the associated creative meddling.
I always think the corporate tanking of Marvel happened earlier in the ’90s with the speculator boom and bust, but it really was a slow burn through most of the decade, wasn’t it? “A chaotic time at Marvel” indeed.
For me, the Kelly and Seagle runs started off great. As noted, Seagle does horror and dread better than bombast. I loved House of Secrets and Sandman Mystery Theatre. He got me interested in what was going on with Scott and Jean, characters that aren’t my favorite, by laying on the atmospheric tension. The problem was that it never went anywhere. Kelly’s run was much more successful, consistently fun and engaging up until the return of the Excalibur characters.
I’d read the X-books occasionally in the ’90s, but Scott Lobdell’s writing almost always disappointed. I wasn’t a Joe Mad fan either, and was glad to have Bachalo and Pacheco on art duties. I wanted to read X-Men comics and liked what I got.
As noted above, the Alan Davis run didn’t pan out. I love Alan Davis’s art and his Excalibur run is an all-time favorite, but the plots and scripting (mostly by Terry Kavanaugh) weren’t very good. Then there was Claremont’s return…
To me, it looked like X-Men was pretty bad for about 8 years, got good for a few months, then that promising direction was sacrificed for mediocrity and worse. I can see why the Kelly & Seagle runs might be overrated, but who can blame readers who experienced this roller coaster?
Chaotic it was.
In 1991 X-Force and adjectiveless X-Men debuted (and Claremont left Marvel).
In 1992 there was an explosion of new books, including several Marvel UK books connected to Mys-Tech, the Midnight Sons, and Marvel bought Fleer and Skybox. At that point Marvel seemed to be purposefully attempting to flood the market.
In 1993 it felt like it was all events, all crossovers, all the time. Even editorial offices seemed overwhelmed and began to compartmentalize a bit.
1994 was the year when the Spider-Man Clone Saga began, and when Marvel tried its hand with several concurrent Editors-in-Chief caring for separate lines. At this point the speculator bubble was starting to burst.
1995 had the first rumblings of Onslaught and Marvel buying Malibu.
1996 had The Crossing, which was… less than well liked. And Onslaught fully developed, leading to Heroes Reborn in 1997.
As we’re coming to the conclusion that the Kelly/Seagle Era was a bit overpraised, I think we’ll discover upon reread that the following Davis period was over over panned.
Thom-I think there was panic on Marvel’s part. It was following Marvel’s declaring bankruptcy. The X-titles had been Marvel’s top-selling books for years. Comic book sales were in a downward spiral. The corporate higher-ups hadn’t come to terms with the fact that their record sales of the early-1990s were the result of speculators and now that the bubble had burst, sales were settling to a median level. It was after Onslaught when sales started definitely trending downward. Seagle and Kelly were the first new creators on the two X-Men books after bankruptcy. I think Marvel expected that sales would increase again, but they continued to decline. I’m sure there was concern that it had something to do with the creative direction of the books, rather than the new normal. Sales continued to decline after Seagle and Kelly also. There was a brief bump when Claremont first returned, then sales continued downward. I think it was just poor timing on when Seagle and Kelly took over the books.
Finally, after Morrison was brought onboard, Marvel saw sales rise for the first time. The funny aspect is that sales under Morrison were around the same level as sales under Seagle and Kelly. However, Morrison’s run was considered a success.
It shows the change in mentality, that Marvel had come to terms with the fact that the numbers from the early-1990s weren’t returning. Also, Seagle and Kelly’s sales figures were considered a disappointment because sales were trending downward. Morrison saw a sustained increase in sales for the first time in five or six years. It was based on how much the comic book market had changed.
@Chris V: That makes a lot of sense. I appreciate the explanation in terms of sales numbers. And I agree that the creative direction probably mattered a lot less than speculators and disillusioned fans leaving the hobby in droves at the time.
Morrison always had the emerging tpb market to help him. Kelly and Seagle didn’t have that.
That’s a good point I did not consider. I don’t think of Trades taking off until a bit after Morrison. It may be that, rather than accepting lower expectations by the time Morrison was on the title, Marvel was happy with the added increased sales due to TPBs.