{"id":5672,"date":"2020-10-11T12:12:28","date_gmt":"2020-10-11T11:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5672"},"modified":"2021-10-31T22:20:30","modified_gmt":"2021-10-31T22:20:30","slug":"the-incomplete-wolverine-part-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5672","title":{"rendered":"The Incomplete Wolverine, part 9"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5308\">Part 1: Origin to Origin II<\/a><\/em> | <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5325\">Part 2: 1907 to 1914<\/a><\/em><br \/><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5342\">Part 3: 1914 to 1939<\/a><\/em> | <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5374\">Part 4: World War II<\/a><\/em><br \/><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5467\">Part 5: The postwar era<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5523\">Part 6: Team X<\/a><\/em><br \/><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5532\">Part 7: Post Team X<\/a><\/em> | <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5605\">Part 8: Weapon X<\/a><\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we left Logan, he&#8217;d just escaped from Weapon X and was blankly stumbling naked through a blizzard. Things can only go up from here!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\r\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"181\" height=\"279\" class=\"wp-image-5722\" src=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Unknown-3.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marvel.com\/comics\/issue\/32767\/wolverine_2010_900\">WOLVERINE #900<\/a><\/strong><br \/><strong>&#8220;Hunger&#8221; by Karl Bollers &amp; Stephen Segovia<\/strong><br \/><strong>May 2010<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This anthology entry is the only full story to take place in the post-&#8220;Weapon X&#8221; wilderness period, though it&#8217;s still little more than a vignette. Still trailing wires, the befuddled Logan struggles to catch food. He stumbles upon a happy family in a log cabin and steps in to save them from a pack of wolves. Understandably, the family are terrified, and Logan leaves in silence. There&#8217;s a strong implication that Logan toys with eating the kid, but thinks better of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are a few more flashbacks in this period:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li><strong><em>Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #118<\/strong> has a single panel of Logan hunting a stag.<\/li>\r\n<li>In <strong><em>Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #34<\/strong>, Logan stumbles upon the legendary <strong>Hunter in Darkness <\/strong>creature, which is caught in a bear trap. He frees the creature and drags the trap away, in order to draw the hunters off its tail. By sheer coincidence, one of them is Doolin, who met him back in World War II! Mistaking him for the Hunter, Doolin shoots at Logan, who escapes anyway. This one is moderately important, since it sets up a storyline in the Larry Hama run.<\/li>\r\n<li>In <strong><em>Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #92<\/strong>, Logan is living wild in the woods, and takes on some hunters who outrage him by not eating their prey.<\/li>\r\n<li>In <em><strong>Daredevil<\/strong><\/em><strong> vol 2 #54<\/strong>, Logan tells a story about meeting a Cheyenne Chief during this period &#8211; he isn&#8217;t given a name &#8211; \u00a0who remains calm and talks Logan down. (This wise old man is also a family friend of little Maya Lopez, the future Echo.)\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\r\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"182\" height=\"277\" class=\"wp-image-5723\" src=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Unknown-4.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then we get the big turning point, in a scene which is shown in flashback in <strong><em>Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #33, <em>Alpha Flight<\/em> #-1, <em>Wolverine<\/em> #-1 <\/strong>and <strong><em>X-Men: Origins &#8211; Wolverine<\/em><\/strong>, all building on a reference in <strong><em>X-Men <\/em>vol 1 #140<\/strong>. Once again, Logan attacks two hunters &#8211; but this time it&#8217;s honeymooners <strong>James and Heather Hudson<\/strong>, who work for the Canadian government&#8217;s Department H. Heather shoots Logan in self-defence, but the Hudsons take him back to their cabin and tie him up. (<em>X-Men <\/em>#140 just says that Logan was found near death &#8211; the shooting is a later addition.) Unable to raise Department H by radio, James sets off to the nearest town to arrange an air ambulance, leaving poor Heather to babysit the murderously violent stranger. Predictably, Logan wakes up and escapes his bonds, but has a panic attack at the sight of his own claws and cowers on the floor. Heather comforts him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This important flashback begins Logan&#8217;s time with Department H, which will span the entire Silver Age (though we still haven&#8217;t quite reached the Silver Age proper). But the flashback also invites a few questions. It&#8217;s an astonishing coincidence that the guy who retrieves Weapon X from the wilderness <em>just so happens<\/em> to be a scientist already working for a secret Canadian government body, who then sets Logan to work as the secret weapon he was always meant to be. How <em>convenient.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #34 reveals that James was reading about adamantium bonding projects a year before he found Logan. It strongly implies that he knew about the Weapon X Project, and deliberately set out to find Logan. <em>Wolverine: Origins<\/em> also repeatedly suggests that Hudson&#8217;s family has a connection with Romulus. That said, I don&#8217;t think anyone&#8217;s ever been absolutely definitive about this. Maybe James just found out about Weapon X through his classified sources, and was trying to find him in order to offer help.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #140 tells us that the Hudsons nurse Logan back to health and accept him into their family (which is a bit weird, considering the &#8220;family&#8221; is just their marriage). In <em>Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #17, Logan makes some enigmatic comments about hating the world and hating himself at this point in his line, and says that the Hudsons&#8217; love and support &#8211; especially Heather&#8217;s &#8211; is what brought him through it. Heather, for her part, views him as like a child. Logan doesn&#8217;t see the relationship in quite those terms. In <em>Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #33, he says that he fell in love with her, and eventually left because he knew she would never leave James for him. This doesn&#8217;t really fit with any other account of the circumstances in which he joined the X-Men&#8230; but okay. As you might imagine, there are several stories which try to give Logan extra motivations for leaving Department H.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">None of Logan&#8217;s relationship with the Hudsons during this period is covered explicitly in flashbacks. There&#8217;s a brief flashback in <strong><em>X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #140<\/strong>, where Logan tells them that he&#8217;s always been dangerous, but his adamantium upgrade has changed everything, and he doesn&#8217;t like it. This scene no longer really works, considering all the adventures that have since been grafted into his past.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\r\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"181\" height=\"278\" class=\"wp-image-5724\" src=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Unknown-5.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marvel.com\/comics\/issue\/14035\/wolverine_1988_-1\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.marvel.com\/comics\/issue\/14035\/wolverine_1988_-1\">WOLVERINE #-1<\/a><\/strong><br \/><strong>&#8220;A Whiff of Sartre&#8217;s Madeline!&#8221; by Larry Hama &amp; Card Nord<\/strong><br \/><strong>July 1997<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the Flashback Month issue, still set before the dawn of the Silver Age. It&#8217;s a bit of a mess.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his first trip away from Department H, Logan travels to New York to speak to the inventor of adamantium, <strong>Myron Maclain<\/strong>, and see if he knows anything. (As tends to happen in this sort of story, Logan&#8217;s pilot for the trip is <strong>Ben Grimm<\/strong> &#8211; not yet the Thing &#8211; who contributes nothing to the plot.) Maclain does indeed know about a covert project which is trying to bond adamantium to skeletons. But before he can say much more, total chaos ensues as a whole bunch of people show up trying to get their hands on Logan: Victor Creed, a bunch of HYDRA gunmen (in what&#8217;s said to be their first open mission in North America), Nick Fury, Carol Danvers, and Natasha Romanova, who is now going by the name<strong> Black Widow<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Logan doesn&#8217;t recognise any of these people; we have to assume he gets his memories back later as his healing continues. But Creed recognises Logan, and is bemused by his lack of reaction. Nick Fury recognises him too. Unfortunately, Carol Danvers, who&#8217;s supposed to have known him for years per <em>Shadow Society<\/em>, shows no signs of having met him before. The problem is really her appearance in <em>Shadow Society, <\/em>but she&#8217;s too prominent in that story to be ignored. If you&#8217;re feeling charitable, maybe she&#8217;s been told something about his condition and she&#8217;s playing along here for some reason. As for Logan&#8217;s conversation with Myron Maclain, either he never goes back to finish it, or Maclain just didn&#8217;t know anything more. *shrug*<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following this, per [<em>Uncanny<\/em>] <em>X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #140 and #147, Logan officially joins the Canadian Secret Service. Alongside his work with Department H&#8217;s nascent superhero programme, he&#8217;s assigned to various dodgy black ops work, and comes to resent it. <em>Wolverine: Origins<\/em> naturally shows that Logan is also under the influence of Romulus for at least some of this period, either running side missions for him, or simply being given missions through the regular channels thanks to Romulus&#8217; minions higher in the chain.<\/p>\r\n<p>A flashback in\u00a0<em><strong>Alpha Flight<\/strong><\/em><strong> vol 1 #47<\/strong> probably takes place here. It shows Logan with Heather and James when Heather&#8217;s parents\u00a0<strong>Ramsey &amp; Claire McNeil<\/strong> show up objecting to James&#8217;s bad influence on her; Logan threatens them with his claws and makes them go away. Heather&#8217;s narration describes Logan as &#8220;one of Mac&#8217;s dirty, dangerous government proteges&#8221; at this stage.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\r\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"181\" height=\"279\" class=\"wp-image-5725\" src=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Unknown-6.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A brief flashback in <strong><em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #147<\/strong> shows Logan &#8211; now in a Canadian military uniform &#8211; attacking James Hudson after being triggered by something or other. James calms Logan down and reminds him that he&#8217;s a rational man. (This is the exact opposite of how Romulus tries to mould Logan, which would support the theory that James isn&#8217;t simply a pawn of Romulus, even if he knows something about the conspiracy.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Logan apologises, laments that he&#8217;s behaving in this way towards his beloved friends, and once again protests that he&#8217;s far too uncontrollable and dangerous to be used in the field. James insists that Logan just needs treatment for his mental health problems. Over time, we&#8217;re told, James does indeed help Logan to gain control of his berserker spells &#8211; they don&#8217;t stop, but they do become less frequent, and they don&#8217;t seem to interfere with his work.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As you&#8217;d imagine, there are reams of passing references about stuff Logan did while at Department H. A very much non-exhaustive list of things that aren&#8217;t even flashbacks:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li>According to <em>Wolverine<\/em> vol 1 #1, Logan runs a number of &#8220;dirty&#8221; missions (whatever that means) with Japanese spy <strong>Asano Kimura<\/strong>.<\/li>\r\n<li>In <em>Marvel Fanfare<\/em> vol 1 #24, we&#8217;re told that Logan and Nick Fury had an encounter in Vladivostok, apparently on good terms, &#8220;just before [Fury] got tapped to take over SHIELD.&#8221;<\/li>\r\n<li><em>Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #16-17 claim that Logan and Eugene Judd (later Puck) crossed paths on opposite sides several times during their spy career, including &#8220;that time in Maracaibo&#8221;, without actually meeting. Unfortunately, they&#8217;re supposed to be meeting for the first time in the main story, which is no longer possible &#8211; they meet on panel in <em>Alpha Flight<\/em> #-1, and the plot of <em>Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #35-37 depends on them spending time together during the Spanish Civil War.<\/li>\r\n<li>According to <em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #228, Logan&#8217;s CIA liaison during this period is <strong>Henry Peter Gyrich<\/strong>, the government jobsworth from <em>Avengers<\/em> who&#8217;ll later show up on the fringes of the Sentinel programme.<\/li>\r\n<li>In <em>Marvel Comics Presents<\/em> vol 1 #52, Logan mentions being patched up once or twice during this period by Dr Giloski, a &#8220;discreet&#8221; Ottawan physician.<\/li>\r\n<li>In <em>Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #87, Logan shares the vital information that while working at Department H, he enjoyed relaxing in Gatineau Park. Look, it was relevant to the plot of that issue, okay?<\/li>\r\n<li>According to <em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #261, Logan meets <strong>Harry &#8220;Hardcase&#8221; Malone<\/strong>, later the leader of the Harriers, at some point before joining the X-Men.<\/li>\r\n<li>In <em>Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #24, Logan mentions learning about the mutant assassin <strong>Snow Queen <\/strong>during his time as a Canadian agent.<\/li>\r\n<li>In <em>Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #25, Logan mentions spending some time in Tehran where he comes to owe a favour to someone who later becomes Madripoor crimelord <strong>&#8220;Morrow&#8221;. <\/strong>This isn&#8217;t expressly placed during the Department H period, but Morrow claims that when he knew Logan, he was a murderer who claimed to have principles, which seems to fit best in this phase.<\/li>\r\n<li>According to <em>Wolverine: First Class<\/em> #7, Logan learns &#8220;a little something about nuclear incident protocol&#8221;.<\/li>\r\n<li>According to <em>Wolverine: First Class<\/em> #14, at some point before joining the X-Men, Logan crosses paths for the first time with the assassin <strong>Elektra<\/strong>.<\/li>\r\n<li>According to <em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #154, Logan goes on several &#8220;pretty hairy capers&#8221; with Carol Danvers and her partner <strong>Colonel Mike Rossi<\/strong>, at which point Logan is in the Canadian Secret Service and Carol&#8217;s in US Air Force Intelligence. We&#8217;ll see one of them below, but there are apparently more. In <em>Uncanny <\/em>#237, Logan says that he and Carol used to be a team during this period, so apparently they worked together in a string of unpublished stories. In\u00a0<em>Wolverine\u00a0<\/em>vol 2 #133, he mentions breaking Carol out of a Moscow prison.<\/li>\r\n<li>According to <em>Marvel Graphic Novel<\/em> #5 (&#8220;God Loves, Man Kills&#8221;), Logan stages a number of &#8220;accidents&#8221; to cover for assassinations during this period.<\/li>\r\n<li>In\u00a0<em>Wolverine \/ Nick Fury: Scorpio Rising<\/em>, Wolverine says that he learned Russian while working for Canadian intelligence.<\/li>\r\n<li>In\u00a0<em>X-Men<\/em> vol 2 #62, Logan reveals that he knew\u00a0<strong>Clive Reston<\/strong> (a supporting character from\u00a0<em>Master of Kung Fu<\/em>) during this period.<\/li>\r\n<li>In\u00a0<em>X-Men<\/em> vol 2 #70, Logan tells us that he learned about nanotech bombs during this period.<\/li>\r\n<li>According to\u00a0<em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #362, Logan spends &#8220;some down time &#8230; with some Forest Service smoke jumpers&#8221;, and learns about fire fighting.<\/li>\r\n<li>In\u00a0<em>X-Men Unlimited<\/em> vol 2 #9, Logan mentions meeting\u00a0<strong>Johnny<\/strong>, an American in the merchant marines, when &#8220;I wasn&#8217;t much more than a wild animal walking upright&#8221; &#8211; which presumably places it soon after leaving Weapon X.<\/li>\r\n<li>In\u00a0<em>Black Panther<\/em> vol 3 #42, Logan mentions encountering a CIA agent called Jeffrey Sutter who &#8220;worked that thing in Malaysia in 1993&#8221; (which was nine years earlier).\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li>In\u00a0<em>Daredevil<\/em> vol 2 #54-55, Logan mentions that the Cheyenne Chief he met as an &#8220;animal&#8221; also &#8220;once put me on my own vision quest&#8221;. That can&#8217;t possibly happen before the Hudsons find him, so presumably he goes back to meet up with this guy during his Department H period. Logan also recounts a story called &#8220;Two Dogs Fighting&#8221; that the Chief told him.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There will doubtless be many, many more.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\r\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"180\" height=\"280\" class=\"wp-image-5726\" src=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Unknown-7.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But back to the on-panel material. If it&#8217;s canon, the flashback in <strong><em>Wolverine: First Class<\/em> #17<\/strong> has to come very early in the Department H period (because a child in the flashback has to grown to adulthood by the main story). It shows Logan, as &#8220;Patch&#8221;, apparently killing Madripoor crimelord <strong>Mr Wong<\/strong> while his son <strong>Benjamin Wong<\/strong> watches. Logan claims that Mr Wong Sr was involved in particularly despicable crimes even by the standards of Madripoor crimelords, and has also &#8220;hurt friends of mine&#8221;. Both Wongs will return in the main story (which is dreadful, but that&#8217;s for another day).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a flashback in <strong><em>Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #9<\/strong>, the US Embassy in Iraq is held hostage by a group of Iraqi mutants and some unnamed <strong>American mercenaries<\/strong>. With some Canadian nationals also in the embassy, Logan is sent to help. During the mission, he&#8217;s appalled by the mercenaries&#8217; torture and abuse of their hostages, in particular a Canadian nun. He kills one of the mercenaries, and will keep returning over the years to go after the others. (All this is just the back story to a fill-in issue.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The back-up strip in <strong><em>Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #3<\/strong> has a one-panel cameo by Logan, out of costume, but referred to by the codename &#8220;Wolverine&#8221;.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And from here&#8230; things settle down a bit. There&#8217;s a lot less in the way of random short flashbacks, and a lot more actual stories.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\r\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"183\" height=\"276\" class=\"wp-image-5727\" src=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Unknown-8.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>ALPHA FLIGHT #-1<\/strong><br \/><strong>&#8220;Vows&#8221; by Steve Seagle, Anthony Winn et al<\/strong><br \/><strong>July 1997<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When a new Cosmic Ray Collector energy plant goes wrong, Logan and James Hudson are sent to help. Logan isn&#8217;t in costume yet; Hudson wears a very early version of his battlesuit to make his debut as <strong>Weapon Alpha<\/strong>. Eugene Judd (later Puck) also shows up to help &#8211; as does ageing Golden Age superhero Chinook, who promptly gets turned into a monster. The other three subdue him, and kind-of-sort-of become the core of Department H&#8217;s superhero project. At any rate, that&#8217;s the story that Seagle is trying to tell, but it doesn&#8217;t really fit with other stories about how Alpha Flight was assembled. Later, Logan attends James and Heather&#8217;s church wedding (the legal wedding was in a registry office before he met them).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\r\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"181\" height=\"279\" class=\"wp-image-5728\" src=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Unknown-9.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marvel.com\/comics\/series\/23008\/before_the_fantastic_four_ben_grimm_logan_2000\">BEFORE THE FANTASTIC FOUR: BEN GRIMM &amp; LOGAN #1-3<\/a><\/strong><br \/><strong>by Larry Hama &amp; Kaare Andrews<\/strong><br \/><strong>July to September 2000<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was one of a number of <em>Before the Fantastic Four<\/em> miniseries set before the FF got their powers, though only the Thing was forced to share space with a costar. On loan to the USA, Logan joins Ben Grimm and Carol Danvers on a mission to Russia, ostensibly to scout some mystery radio transmitters, but in reality to steal a special strongbox. And after assorted shenanigans, they do. It&#8217;s basically just a throwaway romp. (The strongbox contains Russia&#8217;s only stock of a rare metal which is vital to a military experiment, if you were wondering.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s possible that this story was intended as an expansion of a throwaway line in <em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #236, which mentions Logan smuggling Carol out of Russia once upon a time. Being a flashback story, there are some gratuitous cameos &#8211; not only does the Black Widow show up as a Soviet fighter pilot (??!!), but the heroes&#8217; initial briefing is delivered by Nick Fury alongside weapons designer <strong>Tony Stark<\/strong> (who isn&#8217;t yet Iron Man).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With that, we reach a milestone in Marvel Universe history: the Fantastic Four debut. Of course, that was in 1961, and Wolverine doesn&#8217;t make his debut until 1974&#8230; so next time, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5679\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5679\">it&#8217;s going to be Wolverine in the Silver Age<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<p><em>Edited on 23 July 2021 to add Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #362, Wolverine<\/em> <em>vol 2 #133 and X-Men Unlimited vol 2 #9.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p><em>Edited on 10 October 2021 to add the flashback from Alpha Flight vol 1 #47 and the reference to Jeffrey Sutter.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p><em>Edited on 31 October 2021 to add the references to Daredevil vol 2 #54-55.<\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War IIPart 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team XPart 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X When we left Logan, he&#8217;d just escaped from Weapon X and was blankly stumbling naked [&hellip;]<\/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":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wolverine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672","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=5672"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7276,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672\/revisions\/7276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}