{"id":7680,"date":"2022-03-10T20:53:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T20:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7680"},"modified":"2022-03-10T20:53:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T20:53:55","slug":"x-deaths-of-wolverine-4-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7680","title":{"rendered":"X Deaths of Wolverine #4 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE #4<\/strong>
\nWriter: Benjamin Percy<\/strong>
\nArtist: Federico Vicentini<\/strong>
\nColourist: Dijjo Lima<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Cory Petit<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mark Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Omega Wolverine going through a Krakoan gate.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback: the fall of Krakoa in Omega Wolverine’s timeline.<\/em><\/p>\n

Although the caption calls this the “near future”, the grey hairs on Forge suggest that we’re a good few years into the future. Wolverine is also shown with some grey hairs, though not as many. Despite the suggestion in\u00a0X Lives<\/em> that Wolverine is basically immortal, that’s not really true; we’ve seen in\u00a0Old Man Logan<\/em> that his natural lifespan is still something under 200 years.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Basically, Forge is implanting an organic-tech time travel device in Wolverine so that when he finally figures out what caused this timeline, he can go back in time and avert it. This is the back story of Omega Wolverine; we see him next in the flashback in the previous issue, where he was still hanging around in the far future trying to find the key information, and Moira seemingly killed him.<\/p>\n

Krakoa is being destroyed by a bunch of fairly conventional-looking Sentinels, though Nimrod can be seen up in the top right. This is basically the destruction of mutants by artificial intelligence that Moira had always been warning about, and that Xavier and Magneto were keen to avert throughout the Hickman run. Evidently Moira wasn’t lying about that.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong> Recap and credits. I have issues with the description of Laura, Gabby and Daken as Wolverine’s “closest allies” – they’re his closest relatives, but it’s not like he\u00a0works<\/em> with them all that often.<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-8.<\/strong> Flashback: the origin of Omega Wolverine.<\/em><\/p>\n

This continues directly from the flashback in the previous issue. Moira whines that she gave the mutants Krakoa, and that they responded by stripping her powers and exiling her. That’s\u00a0Inferno<\/em> #4, though really it was specifically an act of Emma, Mystique, Destiny and Cypher, not mutantkind as a whole. As we’ve said before, all of this is made a bit obscure by the failure to spell out in\u00a0Inferno<\/em> what exactly Moira’s secret plan was that led to her being driven out, but the implication was that Krakoa was meant to be a utopia to sideline mutants while preventing any more from being born in the outside world.<\/p>\n

As mentioned last issue, the whole “Preserve” set-up echoes a timeline in\u00a0Powers of X<\/em> where Moira and Logan survived to the end of the human race, but this is a different timeline.<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong> 9.<\/strong> Data page. This is all calling back to Powers of X<\/i> and the potential ascent of humanity into post-humanity. More fundamentally, Moira’s death apparently resets the timeline; but if she were to live forever as part of the Phalanx collective consciousness, that could presumably be averted.<\/p>\n

Digression: Quite how Moira’s timeline resets work, if indeed that\u00a0is<\/em> how they work, remains a little obscure. I think the simplest approach is to view it as just straightforward time travel where she goes back and alters the course of history. Or, if you prefer, it’s like\u00a0Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/em>, where the whole timeline exists from start to end, even though the event that leads to the destruction of everything happens to take place in the middle. What\u00a0wouldn’t<\/em> work is any suggestion that the future doesn’t exist beyond Moira’s death, since that would contradict all manner of time travel stories. Of course, precisely because time travel exists in the Marvel Universe, the whole timeline exists at once, even if its actual content is subject to change.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-15.<\/strong>\u00a0Omega Wolverine, Scout, Daken and Wolverine (Laura) confront Arnab Chakladar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Moira has already left, so they’re too late.<\/p>\n

Why does Chakladar, a regular tech mogul, have a Cable-style gun lying around his lab?<\/p>\n

According to Omega Wolverine, all of his children died in various ways in his timeline. Daken’s death might be a callback to Wolverine’s death in Days of Futures Past. Scout is apparently\u00a0depowered<\/em> by Nimrod, which I don’t think we’ve seen Nimrod having the power to do yet. Maybe he picks up the designs for Forge’s Neutraliser somewhere, but that suggests a possible future development. Wolverine \/ Laura (and Omega Wolverine is clear to assert her as the real Wolverine here) is tortured by the “Homo Novissima” – the far-future posthumans from\u00a0Powers of X<\/em>, who presumably also dominate the world in his far future.<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.<\/strong> Data page.<\/p>\n

Singing stone recordings.<\/strong> The singing stones are stone-based recording devices from\u00a0X-Force<\/em>. Bugs, basically.<\/p>\n

Banshee.<\/strong> Moira asks Banshee to help her get back onto the Island. Banshee was, of course, her lover for many years in the Claremont run and beyond. Evidently he says no, given the next scene.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.<\/strong> Moira returns to the island, tricking Krakoa using Banshee’s skin.<\/em><\/p>\n

Um. So apparently you can get through the gates by holding bits of a mutant corpse? Anyway, I really don’t like this; aside from being generally grotesque, it feels like it’s going out of its way to trash the Moira\/Sean relationship, which may not exactly fit with the current direction of Moira’s character, but didn’t need to be actively destroyed. I\u00a0suspect<\/em> the intention was to convey Moira’s sense of desperation, but if so, it doesn’t read that way.<\/p>\n

PAGE 18.<\/strong>\u00a0Destiny in the Hatchery.<\/em><\/p>\n

Destiny is waiting for Mystique to be resurrected after she was killed in the previous issue. As a member of the Quiet Council, Mystique will be fast tracked.<\/p>\n

The panel of Logan and Xavier in the background is the cliffhanger of\u00a0X Lives of Wolverine<\/em> #4.<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-24.<\/strong> Omega Wolverine stops Moira and succumbs to the Phalanx.<\/em><\/p>\n

Moira’s initial plan is to get her powers back by using the Neutraliser twice, but that doesn’t work. Apparently Moira’s preferred option is still to reset time by suicide; this is effectively what she did in the\u00a0Powers of X<\/em> far future timeline, albeit that she let Wolverine actually kill her.<\/p>\n

Professor X is bleeding from the shoulder because he was stabbed by a possessed present-day Wolverine in\u00a0X Lives of Wolverine<\/em> #4.<\/p>\n

Moira shoots Forge with the Neutralizer. This is, in principle, reversible – Storm got her powers back in the end, and presumably Forge could be resurrected like many other depowered mutants who have gone through Crucible.<\/p>\n

There’s some really, really clunky storytelling where Moira somehow gets into a suit of plant-tech armour that happens to be lying around. The art really struggles with that.<\/p>\n

Moira uses the Neutralizer on Omega Wolverine, thus removing his healing factor and causing him to succumb entirely to the Phalanx.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: TIME’S UP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE #4 Writer: Benjamin Percy Artist: Federico Vicentini Colourist: Dijjo Lima Letterer: Cory Petit Editor: Mark Basso COVER \/ PAGE 1: Omega Wolverine going through a Krakoan gate. PAGES 2-4.\u00a0Flashback: the fall of Krakoa in Omega Wolverine’s timeline. […]<\/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-7680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7680","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=7680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7682,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7680\/revisions\/7682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}