{"id":5523,"date":"2020-08-30T17:27:52","date_gmt":"2020-08-30T16:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5523"},"modified":"2020-10-07T21:43:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T20:43:23","slug":"the-incomplete-wolverine-part-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5523","title":{"rendered":"The Incomplete Wolverine, Part 6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part 1: Origin to Origin II<\/a><\/em>
Part 2: 1907 to 1914<\/a><\/em>
Part 3: 1914 to 1939<\/a><\/em>
Part 4: World War II<\/a><\/em>
Part 5: The postwar era<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We left off with Logan firmly established as a secret agent working for the likes of the CIA (and with Romulus in the background feeding him missions, thanks to Wolverine: Origins<\/em>). Now, we finally get to one of the phases of his history that’s more familiar, as he joins Team X.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this phase is… bitty. Nobody really does entire stories to the Team X era – instead it’s all fragmented flashbacks, some of which then turn out to be memory implants. So this is going to be a particularly haphazard one, since few of these really amount to a whole story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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X-MEN: ORIGINS – SABRETOOTH #1<\/a><\/strong>
by Kieron Gillen & Dan Panosian<\/strong>
February 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve had scenes from this issue before, but it takes place over a very long time frame, and it has several scenes set during the Team X period. In particular, it’s got the closest thing to Logan joining Team X – we don’t actually see that happening, but we do<\/em> learn that he applied successfully for the job, and is then horrified when Victor Creed shows up as another recruit. Logan attacks him on sight, and the two are quickly separated. The Team X staff aren’t that bothered, because they were planning to wipe both men’s memories anyway. Of course, Romulus is sitting in the background behind all this mind-wipe stuff (this issue is post-Origins<\/em>). But we’ll see later that Team X has at least some employees who know nothing about Romulus – so either it’s a genuinely independent outfit that he’s infiltrated, or there are simply some people who aren’t in on the scam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

So. Early on, Logan undergoes the first of yet more mindwipes and memory implants at the hands of Team X – as referenced in the aforementioned Sabretooth<\/em> one-shot, Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #49<\/strong> and Wolverine: Origins<\/em> #7<\/strong>, among other places. Presumably Team X’s employers are using Romulus’s technology for this. They won’t have access to a telepath until later, so the early procedures involve drugs, stage sets, and directly manipulating the brain during the healing process. Lovely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are fewer flashbacks to actual Team X missions than you might expect, since the ones that exist tend to either revisit the same few events, or turn out to be drug-induced memory implants. For example, Wolverine <\/em>vol 2 #49<\/strong> and #61<\/strong> show Logan and Creed in Cuba, apparently on a mission to steal a nuclear missile from revolutionaries. They’re in a bar when they see news coverage of the murders of John F Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, which Creed – in true conspiracy story style – apparently recognises as a sign to start their mission. Silver Fox inexplicably shows up as a member of Team X – though since she appears again in the modern era, this seems to be intended as real. This is also our first sighting on two other Team X members, Mastodon<\/strong> and teleporter John Wraith<\/strong>. Presumably Team X all escape just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since those issues was published, Savage Wolverine<\/em> #18 has created a continuity problem by showing Logan in California when JFK died. And that’s not a flashback (let alone one with memory-distortion elements) so it really has to take priority. Still, we can probably take it that there’s some sort of genuine mission to Cuba at around this time, even if Logan’s memories are somehow tied up with unrelated news stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #61<\/strong> also has a flashback to Logan, Creed and Wraith on a Team X mission in the Vietnamese jungle. A local girl compromises the team; Wraith says he’ll quietly kill her, but Creed does it himself, since he believes that Wraith was actually planning to let her go. Throughout the Hama run, Wraith is generally presented as the nice one (and probably the smartest too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to X-Men Origins: Sabretooth<\/em><\/strong>, which has a two-page scene set “two years and two mindwipes” after Logan and Creed joined Team X. It shows Creed saving Logan during a mission; later, the two of them drink with their other teammate Maverick<\/strong>. Creed tells Logan he’ll always be there for him, and then attacks Logan because it’s his birthday – though playfully, by Creed’s standards. At this point, both Logan and Creed seem to be relatively sensible, and unaware of their full history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, according to the same issue, as their time in Team X goes on, Logan sees Creed kill and torture all sorts of people who are either innocent or have surrendered already. Creed seems relaxed about it all; Logan, presumably unaware of some of his own history for Romulus, becomes increasingly worried about working with this lunatic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Flashbacks in WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #2<\/a><\/strong>
“Born in Blood, part 2” by Daniel Way & Steve Dillon<\/strong>
May 2006<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1968. Logan is posing as a Russian advisor to the Viet Cong, who have captured Nuke<\/strong>. Logan joins in torturing Nuke, and seems to have a hand in cutting the flag pattern into his face. After he leaves, he changes back into a US army uniform and watches with detached amusement as an enraged Nuke takes the Viet Cong soldiers apart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not obviously a Team X-era story, but the year seems to force it in here (Wolverine <\/em>vol 2 #68 has Logan with Team X in 1968). Besides, Logan’s behaviour in the Nuke flashbacks is nihilistic and sadistic even by the tiresomely grim standards of Wolverine: Origins<\/em>, and it’s very difficult to square with anything else – this stuff simply doesn’t fit neatly anywhere<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #63<\/strong>, a flashback shows Logan undergoing memory implantation at the hands of telepath Aldo Ferro<\/strong> (also known as Psi-Borg<\/strong>). Ferro is demonstrating his abilities to three scientists who are putting together the Weapon X Project<\/strong>, or more accurately the version of it that will eventually experiment on Logan. Though he isn’t aware of them, this is Logan’s chronologically earliest encounter with Professor Thorton, Dr Abraham Cornelius <\/strong>and Carol Hines<\/strong> – which implies that those three take longer to get their version of the Weapon X Project up and running than you might expect. More of them in a couple of chapters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Wolverine<\/a><\/em> vol 2 #87<\/a><\/strong>, Logan, Creed and Maverick are on a Team X mission to recover unspecified data. After they get it, they’re spotted, and they have an argument about what to do about it. Maverick wants them to split up, to maximise the chances of one of them getting back with the data (he’s a pragmatist who just wants to get the mission done). Logan wants the team to stay together and insists on helping Creed get to safety when he’s injured (he’s a team player). And Creed just wants to force everyone into a needless fight (he’s a psychopath).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thankfully, Maverick learns more from Logan than from Creed, since Maverick<\/em> vol 2 #2 <\/strong>and X-Men Unlimited<\/em> vol 1 #15<\/strong> have flashbacks to a mission in East Germany where Logan and Creed are both severely injured. Maverick heroically drags them both to the border, even killing his own brother in the process. Good old Maverick. According to him, this isn’t long before Team X disbands, though that’s all a bit hazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #68<\/strong>, it’s still 1968, and Team X are sent to stop Russia from launching a space shuttle before American can. Logan dutifully fights his way to the Russian super-spaceman Epsilon Red<\/strong>, who is delighted to see him, because he hates living on Earth as a man adapted for space, and actually wants to die. Creed shows up at the last minute to tell Logan that their instructions have been countermanded, so Logan leaves Epsilon alone. (Then Creed kills Epsilon Red’s wife, for the hell of it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daken: Dark Wolverine<\/em> #1<\/strong> has a flashback to “50 years ago”, which would have been 1960 at the time of publication – and wouldn’t have worked for Daken’s timeline even then. So we have to take that very loosely, and it can go somewhere around here. A drunken Logan stumbles out of a bar where he seems to have just killed someone in a fight, and drives off. The unnamed founder of the Red Right Hand is once again on hand with a sniper rifle, but this time Daken intervenes and tells him that they can boht wait for their revenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Wolverine<\/em> vol 4 #11<\/strong>, Logan and Creed kill a politician in his bed, in front of his wife. Logan stops Creed from gratuitously assaulting the widow, and then fires a gunshot to fool Creed into thinking that he killed her. In fact he lets her live. Predictably unimpressed by this act of non-heroism, the widow goes on to – you guessed it – join the Red Right Hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In flashbacks in Wolverine: Origins<\/a><\/em> #6-7<\/a> and #25<\/strong>, Romulus’s men within the Team X organisation perform a bit of experimentation. They get Logan to swallow a capsule, and he obliges, because he thinks it’s some sort of smuggling device. In fact, it’s poisonous carbonadium (the stuff from Omega Red’s back story) and the experiment verifies that, yes, if you get Logan to swallow poison, he will nearly die. Unfortunately for the Team X mad scientists, they get complacent while Logan is healing. He wakes up without them noticing, jumps them, demands some answers, and… well, he doesn’t really get them – beyond being told that it’s a mercenary operation with a mysterious boss. But he does<\/em> get to leave without being mindwiped, and intimidates one of the scientists into covering for him. He takes the instructions that were left for him, and sets off anyway, but knowing more than he should. Those instructions involve him retrieving a carbonadium-synthesizer device from Berlin, which we’ll get to shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timeline on these flashbacks generally indicates that we’re in the mid 1960s. Issue #6 has a caption placing it in 1963. Issues #7 and #8 go for “40 years ago”, which at the time of publication would have been 1966. Neither Since this explicitly leads in to one of the team’s final missions, both contradict Wolverine <\/em>vol 2 #68 which (as already mentioned) has Logan with Team X in 1968. That’s why this entry comes near the end of the list regardless. We’re getting into the grey area where stories are starting to have links forward to other stories that are unquestionably affected by sliding time, but for the most part Marvel seem to be sticking with the idea that the Team X stuff is more or less pinned to a vaguely defined time frame in the 1960s and 1970s – almost all of the characters involved having the benefit of long lifespans. (The main counter argument is the weird appearance of Abraham and Hines in the Psi-Borg flashback, which doesn’t really tally with the way they’re shown in “Weapon X” as recent recruits – but “Weapon X” is an unreliable-narrator story, and the Psi-Borg flashback is a problem for those two however you approach it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Berlin mission plays out in a slew of flashbacks in X-Men<\/a><\/em> vol 2 #5-7<\/a>, Wolverine: Origins<\/a><\/em> #8<\/a>, Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #60-61 <\/strong>and Maverick<\/em> vol 1 (one-shot)<\/strong>. According to Origins<\/em>, Logan starts off playing along with Romulus’s instructions. He tells his CIA contacts that their GRU mole Janice Hollenbeck<\/strong> is in danger of being exposed. The CIA then deploy Team X to extract her. Logan, Creed and Maverick are sent into the building to get her, but Logan and Creed secretly have a side mission to retrieve the C-synth. What’s more, Creed (alone) has a second<\/em> side mission: to kill the new Russian super-soldier Omega Red<\/strong> (Arkady Rossovich)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first things go well. They do get Janice; Logan does get the C-synth; and Creed does get to fight Omega Red. While that’s happening, in a scene added by Origins, <\/em>Logan takes the chance to interrogate Maverick about his loyalties. In a pleasant surprise, Maverick turns out to be completely above board – he honestly believes that he’s on a team of legitimate CIA agents. So Logan gives him the C-synth and tells him to hide it. (In fact, Omega Red needs the thing in order to stay alive without killing other people and draining their life force. But Logan presumably figures that if Omega Red and Romulus both want the C-synth, there must be excellent reasons why neither of them should have it, even if he doesn’t actually know what they are.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creed doesn’t overhear this exchange, but he does realise that something is up. So he kills Janice in order to teach Logan a lesson. Logan and Maverick insist on bringing her body with them as they make their escape (because she might still be exposed as a spy if they leave her behind, somehow). Wraith shows up to help cover their escape. The next day, during a debriefing, Logan and Creed fight over Creed’s pointless murder of Janice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of the rare cases where the Origins<\/em> retcons improve the story, since it was a mess to start with. It actually makes more sense when everyone involved has completely contradictory agendas and side missions, and Creed is only going through the motions of being interested in Janice’s rescue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we return to X-Men Origins: Sabretooth<\/em><\/strong> for another four pages. In a West Berlin bar, Logan and Creed argue about Janice’s pointless death. This time, Creed claims that he killed her in order to provoke Logan into having their annual birthday fight – which in Creed’s view is something they both secretly want. Logan is appalled, and announces that he’s quitting the team. Creed does not take the threat seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But… apparently Logan does indeed quit Team X, which disbands shortly after. He doesn’t go to Weapon X just yet, though – there are a few more stories first, most of which either attempt to lead in to Weapon X, or simply take place in the 1970s. And we’ll cover them next time.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EDIT HISTORY: <\/strong>Edited on 7 September 2020 to correct an error in the timeframe for Wolverine: Origins<\/em> #6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part 1: Origin to Origin IIPart 2: 1907 to 1914Part 3: 1914 to 1939Part 4: World War IIPart 5: The postwar era We left off with Logan firmly established as a secret agent working for the likes of the CIA (and with Romulus in the background feeding him missions, thanks to Wolverine: Origins). Now, we […]<\/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,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wolverine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523","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=5523"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5707,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523\/revisions\/5707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}