{"id":6502,"date":"2021-04-11T15:18:36","date_gmt":"2021-04-11T14:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6502"},"modified":"2021-04-12T09:53:11","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T08:53:11","slug":"the-incomplete-wolverine-1986","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6502","title":{"rendered":"The Incomplete Wolverine – 1986"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 1: Origin to Origin II<\/a> | <\/a>Part 2: 1907 to 1914<\/a>
\n<\/a>Part 3: 1914 to 1939<\/a> | <\/a>Part 4: World War II<\/a>
\n<\/a>Part 5: The postwar era<\/a> | <\/a>Part 6: Team X<\/a>
\n<\/a>Part 7: Post Team X<\/a> | <\/a>Part 8: Weapon X<\/a>
\n<\/a>Part 9: Department H<\/a> | <\/a>Part 10: The Silver Age<\/a>
\n1974-1975<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/a>1976<\/a> | <\/a>1977<\/a> | <\/a>1978<\/a> | <\/a>1979<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>
\n1980<\/a> | <\/a>1981<\/a> | 1982<\/a><\/em>\u00a0| 1983<\/em><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a01984<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>|\u00a01985<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

When we left off, Professor X had just handed the school over to Magneto and disappeared off to space. Oh, and we’re still in the middle of\u00a0Secret Wars II<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #201<\/a>
\n“Duel”
\nby Chris Claremont, Rick Leonardi, Whilce Portacio & Glynis Oliver
\nJanuary 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

On returning home from Paris, the X-Men meet the newborn\u00a0Nathan Summers<\/strong> (the future Cable). Magneto takes up his role as the New Mutants’ mentor. And Storm beats Cyclops in a duel, to become the X-Men’s leader again. Wolverine blatantly supports Storm in that argument, arguing that Cyclops’ heart is no longer in it – presumably because of Cyclops’ conflicted feelings about his duty to his family. Wolverine thinks of Scott’s non-combatant family as a liability.<\/p>\n

MARVEL FANFARE vol 1 #33<\/a>
\n“Shadows on the Soul!”
\nby Chris Claremont, June Brigman, Terry Austin & Glynis Oliver
\nFebruary 1987<\/strong><\/p>\n

The X-Men, Magneto and Lee Forrester are holidaying on Island M (despite everyone finding the place a bit creepy) when the statues come to life and attack. This turns out to be the work of the Chief Examiner<\/strong>, who wants to copy Magneto’s powers and use them to save his alien race. Magneto agrees to be scanned. As for Wolverine, he gets turned to stone for most of the issue.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This story was commissioned for the unpublished\u00a0Questprobe\u00a0<\/em>#4, and eventually wound up in Marvel’s inventory dumping-ground title.\u00a0Questprobe<\/em> was a projected 12-issue miniseries, promoting a series of text adventure games. The whole thing fell through after the developer went bust, and the X-Men game was never completed.<\/p>\n

POWER PACK vol 1 #19<\/a>
\n“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”
\nby Louise Simonson and various artists
\nFebruary 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Logan and Kitty go to the Thanksgiving parade in Manhattan, and have a minor role in clearing up some confusion caused by the Morlock empath Annalee. Later, they go to Power Pack’s Thanksgiving party, also attended by Annalee,\u00a0Leech<\/strong>, Franklin Richard,\u00a0Beta Ray Bill, Cloak<\/strong> (Tyrone Johnson) and\u00a0Dagger<\/strong> (Tandy Bowen). As with her appearance in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> last year, Annalee’s behaviour towards Leech is horrific, and by today’s standards everyone is\u00a0far\u00a0<\/em>too tolerant of her behaviour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>ALPHA FLIGHT vol 1 #33-34<\/a>
\n“A Friend in Need” \/ “Honor”
\nby Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema, Gerry Talaoc & Bob Sharen
\nApril and May 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one is significant. Heather Hudson shows up at the X-Men Mansion wearing the Guardian battlesuit, and asks Wolverine to train her as a superhero. He isn’t keen on her using the battlesuit, considering that it killed James, but he agrees anyway. They’re attacked by the debuting\u00a0Lady Deathstrike<\/strong> (Yuriko Oyama) and her samurai henchmen. Yuriko has previously appeared in Daredevil, <\/em>which is where her back story originates, but this is her first appearance as Deathstrike, and the first time Wolverine has met her. At this point, she’s just a regular samurai. She accuses Wolverine of using power stolen from her father – she believes that he was given his adamantium skeleton using techniques stolen from her late father, Lord Dark Wind.\u00a0Wolverine and Heather drive the villains off, and Heather proves herself as a superhero. She becomes the new\u00a0Vindicator<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As well as introducing a major Wolverine villain, this story has a lengthy flashback to Logan’s time with the Hudsons, and strongly hints that James Hudson was involved in Wolverine getting his adamantium skeleton. Mantlo takes the line that Logan was in love with Heather; that she was the one who helped him regain his sanity, not James; and that he left Department H because he knew she would never leave James for him. James was being treated as quite a compromised character at this point, and there’s been some heavy backpedalling on a lot of this material in later years.<\/p>\n

Chris Claremont will later import Deathstrike into Wolverine’s rogue’s gallery. He converts her into a cyborg, but otherwise keeps her more or less as seen here. She seems to know that Wolverine didn’t get his adamantium by choice, but presents her vendetta as a matter of honour for them both. She also gives a back story for her father, which Claremont adopts in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #205, in which he developed his adamantium bonding technique to atone for the shame of being a kamikaze pilot who survived.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>HEROES FOR HOPE STARRING THE X-MEN #1
\nby various creators
\nDecember 1985<\/strong><\/p>\n

Psychic scavenger Hungry<\/strong> attacks the X-Men with hallucinations in order to feed on their misery, but the X-Men track him to famine-stricken Africa and defeat him. Wolverine, specifically, is presented with a doppelganger of himself, and told that he has to defeat it in order to get all the answers to his past. He breaks the spell by defeating the duplicate, but refusing to kill it.<\/p>\n

This was a jam story released as a famine relief fundraiser. Mercifully, Hungry is not presented as the cause of the famine, but simply as a parasite taking advantage of it.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0flashback in\u00a0Wolverine: Weapon X<\/em> #16<\/strong>\u00a0shows Logan and Kurt helping to deliver aid while they’re in Africa. They discuss how Kurt deals with the fact that even here, people are afraid of his appearance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CAPTAIN AMERICA ANNUAL #8<\/a>
\n“TESS-One”
\nby Mark Gruenwald, Mike Zeck & John Beatty
\n1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wolverine teams up with Captain America to battle Overrider<\/b> (Richard Renselaer), an ex-SHIELD agent with the mutant power to control technology, and his stolen anti-supersoldier robot\u00a0TESS-One<\/strong>. Overrider plans first to get TESS-One coated in adamantium, and then to destroy the US’s nuclear missile stockpile so that World War III can’t happen. Oh, and Logan also crosses paths with\u00a0Bob Frank<\/strong> (sometimes known as “Nuklo”).<\/p>\n

This is quite a good story. Gruenwald clearly understands that Wolverine is supposed to have hidden depths, but deliberately makes sure that Captain America fails to spot any of them. The result is an utterly dysfunctional team-up which ends with Wolverine making a polite concession to Cap’s sensibilities by not actively killing Overrider (but still letting him fall to severe injury), and Cap yelling at Wolverine that he’d never be allowed anywhere near the Avengers. So Cap treats Wolverine’s code of ethics as utterly beyond the pale, but at the same time the story as a whole is more sympathetic to him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>BEST OF MARVEL COMICS vol 1
\n“The Hunter”
\nby Chris Claremont & Marshall Rogers
\n1987<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wolverine returns to Tokyo to rescue Mariko Yashida from\u00a0Sabuka<\/strong>, a tycoon with yakuza connections, whose henchmen are a mixture of traditionally-dressed goons and Mandroids. Wolverine outwits Sabuka’s schemes and terrorises Sabuka into giving up his criminal ambitions.<\/p>\n

Best of Marvel Comics vol 1\u00a0<\/em>(there is no vol 2)\u00a0was a Sears-exclusive reprint collection, but it also contains this original short story.\u00a0The official timelines place this story between\u00a0Uncanny<\/em> #148-149, but Wolverine is identified as “the so-called ‘champion’ of Clan Yashida” – which to my mind places it after the\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> miniseries. On that basis, I’m sticking it in the last available gap before the X-Men start the storylines that lead to their (first) San Francisco phase; the plot seems consistent with Logan and Mariko’s status quo at that point.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>POWER PACK: GROW UP!<\/a>
\n“Growing Pains”
\nby Louise Simonson, June Brigman, Roy Richardson & Tamra Bonvillain
\nAugust 2019
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the night before his 13th birthday, Alex Power goes to see an open air Lila Cheney concert in New York, accompanied by his family and\u00a0Allison McCourt<\/strong>. Allison was a \u00a0Power Pack\u00a0<\/em>supporting character who Alex had a crush on, so this is his big chance.<\/p>\n

Kofi<\/strong> shows up\u00a0in\u00a0Smartship Friday<\/strong> with the Brood in pursuit. Alex dithers over whether to leave Allison before finally joining the fight. Kitty and Wolverine show up for the end of the fight, and Logan gives Alex some reasonably sensible big-brother advice, reminding him that at least he made the right decision in the end.<\/p>\n

This story is surprisingly easy to place: Wolverine and Power Pack already know each other, so it’s after\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #195. The Morlocks are still around, so it’s before\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #211. And the only significant gaps in that period fall during\u00a0Secret Wars II<\/em>.<\/p>\n

SECRET WARS II #7<\/a>
\n“Charge of the Dark Brigade!”
\nby Jim Shooter, Al Milgrom, \u00a0Steve Leialoha & Juliana Ferriter
\nJanuary 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

The X-Men and the New Mutants appear in a single panel, watching news coverage of the Beyonder. Phoenix wants to go after him, but Magneto rules that they should leave him alone, since he isn’t actually doing anything. This sets up…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #202<\/a>
\n“X-Men, I’ve Gone to Kill the Beyonder!”
\nby Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Al Williamson & Glynis Oliver
\nFebruary 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phoenix goes after the Beyonder anyway. The X-Men follow her to San Francisco, where the Beyonder makes her choose between killing him and saving the X-Men. He thinks he’s giving her a chance to purge her survivor’s guilt from her time as a hound, but she doesn’t see it that way.<\/p>\n

Wolverine sides with Phoenix – he’s all for killing the Beyonder as an unacceptable danger. He’s also gone back to his usual pattern of needling the new leader, this time by reminding Magneto about the problems that his past schemes are still causing for the X-Men. Kitty thinks that Wolverine is trying to test their new leader, but also thinks that it’s bad teamwork because Magneto isn’t getting the point.<\/p>\n

After this story, the X-Men hang around in San Francisco to help rebuild. They stay at the home of\u00a0Jessica Drew<\/strong>, which I think is Wolverine’s first meeting with her. According to\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #1, he also meets her roommate\u00a0Lindsay McCabe<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Secret Wars II<\/em> has a little bit left to run, but there’s not much to say about it from Wolverine’s standpoint.<\/p>\n

SECRET WARS II #8<\/a>
\n“Betrayal!”
\nby Jim Shooter, Al Milgrom, Steve Leilaloha & Julianna Ferriter
\nFebruary 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Convinced that the Beyonder is indeed a threat, the X-Men attack him and get absolutely nowhere. But the Beyonder \u00a0realises that he provoked the fight, and wanders off to have a think about that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #203<\/a>
\n“Crossroads”
\nby Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Al Williamson & Glynis Oliver
\nMarch 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Without their permission, Phoenix takes the souls of the X-Men and the Starjammers into the M’Kraan Crystal, which she plans to destroy in order to reboot the universe without the Beyonder. She backs down after everyone confronts her about what this would mean in practice. The Beyonder shows up and admits that he was rather hoping she’d do it. Instead, she gives him cosmic awareness of the lives of individuals, which he experiences as an epiphany; he wanders off to contemplate the attraction of mortality.<\/p>\n

SECRET WARS II #9<\/a>
\n“God in Man, Man in God!”
\nby Jim Shooter, Al Milgrom, Steve Leialoha & various colourists
\nMarch 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phoenix summons an army of heroes to Colorado for the final showdown against the Beyonder. Eventually, he seems to die while trying to decant himself into a truly mortal body. The Molecule Man redirects his power into another dimension.<\/p>\n

The gathered heroes are mostly people that Wolverine has met before, but it’s his first encounter with\u00a0Mockingbird<\/strong> (Bobbi Barton),\u00a0the Black Knight<\/strong> (Dane Whitman),\u00a0Box<\/strong> (Roger Bochs), and\u00a0the West Coast Avengers<\/strong> (as a team – he’s met most of the members before).<\/p>\n

Wolverine doesn’t appear in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #204, which is a Nightcrawler solo story.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #205<\/a>
\n“Wounded Wolf”
\nby Chris Claremont & Barry Windsor-Smith
\nMay 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lady Deathstrike has hired Spiral to turn her into a cyborg. She is now accompanied by henchmen Cole, Reese and Macon – the three mercenaries that Wolverine injured in the Hellfire Club back during the Dark Phoenix Saga, and who were turned into cyborgs as a result. Deathstrike and co ambush Wolverine and seriously injure him, but Energizer from Power Pack helps shelter him while he heals. Once he’s sufficiently recovered, Wolverine defeats\u00a0Deathstrike, but refuses to kill her, telling her instead that she has to earn her freedom.<\/p>\n

This is an excellent issue, and also an important one, in that it imports Lady Deathstrike from Alpha Flight\u00a0<\/em>into the X-books, where she stays.\u00a0The story is very clear that she only becomes a cyborg in order to pursuer her mission against Wolverine. Spiral has supposedly promised to restore all four to full humanity once the mission is over (though only Deathstrike really cares). Deathstrike claims here that she feels honour-bound to kill Logan to avenge her father, but that her main motivation is simply to free herself of that duty and move on with her \u00a0life. Logan dismisses this whole scheme as futile and unnecessary even by the standards of X-books\u00a0giri<\/em>\u00a0– and he sees Deathstrike as having thrown away the humanity that he would “give pretty near anything to possess.”<\/p>\n

Logan takes brain damage at the start of the attack, so he spends most of the issue mute and confused. He sees this as a regression to his animal state, reminding him of the bestial period he thought he had put behind him.\u00a0In\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #37<\/strong>, a time-travelling Wolverine and Puck briefly pop through this story.<\/p>\n

Wolverine doesn’t appear in Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #206, because he’s still recovering from his injuries. At some point before issue #207, the team cart him back to New York to get the Morlock Healer to sort him out – though he continues to complain about his injuries all the way through to the Mutant Massacre.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #207-210<\/a>
\n“Ghosts” \/ “Retribution” \/ “Salvation” \/ “The Morning After”
\n#207-208 and #210 by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Dan Green & Glynis Oliver
\n#209 by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, P Craig Russell & Glynis Oliver
\nJuly to October 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phoenix dreams about being killed by Wolverine for her crimes. The implication is that she’s reading his mind in her sleep, and that he’s angry about her high-handed treatment of her teammates during\u00a0Secret Wars II.\u00a0<\/em>But he’s also serving as a general Nemesis figure for her storyline. On recovering from his healing session, Logan goes after her, and catches up to her just as she is about to kill the new\u00a0Black Queen<\/strong> (Selene). He regards this as murder, apparently because it’s a premeditated assassination. When Rachel refuses to stand down, he claws her.<\/p>\n

The other X-Men are naturally appalled by all this. When they finally catch up with Rachel, she berates Wolverine, and tells him that Selene has already gone on to kill more innocents. This leads to a multi-way fight between Phoenix, the Hellfire Club and Nimrod. This seems to be Wolverine’s first encounter with Hellfire aide\u00a0Tessa<\/strong> (later Sage). The X-Men and the Hellfire Club defeat Nimrod, at the cost of the lives of Harry Leland and the Black Rook. Nimrod escapes, and Phoenix is led away by Spiral – her storyline picks up in\u00a0Excalibur<\/em>.\u00a0The next day, the X-Men assume that Phoenix has deserted them. Wolverine follows her trail, but it’s a dead end. Storm tells him that he should never have gone after Phoenix alone, and that if the whole team had been there, it might have made a difference. Wolverine replies that he’s a loner by nature, but promises to work as a team member in future, because the team depends on him.<\/p>\n

This storyline is notoriously difficult. Wolverine’s thinking is difficult to make sense of – or at least, difficult in any way that’s consistent with his other appearances. Logan’s main points seem to be that (1) Phoenix’s attack on Selene is unprovoked and amounts to murder, and (2) as heroes, the X-Men have to stand for higher principles and play by the rules. You can make a case for one of the X-Men being willing to injure a teammate (who’s their responsibility) to stop them from crossing a line in injuring a villain, but Wolverine is not well placed to make that argument. It’s not easy to square with later stories showing Wolverine in X-Force, but also earlier stories in which Wolverine is more than willing to use lethal force.<\/p>\n

But the other X-Men don’t find his reasoning remotely persuasive either. So perhaps we’re not\u00a0meant<\/em> to be persuaded. The real issue may be simply that Wolverine has come round to believing in the importance of higher ideals as part of his own programme of personal redemption; it’s important to him that the X-Men stand for those ideals because his membership of the X-Men is one of the symbols of his own personal improvement.<\/p>\n

In the back-up strip in\u00a0X-Men Annual<\/em> vol 1 #14, Wolverine and Phoenix talk about this incident. Wolverine claims that the moral is “the stronger you are, the more power you possess, the more you need limits” – i.e., if Phoenix rationalises one execution, she’s on a slippery slope that will lead to more. This argument seems to depend more on a particular concern that Phoenix needs to be held to higher standards because she’s so powerful, which really isn’t what he said at the time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN ANNUAL vol 1 #10<\/a>
\n“Performance”
\nby Chris Claremont, Art Adams, Terry Austin & Glynis Oliver
\n1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Psylocke<\/strong> (Betsy Braddock) has moved into the Mansion, but unknown to all, her cyborg eyes are actually providing footage for\u00a0Mojo<\/strong>. Mojo dumps\u00a0Longshot<\/strong> into the Mansion. The next morning, the X-Men, Longshot and Psylocke all turn into little kids, and are drawn to a portal to the Mojoverse. Mojo starts ageing them again, in his desired image. The New Mutants rescue them. Wolverine, specifically, is regressed to animal status, and is the first to recover his normal personality by force of will. The X-Men and the New Mutants drive Mojo away, and force Spiral to set things right.<\/p>\n

(This isn’t the first appearance of the actual X-Babies, who started off as callbacks to this story – and parodies of the overexpansion of the line.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #211<\/a>
\n“Massacre”
\nby Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr, Bret Blevins, Al Williamson & Glynis Oliver
\nNovember 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wolverine is still meant to be taking it easy, given his injuries from issue #205. Colossus and Rogue both note that Wolverine has recovered more quickly from far worse injuries in the past, and wonder if something is wrong – but that plot just fades out.<\/p>\n

The Marauders<\/strong> attack the Morlock tunnels and slaughter the inhabitants. The X-Men go to fight them – Wolverine, in particular, encounters Vertigo,\u00a0Riptide, Scrambler<\/strong> and\u00a0Harpoon<\/strong> here. As they search the tunnels, Wolverine is surprised to pick up the original X-Men’s scent – all five of them, meaning that Jean Grey is back. (This is\u00a0X-Factor<\/strong>, in the tunnels for their own part of the crossover.) But Wolverine isn’t totally<\/em> sure that it’s the real Jean, so he keeps quiet about that for now.<\/p>\n

The battle goes catastrophically, with Nightcrawler badly injured and Shadowcat stuck in her intangible state. While Storm evacuates, she tells Wolverine to stay in the tunnels, and take one of the Marauders prisoner – the rest are his.<\/p>\n

POWER PACK vol 1 #27<\/a>
\n“Whose Power–?”
\nby Louise Simonson, Jon Bogdanove, Al Gordon & Glynis Oliver
\nDecember 1986<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wolverine picks up Sabretooth’s scent, and starts tailing him. He comes across Power Pack – now going by the names\u00a0Destroyer, Molecula, Counterweight<\/strong> and\u00a0Starstreak<\/strong>, and accompanied by\u00a0Tattletale<\/strong> (Franklin Richards). Wolverine tells them to go home, but has to race off and help screaming massacre victims before he can press the point. (They don’t leave, but that’s not Wolverine’s problem.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #212-213<\/a>
\n“The Last Run” \/ “Psylocke”
\n#212 by Chris Claremont, Rick Leonardi, Dan Green & Glynis Oliver
\n#213 by Chris Claremont, Alan Davis, Paul Neary & Glynis Oliver
\nDecember 1986 and January 1987<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wolverine fights Sabretooth, who identifies the Morlocks’ employer as Mister Sinister<\/strong>. (Wolverine has met Sinister \/ “Nathaniel Essex” before in Origin II<\/em>, but even if he remembers that story, he doesn’t know they’re the same person.) Wolverine brings down the tunnel roof to trap Sabretooth, before escaping back to the Mansion with the Healer. Wolverine sees this as a sign of his maturity – he’s walked away from a fight with his hated rival Sabretooth in order to take the honourable course and save Healer. For Wolverine, this proves his growth as a member of the X-Men; Sabretooth, of course, is an echo of how Wolverine used to be.<\/p>\n

In issue #213, Sabretooth shows up at the Mansion and attacks Psylocke. Wolverine fights Sabretooth again, but this time there’s no overriding urgent mission to make him keep his focus. So he joins Sabretooth in a berserker rage. In narration, Psylocke describes this as “matched by a terrible, transcendent joy – they so love what they do.” Generally, she spends a lot of this issue playing up their similarities. During the fight, Psylocke takes advantage of the distraction to read Sabretooth’s mind for info. During that, we get some out of context images of a younger Logan, defeated by Sabretooth in the snow – this is the story about the death of Silver Fox, which eventually gets told in\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #10. Wolverine claims by the end of this issue that distracting Sabretooth was a deliberate plan, but the narrator strongly suggests otherwise. At any rate, the story ends when they hurl themselves over a cliff (another piece of foreshadowing for\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> vol 2 #10), and Sabretooth escapes.<\/p>\n

Although Sabretooth was hinted to have some connection with Wolverine back in his first appearances in the 1970s, this is the first published story where they interact. It introduces him as Wolverine’s arch-enemy and shadow version – Sabretooth represents the berserker side that Wolverine is now transcending, and perhaps the sort of person he used to be. Sabretooth has since been retconned into large chunks of Wolverine’s history, but his role as arch enemy only fully makes sense in the light of the development that Wolverine has undergone to date.<\/p>\n

This is also the first story where Wolverine has any significant interaction with Psylocke. Initially he doesn’t seem very impressed, and dismisses her as an upper-class outsider who should shut up until she’s learned more about the X-Men. Of course, she proves herself against Sabretooth by the end of the story. This is more about Psylocke than Wolverine – she gets treated very similarly by Storm.<\/p>\n

Oh, and presumably Wolverine meets\u00a0Sharon Friedlander<\/strong> and\u00a0Tom Corsi<\/strong> during the Mutant Massacre arc, if he hasn’t already done so – both are helping out at the Mansion throughout.<\/p>\n

Next time, in 1987, the aftermath of the Massacre and the build towards Fall of the Mutants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914 Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age 1974-1975\u00a0|\u00a01976 | […]<\/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-6502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wolverine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502","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=6502"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6648,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502\/revisions\/6648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}