{"id":3809,"date":"2017-06-24T21:19:04","date_gmt":"2017-06-24T20:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3809"},"modified":"2017-06-24T21:19:04","modified_gmt":"2017-06-24T20:19:04","slug":"all-new-wolverine-19-21-immune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3809","title":{"rendered":"All-New Wolverine #19-21 – “Immune”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, they can’t all be winners. \u00a0I really like\u00a0All-New Wolverine<\/em>. \u00a0It’s\u00a0consistently one of the best X-books. \u00a0But “Immune” is a three-parter devoted to setting up a contrived set-piece\u00a0finale, and it’s a bit of a dud, to be honest with you.<\/p>\n

So here’s the idea. \u00a0An alien spaceship\u00a0crashes on Roosevelt Island in New York – population 11,000 or so, according to Wikipedia. \u00a0There’s\u00a0a dying alien child inside\u00a0who\u00a0asks for Laura Kinney before dying. \u00a0By a happy coincidence (well, presumably the kid was aiming for her), Laura and Gabby happen to be in the area doing something unrelated. Specifically, it’s a child-trafficking subplot that takes up a lot of\u00a0chapter one but\u00a0has no real purpose\u00a0beyond keeping Laura away from the main story\u00a0until it’s ready for her.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Anyhow, the alien kid turns out to be contagious, so people around her start keeling over and getting sick. \u00a0That leads to Wolverine\u00a0trying to calm things down on the island, with the help of SHIELD and guest star Ironheart. \u00a0Ironheart\u00a0seems\u00a0to be mainly here as an\u00a0expository sounding board, selected largely because she happens to have a sealed suit of armour, and so she doesn’t need to worry too much about\u00a0getting infected. \u00a0And\u00a0Wolverine doesn’t have to worry too much either, what with the\u00a0whole\u00a0healing factor.<\/p>\n

Chapter two has some running around as Monica Rappaccini tries to steal the alien on behalf of an AIM splinter group, but\u00a0her main role is really to deliver the big insight:\u00a0for entirely arbitrary but plot-convenient reasons, Laura’s healing factor attracts the virus from people around her, thus curing them. \u00a0Because that’s definitely how viruses\u00a0work.<\/p>\n

So, all that set-up leads us to establish that Laura’s healing factor can cure people around her, and although she gets a bit sick, her healing factor will fight it off. \u00a0And you can probably guess where this is all heading – it’s to have Laura\u00a0walking through the streets of Roosevelt Island\u00a0risking her own life\u00a0in order to cure everyone else before they succumb to the virus. \u00a0Messiah territory.<\/p>\n

For some reason, even though the story starts off emphasising that the alien was looking for Laura, there’s a logic leap\u00a0to throw in\u00a0everyone else with a\u00a0similar\u00a0healing factor as well – not only Gabby, but Old Man Logan, Deadpool, and Daken.<\/p>\n

Oh,\u00a0and you might recall that\u00a0we last saw Daken at the end of\u00a0Wolverines – <\/em>you know, that weird thing Charles Soule was doing before Secret Wars<\/em>.\u00a0 And at the end of that story, he’d lost his healing powers, and on top of that, he’d lost an arm. \u00a0The story\u00a0does<\/em> actually acknowledge that, but the explanation is basically “he got better”. \u00a0I can’t particularly blame the creators here;\u00a0Wolverines<\/em> was mad as a sack of\u00a0crack-fuelled otters, and a decision was clearly taken a long time ago to\u00a0ignore it and hope nobody cared enough to press for a resolution to the cliffhangers. \u00a0After all,\u00a0Laura herself Just Got Better. \u00a0But it’s a particularly egregious example of not bothering to resolve a story that people paid\u00a0quite a lot of money to follow, and don’t think we don’t notice, Marvel.<\/p>\n

Since they haven’t been in the story before, this feels kind of forced, besides which,\u00a0it dilutes the impact of what Laura’s doing. \u00a0On top of which,\u00a0they all fall by the wayside\u00a0to leave Laura as the last one standing anyway.<\/p>\n

This is an idea for a scene – and\u00a0not all that good an idea for a scene – padded out to three issues with set-up and busy-work to keep the characters occupied. \u00a0It’s not really about anything in particular;\u00a0at most,\u00a0it’s trying to make a point that Laura can be heroic in non-violent ways too. \u00a0Which, yes, but it’s basically a\u00a0variation on\u00a0a stock\u00a0Wolverine trope:\u00a0relying on his\/her healing powers to\u00a0endure pain and suffering to help others. \u00a0So it’s not really saying anything beyond the familiar parameters at all.<\/p>\n

Within\u00a0all those limits, it’s all competently done. The dialogue is fine, the\u00a0storytelling is clear, the pacing is\u00a0decent. \u00a0But none of that\u00a0can really disguise the fact that it’s a weak idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, they can’t all be winners. \u00a0I really like\u00a0All-New Wolverine. \u00a0It’s\u00a0consistently one of the best X-books. \u00a0But “Immune” is a three-parter devoted to setting up a contrived set-piece\u00a0finale, and it’s a bit of a dud, to be honest with you. So here’s the idea. \u00a0An alien spaceship\u00a0crashes on Roosevelt Island in New York – population […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3810,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3809\/revisions\/3810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}