{"id":7531,"date":"2022-01-19T21:42:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T21:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7531"},"modified":"2022-01-19T23:33:19","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T23:33:19","slug":"x-lives-of-wolverine-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7531","title":{"rendered":"X Lives of Wolverine #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Unknown-33.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7532 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Unknown-33.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"181\" height=\"279\" \/><\/a><strong>X LIVES OF WOLVERINE #1<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara &amp; Frank Martin<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>X LIVES OF WOLVERINE<\/strong> is one of two linked miniseries running over the next ten weeks, the other being\u00a0<em>X Deaths of Wolverine<\/em>. It replaces most of the regular X-books during this period (but not all) and effectively serves as a season break before the next relaunch.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.marvel.com\/comics\/issue\/94101\/x_lives_of_wolverine_2022_1\">This issue has been made available on Marvel Unlimited on its release date.<\/a>\u00a0I can&#8217;t imagine direct market retailers are going to be very happy about that, but that &#8211; and the reasons why Marvel might have done it &#8211; are a matter for another day. At any rate, if you have a Marvel Unlimited subscription, there is no need to buy this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong>\u00a0Ten incarnations of Wolverine, all entwined in Omega Red&#8217;s tentacles. Specifically, the ten incarnations are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At the top, present-day Wolverine.<\/li>\n<li>Row 2, on the left, Wolverine as Weapon X.<\/li>\n<li>Row 2, on the right, Wolverine as he appeared in his debut in\u00a0<em>Incredible Hulk<\/em> vol 2 #181.<\/li>\n<li>Between them, Wolverine as Patch, in the white dinner jacket from the early issues of his solo series.<\/li>\n<li>Row 4, on the left, a soldier Wolverine &#8211; I think this is Wolverine as shown in flashbacks to World War I.<\/li>\n<li>Row 4, on the right, Wolverine as a member of Team X.<\/li>\n<li>Between them, a Logan with no shirt and ragged trousers &#8211; probably Logan as a wilderness dweller after\u00a0<em>Origin<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Row 6, on the left, what seems to be a cowboy Logan, presumably from his early post-<em>Origin<\/em> days.<\/li>\n<li>Row 6, on the right, Logan in the clothes from this issue, when he shows up at the Xavier Mansion.<\/li>\n<li>Right at the bottom, a Wolverine in a light grey version of his costume, probably from <em>X-Force<\/em> vol 3 (the Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost &amp; Clayton Crain run).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 2-3.<\/strong>\u00a0<em>Wolverine philosophises about time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This seems to be mainly intended to prime us for the story itself being told out of chronological sequence (both in historical terms and from the point of view of the characters). After all, once you&#8217;re doing a time travel story, why do it in sequence?<\/p>\n<p>The point about time being disoriented because the Krakoan gates allow you to travel instantly between time zones is something that Wolverine also pointed out in his narration in\u00a0<em>Wolverine<\/em> #19.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll find out later (more or less) what Professor X wants Wolverine to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 4.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>The larger Krakoan text reads &#8220;X LIVES&#8221;; the greyed-out text next to it says &#8220;X DEATHS&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>There are five linked sets of hexagons at the top of the page, two of which are greyed out entirely here; presumably they&#8217;re going to be highlighted in the equivalent pages of\u00a0<em>X Deaths<\/em>. Of the other three set, the first shows Logan, Professor X and Jean Grey, wi th a fourth picture greyed out (and a name redacted from the accompanying list). The list has &#8220;X&#8221; after each name, and &#8220;Krakoa&#8221; as an apparent location. The second set has \u00a0a picture of Logan and his name on a list, but everything else greyed out &#8211; though we can see the Roman numeral &#8220;VI&#8221; after each name. The third set has Logan&#8217;s name but all the names blanked out, along with all the pictures &#8211; including Logan&#8217;s. This list has &#8220;VII&#8221; by everyone&#8217;s names.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 5-8.<\/strong>\u00a0<em>Logan shows up to defend the birth of Charles Xavier.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The basic idea seems to be that Omega Red is possessing various people to attack Professor X at various points in his past, and Wolverine has been sent back in time by Professor X and Jean Grey to all these various points in history in order to stop it. We&#8217;ll presumably find out more about that as it goes on, but it&#8217;s spelt out relatively clearly in this week&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Life of Wolverine Infinity Comic<\/em> #1, where Jean says &#8220;Sending Wolverine&#8217;s consciousness back through time requires me to act as his &#8220;mental anchor&#8221; in the here and now, keeping his mind safe no matter where this journey leads.&#8221; Presumably, then, this is meant to be Logan occupying the body of his past self,\u00a0in the style of &#8220;Days of Future Past&#8221;. (If so, I&#8217;ll add all these appearances to the Incomplete Wolverine posts once the series is over.)<\/p>\n<p>This is apparently meant to be the birth of Professor X, which we haven&#8217;t seen before. The closest we&#8217;ve had is\u00a0a flashback in\u00a0<em>New X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #121 (the silent issue), which shows Charles killing his evil twin sister Cassandra Nova Xavier in the womb, following by a single panel of Sharon falling down the stairs and landing at the feet of an alarmed-looking Brian.<\/p>\n<p>The setting here doesn&#8217;t look much like the X-Men Mansion, but maybe the family haven&#8217;t yet inherited it from Professor X&#8217;s grandparents. The <em>New X-Men\u00a0<\/em>#121 flashback seems to show a fairly normal suburban house, but it&#8217;s part of a wonky surrealist dream sequence, so you don&#8217;t have to take it literally.<\/p>\n<p>More of an issue is that the art seems to have some very odd ideas about what decade it is. It&#8217;s 2022 now, so even if Xavier was 70, this scene would have to take place in the 1950s. Wolverine mentions later that he&#8217;s &#8220;twice as old as the Professor&#8221; &#8211; if we take that literally, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5308\">Logan was apparently born in around the 1890s<\/a>, and that would also fit with a timeframe in the mid-20th century. The art feels a good 30 or 40 years out to me.<\/p>\n<p>Xavier&#8217;s parents are\u00a0<strong>Brian and Sharon Xavier<\/strong>, both of whom died long before <em>X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #1. Sharon first appeared in <em>X-Men\u00a0<\/em>vol 1 #12, which contains a lengthy flashback to\u00a0the back story of Professor X and the Juggernaut. Brian is mentioned in that flashback, but doesn&#8217;t actually appear on panel until a flashback in\u00a0<em>X-Men<\/em> vol 2 #12.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 9-10.<\/strong>\u00a0<em>Omega Red breaks into the Hatchery computers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The unnamed guy he beats up is\u00a0<strong>Egg<\/strong>. The significance of the information Omega Red accesses is explained on the following data page.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 11.<\/strong> Data page: an exchange of memos by which X-Force (specifically, the Beast) insists on Omega Red being resurrected with a version of his carbonadium synthesiser that can be used to track him without his knowledge. This is basically recapping\u00a0<em>X-Force<\/em> #15 for newcomers. For present purposes all you really need to know is that Omega Red is generally compelled to kill people and absorb their life essence; the C-synth is a device that gives him more control over all that; and Beast secretly replaced it with a version provided by Forge that included a tracking device, so that he could track Omega Red and investigate his dealings with Dracula and the Vampire Nation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Five<\/strong>\u00a0have increasingly been shown resisting directions to do things they have moral objections to, but that came along after the point where they resurrected Omega Red.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 12-19.<\/strong> <em>Cassandra is stillborn, and Omega Red tries to kill Sharon.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As already noted, Cassandra was killed in the womb by Charles, all as shown in flashback in\u00a0<em>New X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #121. She eventually returns as a psychic villain, and we&#8217;re due to see more of her in the next season.<\/p>\n<p>Wolverine&#8217;s period body only has bone claws, because we&#8217;re way before the Weapon X Project.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 20-22.<\/strong> <em>Present day: Wolverine is connected to Cerebro and sent back in time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This sequence is expanded upon in\u00a0<em>Life of Wolverine Infinity Comic<\/em>, where it serves as a framing device to recap Wolverine&#8217;s history. In this version we just get a double page spread with fractured images from Wolverine&#8217;s life. Starting from bottom left and working roughly clockwise, the images are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wolverine fighting the Silver Samurai, in what could be any of several stories.<\/li>\n<li>Young Logan (James Howlett) discovering his powers for the first time.<\/li>\n<li>Logan as a crying newborn. This is technically an original appearance, and counts as his chronologically earliest appearance, unless you count the photograph of him as a baby which appears in\u00a0<em>Wolverine: The End<\/em> #4.<\/li>\n<li>Wolverine fighting Lady Deathstrike in\u00a0<em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #205.<\/li>\n<li>Logan as Weapon X.<\/li>\n<li>Logan healing from hideous facial injuries; this could be all sorts of things.<\/li>\n<li>Logan accompanying Professor X in his wheelchair; this is generic.<\/li>\n<li>Wolverine fighting the Hulk in\u00a0<em>Incredible Hulk<\/em> vol 2 #181.<\/li>\n<li>The (abortive) wedding of Logan and Mariko from\u00a0<em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #172.<\/li>\n<li>Logan kneeling in fire with a sword next to him; this might be something to do with him visiting Hell to get the Muramasa Blade in &#8220;X of Swords&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Wolverine fighting Sabretooth, who&#8217;s awfully marginal in all this for a character who used to be presented as Wolverine&#8217;s arch-enemy..<\/li>\n<li>Wolverine fighting Omega Red.<\/li>\n<li>Wolverine looking regretful over his blood-covered claws.<\/li>\n<li>Wolverine on an X-shaped cross, from\u00a0<em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #251.<\/li>\n<li>A generic shot of Logan extending his claws.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>PAGES 23-25.<\/strong> <em>Logan fights Omega Red while Charles Xavier is born.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>All pretty straightforward. The point being set up here is that Logan is at a disadvantage because he doesn&#8217;t want to hurt Omega Red&#8217;s host body.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 26-28.<\/strong> <em>Omega Red arrives in Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Russians have been generally hostile to Krakoa throughout the current era.<\/p>\n<p>The man approaching Omega Red is\u00a0<strong>Mikhail Rasputin<\/strong>, one of the main villains from\u00a0<em>X-Force<\/em>. He&#8217;s a high end reality warper, and I suppose the art is meant to show him taking Omega Red to some sort of pocket location so they can talk &#8211; though it&#8217;s not really very clear.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 29.<\/strong> Data page. Apparently Mikhail is working on a &#8220;new constitution&#8221; to give him equal power to Vladimir Putin. We&#8217;re only told that it&#8217;s been drafted, not that it&#8217;s been adopted. Mikhail was using Chronicler&#8217;s mind-control powers to influence the Russian government in\u00a0<em>X-Force<\/em> #23, so this is presumably something to do with that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Cerebro Sword<\/strong> is an artefact made by Magneto from the Cerebro helmet that was destroyed by a sniper bullet in\u00a0<em>X-Force<\/em> #1. It was stolen by Mikhail Rasputin in\u00a0<em>X-Force<\/em> #12. As of\u00a0<em>X-Force<\/em> #23, he was still trying to access and decrypt its data.<\/p>\n<p>The reference to &#8220;twins in the womb&#8221; obviously echoes Charles and Cassandra; the reference to &#8220;nesting dolls&#8221;, aside from a rather obvious Russian stereotype, relates to the artificial &#8220;nesting doll&#8221; soldiers seen in various issues of\u00a0<em>X-Force<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 30-33.<\/strong> <em>Baby Charles is saved.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not entirely clear whether Omega Red&#8217;s host body falls to her death (she&#8217;s still murmuring at the end), or whether it&#8217;s simply that the serious injury makes him move on. Maybe we&#8217;ll find out in due course. Needless to say, plots of this sort invite all sort of story-breaking questions &#8211; why not just come back two weeks earlier and kill Sharon? &#8211; but perhaps the ground rules will be clearer as we go on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 34-35.<\/strong> <em>Logan arrives in his next jump.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is\u00a0<strong>Team X<\/strong>, the black ops squad that Logan was a member of.\u00a0<strong>Sabretooth<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Maverick<\/strong> are teammates at this point, and Sabretooth is dutifully saving him from an explosion while he&#8217;s disoriented. That&#8217;s in character for Sabretooth at this point in history.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, it&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Quantum Leap<\/em>, isn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 36.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads OMEGA.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X LIVES OF WOLVERINE #1 by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara &amp; Frank Martin X LIVES OF WOLVERINE is one of two linked miniseries running over the next ten weeks, the other being\u00a0X Deaths of Wolverine. It replaces most of the regular [&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,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7531","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=7531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7534,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7531\/revisions\/7534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}