Wolverine #34 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #34
“Weapons of X, part 4”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine attacks Beast’s giant walking skull base thingy.
For the purposes of this post, there isn’t very much to say about this issue – it’s pretty much self-explanatory, much of it is an extended action sequence, and there aren’t many references to other issues. None of that is a criticism, by the way; it’s just the sort of issue this is.
PAGES 2-7. Wolverine and Maverick get Jeff Bannister to call off the army.
This picks up from the end of the previous issue, where Beast had just blown up an oil pipeline between Norway and the UK, drawing the attention of both Wolverine and Maverick on the one hand, and Jeff Bannister on the other – who, for some reason, has been put in charge of a military unit. They’re attacking Wolverine because they’ve mistaken him for one of the Beast’s Wolverine clones.
PAGE 8. Recap and credits.
The strapline refers to a Henry Kissinger quote (or at least a quote attributed to him in the New York Times): “Power is the great aphrodisiac.”
PAGES 9-13. Wolverine talks to Jeff Bannister, who gets captured by Beast.
I’m pretty sure the icebergs are just plain wrong for a story set between the UK and Norway. Norway does have glaciers, but the main source of icebergs in the North Atlantic is the ice shelf in Greenland, about 2,000 miles away. The northernmost part of the Langeled pipeline connects to a part of Norway that Wikipedia describes as temperate farmland.
PAGES 14-15. Wolverine and Maverick receive a message from the Beast.
PAGE 16. Data page: Beast’s message. We’re in full-blown moustache-twirling villain mode at this point.
PAGES 17-21. Wolverine meets with Beast.
The Wild North is not a real restaurant, but there is a genuine Michelin-starred restaurant on the Faroe Islands, called KOKS. The establishing shot on page 17 is very obviously based on the actual restaurant. (The stuff on the roof is meant to be grass, which seems to have confused the colourist.) The interior, on the other hand, bears no resemblance to what’s shown here.
After listening to Beast ramble on for a bit, Wolverine protests that he’s acting out of character – something which has been flagged occasionally throughout Percy’s run on this book and X-Force. Beast basically responds by arguing that being in Krakoa – and then being ejected from it – have simply brought out what was always within him.
It’s not clear what Beast actually gains by bringing Wolverine to this meeting instead of just offering a prisoner swap in the first place. He seems to be deliberately trying to wind Wolverine up, but why?
PAGE 22. Data page. Maverick tells us that the Wolverine clones that were captured in the previous issue never had full mental capacity. That resolves the question of whether their control collars were suppressing their minds in the same way that the real Wolverine’s did.
PAGES 23-24. Maverick and Wolverine discuss the clones.
Basically, Beast’s attempts to engineer Wolverine clones with impaired intelligence is slowly being undone by their healing factor. Of course, they’re still wearing control collars, so maybe Beast has thought this through.
PAGE 25. Trailers.
Beast murdered that crab. Even Wolverine was shocked at how Beast was eating that crabmeat.
Beast eating like an actual monster was the highlight of this issue. I don’t know if the intended effect was horror, comedy, or social commentary, but good job Ryp and D’Armata on that bizarre non-sequitur of a sequence.
Maybe I missed something, but Beast was acting out of character well before he left Krakoa (as the council didn’t take the opportunity to exile him after learning of his actions specifically because he had already left the island). Continuity error or simply Beast rewriting his own story for Logan’s sympathy (which he wasn’t going to get anyway)?
@ns “Beast basically responds by arguing that being in Krakoa – and then being ejected from it – have simply brought out what was always within him.”
[…] #34. (Annotations here.) This is the heaviest week we’ve had in a while, which is not usually a good thing. It’s […]
The best thing about this book is definitely Juan José Ryp’s art. He definitely belongs in some sort of horror book. His style is perfect for that genre, particularly body horror and the like.
I don’t think the Beast plot is working for me. Even at this late stage it is shocking how he just keeps falling deeper down. This issue reveals that he has been blackmailing a restauranteur and/or a chef, apparently just because he can.
Good thing that these last few issues are happening presumably during the ongoing meltdown of the Quiet Circle, or else it would be a full plot inconsistence that he can get away with it this long. It is a stretch even so.
The way I see it, either there will soon be a very surprising resolution (perhaps a very good and entertaining one) or it will simply fizzle its way into “let’s kindly forget all of this” territory instead.
Probably the later, but who knows? Maybe this will figure in the soon-to-come central events of Fall of X.
Part of me thinks they are making Hank as horrible before he gets reborn as 70s “stars and garters”Beast.
@Mark Coale: in an earlier issue of either Wolverine or X-Force, Beast either stole or erased all records of his memory and psyche after his stint with the Avengers. To me, that means either your prediction is correct or that’s a giant red herring.
I might be wrong, but I thought i read somewhere that was already in the plans for the fall.
MacKay’s got a very classic 70s Avengers roster right now, so Classic Beast returning to the fold would fit. Mike’s right; at this point, the twist is that it doesn’t happen.