{"id":5679,"date":"2020-10-25T11:55:36","date_gmt":"2020-10-25T11:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5679"},"modified":"2021-12-18T17:51:21","modified_gmt":"2021-12-18T17:51:21","slug":"the-incomplete-wolverine-part-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5679","title":{"rendered":"The Incomplete Wolverine, part 10"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\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> | Part 6: Team X<\/a><\/em>
Part 7: Post Team X<\/a><\/em> | Part 8: Weapon X<\/a><\/em>
Part 9: Department H<\/a><\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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We’ve reached the Silver Age. Not that Wolverine’s going to interact all that closely with the major tropes – he spends this period in Department H, and few writers have felt tempted to send Wolverine to mess around with mainstream Silver Age stories. But there are exceptions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

FURY vol 1 #1<\/a><\/strong>
by Barry Dutter & M C Wyman <\/strong>
May 1994<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Take this one-shot about the origins of SHIELD. The Silver Age heroes are active by this point. Logan guest stars in one chapter, teaming with CIA Colonel Rick Stoner<\/strong> to recover James Hudson’s stolen prototype armour from HYDRA. The incident prompts the formation of SHIELD, with Stoner as its short-lived initial Director, but Logan’s not involved in any of that.<\/p>\r\n

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WOLVERINE: DEBT OF DEATH<\/strong><\/a>
One-shot<\/strong>
by David Lapham, David Aja & Bettie Breitweiser<\/strong>
September 2011<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Logan travels to Japan to help his old friend Superintendent General Kenichi Nakadai protect witnesses in the prosecution of Yakuza boss Hiroshi Murata. But by the time Logan arrives, Nakadai has been murdered by Murata’s men. It turns out that Murata’s men were actually trying to kill Nakadai’s son Kanaye, to cover up the fact that Kanaye had sold Nakadai’s old plans for kamikaze robots to the Yakuza in order to pay his gambling debts. Eventually Kanaye is killed by the robots. It’s much better than that makes it sound – this a David Lapham and David Aja story, after all, so it’s a solid affair that spins the tale out and somehow blends the sci-fi stuff to feel coherent with what’s basically a crime plot.<\/p>\r\n

This is, er, a chronologically ambiguous story – the\u00a0Wolverine Index<\/em> has it in the modern age, but the 80s hairstyles and the presence of a character who fought as an adult in World War II seem to point to a much earlier placement. On the other hand, Nick Fury is in charge of SHIELD, so it can’t go any earlier than this.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2009: WOLVERINE<\/strong>
“Kingdom of No” <\/strong>
by Fred Van Lente & Gurihiru<\/strong>
May 2009<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A surprisingly obscure comic, considering Marvel gave it away for free. It’s not on Unlimited, and when I first posted this article, it was almost impossible even to find a review of the thing, or even a summary beyond a short entry in the Wolverine Index. <\/em>It has, however, recently been reprinted as part of the Marvel-Verse: Deadpool & Wolverine<\/em> collection – an interesting place for it, because of the rest of the collection consists of reprints from the non-canon Marvel Adventures<\/em> line.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If it’s canon – and the Index <\/em>says it is – then this is Logan’s chronologically earliest appearance in superhero costume as Wolverine<\/strong>. He’s sent to deal with a cybernetic infestation overrunning a small town, which turns out to be the creation of a semi-conscious Madison Jeffries<\/strong> (later Box, and later still a member of X-Club). Wolverine recruits him into Department H. There’s an epilogue that’s supposed to lead directly into Wolverine’s debut in Incredible Hulk<\/em> #180, but it’s manifestly impossible for Wolverine to go straight from his first costumed appearance into his first published appearances, because of … well, most of the stories listed below. If you squint a bit, though, it’s just about possible to take the final page as a separate scene set years later, which is how Marvel Index<\/em> deals with it. The alternative is just to disqualify the thing as non-canon, which seems to be Marvel’s implication in publishing it in a Marvel Adventures<\/em> collection.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The official chronologies have this story rather earlier, but if you’re willing to mess with the story enough to accommodate it in canon, there’s no obvious reason why it has to be Wolverine’s first Department H mission altogether, as opposed to his first costumed <\/em>mission as the superhero Wolverine. I’ve dragged it forward to come after any earlier stories where you might have expected him to be in his costume, if he had it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Flashbacks and references in WOLVERINE vol 2 #119-122<\/a><\/strong>
“Not Dead Yet” <\/strong>
by Warren Ellis & Leinil Francis Yu<\/strong>
December 1997 to March 1998<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This is set nearly ten years before the publication era (which means early Silver Age). Spending three months in Hong Kong for a conference of the world’s top hitmen, Logan hangs out with acclaimed Scottish hitman McLeish<\/strong>. Over a series of drinks, Logan talks about his berserker rages, and McLeish contrasts himself as a classy, restrained killer. Meanwhile, Logan dates local girl Wong Ai-Chia<\/strong>. McLeish kills her father on behalf of the Triads, and Logan seemingly kills McLeish in revenge (though naturally he returns in the present day). When Ai-Chia asks Logan why he was hanging out with\u00a0this serial killer, Logan concedes that he felt they had a lot in common, but offers a weak justification that he did<\/em> kill McLeish in the end. That goes down about as well as you’d expect. Elsewhere in the story, Logan also suggests that he pitied McLeish (and by extension himself). It’s not an important story in terms of wider consequences, but it’s quite a good one.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Flashbacks in SPIDER-MAN VS WOLVERINE #1<\/a><\/strong>
“High Tide” <\/strong>
by James C Owsley & Mark Bright<\/strong>
February 1987<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Despite Logan’s warnings, his “best friend”, a freelance agent called Charlemagne<\/strong>, accepts an assignment from the KGB. When they betray her, he travels to East Berlin to rescue her. He fights the KGB (in costume as Wolverine), but she escapes and disappears until the present day. Charlemagne’s gender is meant to be a plot twist, and the euphemestic “best friend” seems to be an awkward attempt to avoid spoiling it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This is a tricky story for modern continuity, because both the flashback and the main story hinge on the Berlin Wall, which hasn’t existed for thirty years. On the other hand, it’s too important to Spider-Man continuity to simply ignore, because it killed off supporting character Ned Leeds. So presumably this story still happened in modern continuity, but in some massively modified form brought about by sliding time. Writer James Owsley is better known today for his work under his later name of Christopher Priest.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Flashbacks in ALPHA FLIGHT vol 1 #52-53<\/a><\/strong>
“Friends in High Places” <\/strong>
by Bill Mantlo, Jim Lee & Whilce Portacio<\/strong>
“Specters” <\/strong>
by Bill Mantlo, June Brigman & Whilce Portacio<\/strong>
November\/December 1987<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Funding for Department H is at risk unless James Hudson finds some superhumans soon. So he decides to create some. Predictably, Hudson’s experiments on convicted murderer William Nowlan go wrong, and turn him into Bedlam<\/strong>. Wolverine has to rescue Hudson from his creation. In the main story, Wolverine claims that this project was yet another of the things that ultimately drove him to leave Alpha Flight.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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WOLVERINE \/ CABLE: GUTS AND GLORY<\/a><\/strong>
by Joe Casey & Stephen Platt<\/strong>
October 1999<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

“Not long ago”. Wolverine captures D’von Kray, a rampaging time-traveller from the far future who has been driven temporarily mad by a flaw in his time travel process. On gathering his senses, Kray escapes Department H and goes back to his original mission, which was to seek revenge on Cable<\/strong> (Nathan Summers, also newly arrived in this time period). Wolverine pursues Kray to New York and teams up with Cable to defeat him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This ties up a loose end about how the two first met, but it holds little other interest.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE<\/a><\/strong>
“Birth of a Weapon”<\/strong>
by Chris Yost<\/strong> & Mark Texeira<\/strong>
April 2009<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We’ve had several flashbacks from this issue, but we’ve finally caught up with the main narrative. (There’s one more flashback, actually – a single panel of Logan on a black ops mission, killing everyone in a lab – but it fits in happily in this slot too.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Department H send Wolverine on a mission to deal with some sort of monstrous creature, but ultimately he refuses to kill it. Department H head Major Chasen<\/strong> (mis-spelled “Chasin”), shows up to yell at him about it. Later, the Hudsons invite Wolverine to meet some of the recruits for Alpha Flight, which is to be his team. The basic idea is that the Hudsons (or at least Heather) don’t know that Wolverine is also doing black ops missions alongside his superhero work, and that Heather is getting worried about the frequent, unexplained absences that result from those missions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In a flashback in X-Men<\/em> vol 3 #14<\/strong>, Magneto uses a stolen Cerebro to address mutants around the world; Wolverine cameos as one of the many mutants who receive the message.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In a flashback in Wolverine<\/em> vol 4 #13<\/strong>, Logan singlehandedly defeats several Hand ninja. The survivors go home and commit ritual suicide; one of their daughters will go on to fight Logan herself as a Hand ninja, and eventually she winds up in the Red Right Hand. (Remember them? It’s been a while.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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ALPHA FLIGHT SPECIAL<\/strong>
“First Flight” <\/strong>
by Scott Lobdell, Simon Furman, Pat Broderick & Bruce Patterson<\/strong>
June 1992<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If nothing else, this adds a lot of names to the list of people Wolverine has met.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Wolverine is now helping to train potential Alpha Flight members, including Snowbird<\/strong> (Narya), Saint Elmo<\/strong>, Smart Alec<\/strong> (Alec Thorne), Groundhog<\/strong> (Sean Bernard) and Stitch<\/strong>. The prototype Alpha Flight, simply called the Flight, go into action for the first time in order to save New York from being nuked by authentic Silver Age villains Egghead<\/strong> (Elihas Starr) and his Emissaries of Evil: the Swordsman<\/strong> (Jacques Duquesne), Power Man<\/strong> (Erik Josten), Solarr<\/strong> (Silas King), the Rhino<\/strong> (Alexei Sytsevich), the Eel<\/strong> (Leopold Stryke) and the Porcupine<\/strong> (Alexander Gentry). The Flight win, but Saint Elmo is killed in action, and Groundhog quits. Walter Langkowski<\/strong> and Michael Twoyoungmen<\/strong> (later Sasquatch and Shaman) are also working for Department H by this point, but neither has become a member of the team.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In a flashback in <\/strong>Marvel Comics Presents<\/strong><\/em> vol 1 #51<\/strong>, Wolverine trains alongside Wild Child<\/strong> (Kyle Gibney), who has become one of the junior trainees in Gamma Flight<\/strong>. Wild Child won’t take advice or direction. To similar effect, in a flashback in the back-up strip in<\/strong> Alpha Flight<\/em> vol 1 #127<\/strong>, Wolverine has to restrain Wild Child after he attacks Stitch. Wolverine argues with Hudson about whether Wild Child should be kicked off the team. A recurring theme in Wolverine’s limited dealings with Wild Child is that Wolverine writes him off as completely untameable, without ever quite being able to explain to anyone else’s satisfaction what makes Kyle different from him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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WOLVERINE vol 2 #9<\/a><\/strong>
“Promises to Keep” <\/strong>
by Peter David & Gene Colan<\/strong>
July 1989<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This is a fill-in issue set before Wolverine joined the X-Men (with a very token present-day framing sequence). Wolverine tracks down and kills the mercenaries whom he met at the Iraqi embassy incident five years previously. Before killing the last one, he explains that he’s taking revenge on behalf of the nun that they tormented. In Wolverine’s eyes, the worst thing they did was to destroy her spirit so that she had no more forgiveness for them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In flashback in Marvel Graphic Novel: Wolverine \/ Nick Fury: Scorpio Connection<\/em><\/strong>, Wolverine is rescued from assassins by Australian secret agent David Nanjiwarra<\/strong>. He advises David to join SHIELD.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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ALPHA FLIGHT vol 1 #9<\/a><\/strong>
“A Stranger in my Mirror” <\/strong>
by John Byrne<\/strong>
April 1984<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This is a back-up strip. Apparently by pure coincidence, Logan stumbles upon Jeanne-Marie Beaubier<\/strong> fighting off some muggers. He rescues her, realises that she has powers, and invites her back to Department H. She’ll go on to become Aurora and join Alpha Flight.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #228<\/strong> has a single panel flashback of Wolverine fighting the mutant KGB assassin Vladimir Zaitsev.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

X-Men Unlimited<\/strong><\/em> vol 2 #9<\/strong> has a flashback in which Logan is out drinking with his friend Johnny and they get into an argument with some people about an allegedly fixed boxing match. Despite knowing about Logan’s powers, Johnny takes a bullet for him, and is injured for life. Placement of this scene is tricky, and the Chronology Project has it miles later. Logan does mention discussing his superhuman activities with Johnny, and he has his adamantium claws, but he also says that Johnny was trying to save his life “at a time when it wasn’t exactly worth saving.” I’m going to stick it here, at the very tail end of Romulus’ influence, which is as good as anything.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Flashbacks in WOLVERINE: FIRST CLASS #5<\/a><\/strong>
“Citadel” <\/strong>
by Fred Van Lente & Clayton Henry<\/strong>
June 2008<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Wolverine, Aurora, Snowbird and Michael Twoyoungmen – now Shaman<\/strong> – rescue the Governor General of Canada (and other less important hostages) from a group of villains led by Citadel<\/strong>. Citadel and his men turn out to be wounded Canadian soldiers who had adamantium grafted onto their bodies against their will by Canadian government scientists. Understandably, Wolverine wants to compare notes with Citadel about how he got his own adamantium, but Citadel is carted away before he can talk. You guessed it – this is yet another story that claims to be revealing the real <\/em>reason that Wolverine quit Alpha Flight.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Flashbacks in WOLVERINE vol 2 #144<\/a><\/strong>
“First Cut!” <\/strong>
by Erik Larsen, Eric Stephenson, Mike Miller & Vince Russell<\/strong>
November 1999<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This flashback opens with what’s obviously meant to be Wolverine getting his costume for the first time, but given what it leads into, that doesn’t work; if you squint a bit, maybe he’s just getting a replacement costume.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Anyway, Wolverine is sent to deal with some low-rent terrorists who’ve kidnapped the Minister of Defense’s daughter. But in mid-fight, he’s teleported away by the Leader<\/strong> (Samuel Sterns), who has also captured Hercules and the Deviant Karkas<\/strong>, and plans to use all them all against the Hulk. But they escape before that can go anywhere. Wolverine makes it back to Canada just as everyone is panicking about his absence… because they need him to fight the Hulk.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Next time, welcome to 1974, and Wolverine’s debut<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Edited on 12 November 2020 to revise the entry for Free Comic Book Day<\/em> 2009: Wolverine<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

Edited on 23 July 2021 to add the flashback from X-Men Unlimited #9.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

Edited on 18 December 2021 to add Debt of Death.<\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Part 9: Department H We’ve reached the Silver Age. Not that Wolverine’s going to interact […]<\/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-5679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wolverine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5679","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=5679"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7419,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5679\/revisions\/7419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}