Wolverine #33 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #33
“Weapons of X, part 3”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colour artist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine fights the Beast.
PAGE 2. The Beast despatches one of his clones to retrieve the dead Wolverine clone.
Last issue, Beast sent several of his Wolverine clones to attack the submarine that Maverick and his Mercs were using to smuggle Krakoan flowers. Unknown to Beast, the missing Wolverine clone isn’t lying on the sea bed; Maverick escaped with him as a prisoner.
Obviously, Beast is being presented as a massive hypocrite in giving a pep talk about the importance of going on field operations when he’s almost never done so throughout the Krakoan era. Mind you, I suppose he was doing just that over the last couple of issues when he was dealing with Jeff Bannister, showing up at Legacy House and tagging along with Wolverine on assassination missions. Still, he’s definitely not treating his own clones as equals.
PAGES 3-7. Maverick fights off the retrieval team singlehandedly.
Well, the Wolverines are dumb as rocks and the Beast clone is pretty useless as a field leader.
PAGE 8. Data page. The assorted Beasts discuss their subordinate role to the real Beast (“Beast Prime”), who is bugging their conversation. Interestingly, these guys show actual concern for one another – though not for the Wolverine clones who died. They specifically refer to “the Wolverine clone”, when they regard each other as actual Beasts. Clearly they’re not thrilled about Beast Prime’s behaviour, though it’s ambiguous how much they chafe at their subordinate position, and how much they’re (legitimately) worried about their leader’s disregard for their lives.
The Walt Whitman quote is from Song of Myself. The Beast clones, bless them, are congratulating themselves for the empathetic achievement of being able to imagine themselves in the position of someone identical.
PAGE 9. Recap and credits.
PAGES 10-11. Jeff Bannister wakes up.
Jeff was shot by the Beast in issue #30.
Maddie came to Krakoa in issue #29, to get Wolverine’s help in rescuing Jeff from the Beast.
PAGES 12-15. The real Wolverine catches up with Maverick.
Wolverine and Maverick both recognise that the captive Wolverine clone is mentally unimpressive, but for some reason it doesn’t seem occur to Wolverine to just take the damn control collar off him. Maybe Wolverine just doesn’t like the idea of another Wolverine running around and prefers to get rid of him – though if these clones have anything approaching Wolverine’s powers, clawing him like this shouldn’t have much more than a temporary effect.
PAGES 16-18. The Beasts discuss their situation.
Beast Prime’s main strategy to put pressure on the UK is apparently to attack commercial drug shipments in order to force the government to accept Krakoan drugs. Obviously, this only works if nobody blames Krakoa for the attacks.
The Beast clones complain that Beast made them all near-sighted, but Beast Prime has had glasses for a while. Presumably he doesn’t need them following his resurrection in his new body in issue #31, in which case he must indeed have deliberately chosen to set himself apart from the clones.
The Beast identified the Cerebro Sword as his “greatest vulnerability” last issue, but it’s still completely unclear what it actually does in any practical sense.
PAGE 19. Jeff asks Delores to send him after Beast.
Self-explanatory.
PAGES 20-21. Beast kills his rebellious clones.
Self-explanatory.
PAGE 22. Data page: Maverick hunts for Beast’s location.
The attacks on Lord Stewart and the MERC sub took place last issue. The attack on the Langeled Pipeline takes place off panel during this issue; it’s a real gas pipeline between Britain and Norway.
PAGES 23-24. Jeff Bannister leads his own forces against Beast.
Um, why is a CIA agent leading the US military? Anyway, predictably enough, he mistakes the real Wolverine for one of Beast’s clones.
PAGES 25-33. Back-up strip. This is a team-up between Wolverine and Sister Dagger, a supporting character from Shang-Chi. It doesn’t have any apparent wider significance and it helpfully footnotes most of the references to earlier stories anyway.
XENO’s Man-Slaughter serum was the subject of X-Force #21-22. Apparently the defeat of the Man With The Peacock Tattoo in his one-man base in X-Force #36-38 constitutes the defeat of the entire XENO organisation, which… uh, okay.
PAGE 34. Trailers.
In lieu of any further explanations, I am assuming that the Cerebro Sword is somehow being used as a local Cerebro terminal and accessing some kind of local filesystem containing the data he took with him. His ability to resurrect himself almost certainly would still require a backup be stored somewhere so the stupid plot object is gonna be that. It would be his weakness because whoever gets it will have access to to his backups/remove his access to his backups, and if it’s destroyed then his own resurrection machine will not be able to transfer his consciousness.
Was it explained at all why Xavier/Cerebro can’t continue backing him up now? It’s not as if everyone who was backed up consented to it, so it doesn’t require consent, and since Beast is running around near naked he’s not likely using psi-blockers unless they’re in his thong.
I don’t have a ton of thoughts about this issue, besides “Ryp art = good” and “computer that can resurrect people but it’s a sword = stupid,” but at least the Beasts were fun. If you’re going to write an interminable story that should have concluded years ago, quality art and fun bits go a long way.
@Mathias X: “…since Beast is running around near naked he’s not likely using psi-blockers unless they’re in his thong.”
Considering how long he’s had his head up his ass, that’s entirely likely.
If the next batch is anything like this one, I the Clone Beast Council should absolutely be spared for comedy. Send them to Counter Earth.
@Mike Loughlin I was not expecting a LOL here 🙂 Thank you for that perfect pun!
@Alexx Kay: happy to, but credit to Mathias X handing me the perfect set-up
The Clogan’s claws chipped the bars, so I guess they’re not adamantium? Adamantium claws would have sliced through normal metal but wouldn’t have chipped adamantium.
But last issue they cut right through a submarine hull.
Ah, whatever. I checked out of this interminable storyline ages ago.
@Mathias: More to the point, would it even matter? Even if all Cerebro backups of Beast were destroyed, he’d just end up in the Waiting Room.
@Diana- maybe he needs the Cerebro sword to create more Beast clones whenever the current batch realizes he’s a psycho and turns on him. The other Beasts say they’re disposable as long as he has the Cerbero Sword.
No-Prize: obviously Beast engineered the Wolverines to be disposable cannon fodder with limited healing factors and pseudo adamantium LOL
Beast may have been able to make off with Forge’s adamantium bathtub since it was in probably in the X-Force base when he took off. Of course, in other books, Proteus has overcome his inability to manipulate metal, his historic weakness, and has just been adamantiuming up Wolverines with reality warping so maybe that bathtub hasn’t even been used often.
Would be pretty lit if they were lined with Mysterium instead.
Perhaps the Council of Cloned Beasts can meet up with the Council of Cross-Time Kangs for a Conflict of the Councils crossover!
At that point, you have to throw in Hickman’s Council of Reeds from his FF run, and I guess now there’s a multiversal batch of Sabretooths to chuck in, too.
@calvinpitt- the mindlessones publish their prismatic age essay in 2008, somewhere a monkey’s paw curls