Wolverine #25 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #25
“Hell to Pay, part 2”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Federico Vicentini
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine, with claws extended and the Muramasa Blade over his shoulder.
PAGE 2. Wolverine reflects on religion.
I’m not altogether sure that drawing a parallel between religion and a crossover that was already called “Judgment Day” takes us very far, but okay. The tone of this suggests that Percy’s Wolverine isn’t a member of any religion himself, or at least a practising one – he sounds like he’s talking about other people – which would be the traditional take.
PAGES 3-4. Wolverine and Solem approach the Progenitor.
When we left off, Wolverine had persuaded Salem to help him kill the Progenitor in exchange for Wolverine helping Salem against the Hellbride and the Beast.
“No other place will make you realise how weak and small you are than the brutal elemental forces at work here [sic].” This is very similar to Wolverine’s narration about the primal nature of the sea in issue #19.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGES 6-7. The Hellbride and her crew approach the Progenitor.
Apparently, they’re being attacked by the miniature copy that the Progenitor created as an “avatar” at the end of the previous issue, when it sensed them coming.
“I already lost my husband.” Solem killed the Hellbride’s prospective husband in X-Force #13.
PAGES 8-10. Wolverine and Solem go through the ice maze.
They’re mirror characters, so naturally Wolverine’s self-loathing makes him hate the reflections, and Solem is delighted to have more opportunities to look at himself.
The Muramasa Blade. Solem’s previous shenanigans with Wolverine’s version of the Muramasa Blade are covered in issues #14-16. He steals it again here on page 9 panel 5, where you can see him reaching for Logan’s sword; he adds it to his backpack between panels 6-7.
PAGE 11. The Hellbride remembers the Beast.
She’s remembering what he said to her last issue. If anything, the Beast’s comments last issue were more dismissive than this – they were to the effect that she was completely out of her depth and wasting her time.
PAGES 12-15. Wolverine and Solem cross the ice and find the Hellbride.
As Solem points out, his deal with Wolverine already involved fighting the Hellbride; and since she’s out to kill him, you could make a case that he was taking the opportunity to kill her in a rather expanded form of self-defence. Still, it’s interesting that Solem seems at least somewhat receptive to the idea that killing her in this state would be dishonourable. For all that he derides Wolverine for building her a fire, he doesn’t actually double back to kill her.
PAGES 16-21. Wolverine and Solem fight the Progenitor’s avatar.
It has its own sword, which is nice. The Hellbride recovers and shows up remarkably quickly, so maybe Wolverine was being unduly cautious. The three team up and defeat the avatar, before Solem departs with the Hellbride for Hell, having apparently won her round with his performance.
For some reason the Progenitor counts this as a pass – perhaps simply because Wolverine stuck to his mission and continued at least trying to do something to deal with the crossover. Wolverine is a slightly odd character in terms of Judgment Day, given that we still don’t know precisely what criteria the Progenitor is applying. But for all his self-loathing, he does generally adhere to a strong personal code of ethics.
PAGE 22. Data page. A somewhat backhanded comment from Solem, leading into…
“Bar Brawl”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artists: Greg Land & Jay Leisten; Juan Ferreyra; Kyle Charles; Andrea Di Vito; Klaus Janson; and Emma Kubert & Guillermo Ortego
Colourists: Frank Martin & Juan Ferrayra
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
PAGES 23-24. Logan drinks in a bar after a fight.
This is a jam story added for the anniversary issue, the idea being that bars have been a constant in Logan’s very, very long life.
PAGE 25. Logan remembers assorted nights drinking.
No idea who the blond guy is meant to be – probably just some biker. The woman in the next panel is Silver Fox. The next panel shows him with Cyclops and Jean Grey in the Green Lagoon. Then we have a panel of him playing pool with Colossus and another of him with a very drunk Nightcrawler – both in full costume, so apparently this is in the Krakoan era or at least at a point when the X-Men are public.
PAGES 26-27. Flashback: Logan fights off an assassin while drinking a cocktail with cobra venom.
Gloriously indeterminate in chronology terms, placed somewhere between the 1920s and 1940s – though it’s fairly obvious we’re doing Raiders of the Lost Ark here, and that was set in the 30s.
PAGE 28. Flashback: Tyger Tiger passes a stolen ring to Logan.
This is the set-up from the early issues of Wolverine’s ongoing series in the late 1980s.
PAGE 29. Montage: more fighting in bars.
The first panel shows Wolverine and Captain America fighting weirdos with the flag pattern of Nuke on their faces; the actual Nuke has his photo on the wall, along with an inverted US flag. They might be something to do with the Nuke Platoon from Weapon X #12 (2017), though Wolverine wasn’t in that story (it’s from the period when Old Man Logan took his place).
The second panel shows Wolverine and Blade fighting vampires in a bar that has blood on tap from human corpses.
The third appears to show Wolverine, Sabretooth and Maverick playing Russian Roulette at gunpoint.
PAGES 30-31. Flashback: Wolverine and Flamingeaux in New Orleans.
Flamingeaux makes her first appearance here. She’s a canon import from the podcast audio drama Wolverine: The Lost Trail, also written by Percy.
PAGE 32. Wolverine makes to leave the bar.
And relishes the chance to get into a fight with the barman.
PAGE 33. Trailers.
Well this was certainly a Wolverine story… I can only hope the crossover got in the way of Percy doing something more interesting because this and X-Force are becoming just some brooding, a fight scene and vague surface-level meditations on how violence causes trauma. There’s nothing original or fun about these recent stories, I’d even prefer if he was taking some chances and it turned out actively bad – at least that would be something different.
Also Solem really just feels like Percy can’t use Daken because he’s off having character development and being used well so he’s just made his own lite-version.
I couldn’t tell what was being shown in some of the panels this (and last) issue.
Dave: same here. The line artist wasn’t making clear storytelling choices and the colorist put in too many effects. Using blues and purples that blended together (and a few browns) against an Arctic background didn’t help.
I’ll say this: Percy has Wolverine’s voice down pat. It’s too bad his plotting is so inconsistent. I hope next issue’s story, which uses the stronger elements of his run, is better.
Given that the current Krakoan era of X-Books is supposed to end in mid-2024, I suspect Percy is going for a 50-issue X-Force run. We are currently on X-Force 33. Assuming a monthly release schedule and allowing for events, X-Force 50 should come out in April/May 2024.
Assuming also that his Wolverine run ends around the same time, we’re in for a 40+ issue run. So Percy has around 30 more issues of X-Force / Wolverine to wrap up all of his ongoing plot threads.
I have tried to list down all of the ongoing X-Force + Wolverine plotlines so that we can see where this book is going. Let me know if I’ve missed anything.
X-Force 1 – 3 > XENO I (Professor X assasination)
X-Force 4 – 5 > XENO II (MERCs)
X-Force 6 > Terra Verde I
X-Force 7 – 8 > XENO III (Domino clones)
X-Force 9 – 10 > Terra Verde II
X-Force 11 – 12 > Mutant Russia I
X-Force 13 – 14 > X of Swords / Solem I
X-Force 15 – 16 > Krakoan Sea Monster I
X-Force 17 – 19 > XENO IV (Kid Omega clones)
X-Force 20 > Hellfire Gala / Terra Verde III
X-Force 21 – 22 > XENO V (Man-Slaughter)
X-Force 23 – 24 > Mutant Russia II
X-Force 25 – 26 > XENO VI (Mutant baby kidnapping)
Wolverine 1 – 3 > Mutant Russia III (Flower Cartel)
Wolverine 4 – 5 > Vampire Nation I
Wolverine 6 – 7 > X of Swords / Solem I
Wolverine 8 – 10 > X-Desk I (Legacy House)
Wolverine 11 – 12 > Vampire Nation II
Wolverine 13 > Hellfire Gala / Terra Verde III
Wolverine 14 – 16 > Solem II
Wolverine 17 – 18 > X-Desk II (Maverick)
Wolverine 19 > Krakoan Sea Monster II
X Lives of Wolverine 1 – 5 > Mutant Russia IV
X Deaths of Wolverine 1 – 5 > Phalanx I
X-Force 27 – 29 > Cerebrax I
X-Force 30 – 33 > Judgment Day / Kraven the Hunter I
Wolverine 20 – 23 > X-Desk III (Danger)
Wolverine 24 – 25 > Judgment Day / Solem III