{"id":7798,"date":"2022-04-20T22:30:45","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T21:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7798"},"modified":"2022-04-20T22:32:01","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T21:32:01","slug":"wolverine-20-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7798","title":{"rendered":"Wolverine #20 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>WOLVERINE vol 7 #20<\/strong>
\n“Trigger Warning”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Benjamin Percy<\/strong>
\nArtist: Adam Kubert<\/strong>
\nColourists: Frank Martin & Dijjo Lima<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Cory Petit<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mask Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Wolverine stands over a bunch of destroyed robots, while Deadpool takes a selfie in the background.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-5.<\/strong>\u00a0Wolverine stops a runaway truck full of explosives.<\/em><\/p>\n

This opening action scene is here as much as anything to get Wolverine into the book, while Deadpool sets about his narration. I love the ornate page layouts, which are remarkably clear.<\/p>\n

Note that the first of Wolverine’s teams that Deadpool mentions is X-Force, which wouldn’t be most people’s choice. But it’s the one Deadpool is preoccupied with since they were teammates on a version of X-Force before. We’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

Deadpool is sort of correct that Wolverine never really seems to want to be on a team – at the very least he regularly affects not to, and feels ambivalent about his position on a superhero type group. Of course, with the X-Men and Alpha Flight that was balanced out by his sense that they were his family. X-Force raise slightly different issues because they were a black ops group. In the earliest stories about Wolverine’s version of X-Force, from 2008, Wolverine very definitely doesn’t want to be in the team – the idea is that he’s always seen himself as the one who does the nasty things so that his more heroic teammates don’t have to, and so bringing other characters into that orbit is something he’s quite unhappy about.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-6.<\/strong>\u00a0Deadpool tries to get onto Krakoa and gets shot down.<\/em><\/p>\n

Either Krakoa is shooting missiles at people now, or this is some of Forge’s organic tech.<\/p>\n

Deadpool\u00a0has<\/em> been to Krakoa before, when he and the Juggernaut fought the Warden in\u00a0X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic<\/em> #19-20. The Juggernaut was invited to stay on Krakoa at the end of that story (which places it before issue #18, when we saw him there). Deadpool was evidently not given the same invitation.<\/p>\n

Deadpool has tried on and off over the years to insist on being part of the X-family. He started off as an X-Men character, in Rob Liefeld’s\u00a0New Mutants\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0X-Force<\/em>, but his solo books have largely been freestanding – except for\u00a0Cable & Deadpool<\/em>, of course. He showed up in\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> and\u00a0X-Force<\/em> for the Hellfire Gala issues, lobbying to get back into the cast.<\/p>\n

“I’m practically a founding member of X-Force after all.”<\/strong> He isn’t. But he\u00a0was<\/em> a member of X-Force during the first volume of\u00a0Uncanny X-Force<\/em>, which lasted from 2010 to 2013. And, being meta, Deadpool is alluding to the fact that he debuted in\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> vol 1 #98, just as that book was relaunch as\u00a0X-Force<\/em> vol 1. So he was part of X-Force’s cast from the start.<\/p>\n

“I’m mostly-basically-kinda-sorta-essentially a mutant.”<\/strong> Deadpool’s healing factor is based on samples taken from Wolverine, so if you squint a bit, it’s kind of true that he has mutant powers. But he’s not actually a mutant. He doesn’t have the mutant gene.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-9.<\/strong>\u00a0A montage of Deadpool’s failed attempts to get into Krakoa.<\/em><\/p>\n

Deadpool can’t get through the gates unaccompanied because he’s not a mutant – hence trying to jump on the X-Men’s backs, or using mutant body parts. The one character he actually tries to persuade is Kid Omega from\u00a0X-Force, though it’s not clear exactly where they are – a shop in New York, maybe. Note that Kid Omega gently(ish) dismisses Deadpool as out of fashion; we’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

The space panel is part of the surrounds of the Summer House (seen in the background), the house on the moon where Wolverine and the Summers family live. Or at least, some of the family – Scott and Jean seem to be mostly in New York these days, Cable is on a space station, and Rachel lives in the Boneyard… so is it just Wolverine, Havok and Vulcan living there? Sounds like a bundle of laughs.<\/p>\n

The Summer House is fairly near to the Blue Area of the Moon, which has an atmosphere – so that’s presumably why Deadpool’s not dead and able to talk. Or, you know, because it’s Deadpool telling this story and he’s not very reliable.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-11.<\/strong>\u00a0Deadpool complains that he’s not hot any more.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I was once the King of Staten Island.” <\/strong>This was his status quo in his 2020\/21\u00a0series. I’m not sure it was ever formally tied up. He just seems to have drifted away from it.<\/p>\n

“I used to be awesome, man!”<\/strong> The three back issues he’s holding are (1) the first issue of his solo series from 1997, with art by Ed McGuinness; (2)\u00a0Uncanny X-Force<\/em> vol 1 #1, though the cover art isn’t visible; and (3)\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> vol 1 #98, his debut, with art by Rob Liefeld. That’s Gideon next to him, being introduced with equal fanfare.<\/p>\n

Deadpool doesn’t have a solo series at the moment, and reading between the lines, that seems to be part of the reason he wants to get into the cast of\u00a0X-Force<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The woman on the sofa in page 11 panel 1 is\u00a0Blind Al<\/strong>, but we’ll come back to her.<\/p>\n

#XSpoilers<\/strong> is a Twitter hashtag used for discussion of new X-books on release day.<\/p>\n

The contents of Deadpool’s fridge are… characteristic, if nothing else.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12.<\/strong> Data page: Wolverine’s debriefing after\u00a0X Lives of Wolverine<\/em>. Beast gives a rather cheerless speech about how permanent fighting is Wolverine’s steady state; Sage, with obvious meta overtones, encourages him to take a break from the grimness and have some fun.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-15.<\/strong> Sage investigates Delores Ramirez for Wolverine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Far from taking Sage up on her invitation to do a comedy issue, Wolverine insists on dragging the book back to actual storylines.<\/p>\n

“We should acknowledge how close we came to a diplomatic crisis during the Hellfire Gala.”<\/strong> Issue #13. Beast’s lunatic plan to mind control the entire country of Terra Verde was nearly exposed.<\/p>\n

“When Legacy House staged that auction in Madripoor, Delores Ramirez … was there.”<\/strong>\u00a0This and the speech that follows is a recap of issues #9-10. Legacy House is a black market organisation that sells superhero and supervillain memorabilia. The “mindwiped mutant” that Delores bid for is Maverick. The severed hand was a mysterious Wolverine hand, complete with claws, that Legacy House were auctioning – Wolverine had no idea where it had come from. Delores did indeed pick it up in issue #10 when the auction broke down into chaos. Wolverine suggests (reasonably enough) that a possible explanation is that it might be an artefact from a stray timeline. Certainly possible, since there was a Hama-era storyline about a whole duplicate Wolverine skeleton that eventually turned out to be a time travel quirk.<\/p>\n

“Forge. Terra Verde. Weapon Plus.”<\/strong> All three did indeed come up with versions of plant-based technology at around the same time – Forge on Krakoa, Terra Verde in\u00a0X-Force<\/em> with its telefloronics, and Weapon Plus by creating Man-Slaughter, also seen in\u00a0X-Force<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“We’ve already faced lab-built versions of Domino and Quentin.”<\/strong>\u00a0A duplicate of Domino appeared in\u00a0X-Force<\/em>\u00a0#7. The evil version of Quentin Quire was from\u00a0X-Force<\/em> #17-19.<\/p>\n

X-Corp TELCOM satellites.<\/strong> The short lived\u00a0X-Corp\u00a0<\/em>series involved X-Corp selling telecommunications infrastructure services. (And the CIA X-Desk are still using devices that use these satellites…?!)<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.<\/strong>\u00a0Deadpool and Blind Al.<\/em><\/p>\n

Blind Al was a supporting character from the first\u00a0Deadpool<\/em> ongoing series. She had a very odd relationship with Deadpool where she had been a long-term prisoner of his, and had evolved into a sort of vaguely motherish figure. Deadpool had a tendency to go much darker in those days. She’s barely appeared after the Joe Kelly era, though she does pop up from time to time.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.<\/strong> Data page of sorts. Deadpool misses the point of the quotes being canon (they’re canon in the sense that a character really said them, not in the sense that they’re always true).<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-23.<\/strong> Wolverine catches up with Deadpool.<\/em><\/p>\n

Gateway\u00a0<\/strong>shows up periodically in the Krakoan era to teleport people to locations that don’t already have Krakoan gates.<\/p>\n

Deadpool<\/strong> tells us that we’ll find out next issue what actually happened here, but basically he claims to have interrupted some major government conspiracy against mutantkind. Apparently his big plan is now to earn his way onto Krakoa by saving the mutants. (Which he… kind of did already in X-Men Unlimited<\/em>, but okay.)<\/p>\n

Whatever was going on here involved a bunch of robot duplicates of Krakoan characters – Jean Grey, Wolverine and Colossus are clearly visible, but so are Egg and Tempus of the Five, who are never seen off Krakoa, and are unlikely to be random choices.<\/p>\n

Wolverine<\/strong> apparently hasn’t noticed that he could have cut through the handcuffs instead of the dead guy’s arm. Or maybe it’s an adamantium chain! Let’s go with that!<\/p>\n

Danger<\/strong> is the sentient AI from the Danger Room in a robot body; she was introduced in Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s\u00a0Astonishing X-Men<\/em> run. The fake X-Men might be her creations using her Danger Room technology. She was a member of the X-Men and X-Factor for a while, but this is the first time we’ve seen her in the Krakoan era. Needless to say, given the current emphasis on AI and robots as the biggest threat to mutantkind, she no longer fits at all on Krakoa, and her natural place is with the villains. But… she was an X-Man.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. WOLVERINE vol 7 #20 “Trigger Warning” Writer: Benjamin Percy Artist: Adam Kubert Colourists: Frank Martin & Dijjo Lima Letterer: Cory Petit Editor: Mask Basso COVER \/ PAGE 1: Wolverine stands over a bunch of destroyed robots, while Deadpool takes a selfie […]<\/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-7798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798","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=7798"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7801,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798\/revisions\/7801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}