{"id":9441,"date":"2023-09-20T21:54:50","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T20:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9441"},"modified":"2023-09-20T21:54:50","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T20:54:50","slug":"wolverine-37-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9441","title":{"rendered":"Wolverine #37 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>WOLVERINE vol 7 #37<\/strong>
\n“Last Mutant Standing, part 1”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Benjamin Percy<\/strong>
\nArtist: Juan Jos\u00e9 Ryp<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Frank D’Armata<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Cory Petit<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mark Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Wolverine fights the Hulk, with the three Wolverine clones in the background. Not really what happens in the issue, but close enough for a cover.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-3.\u00a0<\/strong>Wolverine recaps the premise of “Fall of X”.<\/em><\/p>\n

After last month’s diversion to do a crossover with Ghost Rider,\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> joins “Fall of X” proper. And for the benefit of anyone reading this in trade, Logan opens the issue by recapping the plot in narration (quite effectively, actually). Since the central themes of this book over the last year have included Wolverine’s disillusionment with the Krakoan authorities, and Beast thinking he’s above the law, Wolverine actually has slightly more sympathy for anti-mutant sentiment than some of his teammates, though obviously not to the point of sympathising with Orchis themselves.<\/p>\n

The Orchis roadblock includes a robot with adamantium claws of its own. This is one of the X-Sentinels that Orchis created in X-Men <\/em>#22 using the adamantium skeletons left behind on the Orchis Forge space station after X-Force’s repeated suicide assaults on the station, as shown in\u00a0Inferno<\/em> #1. We also saw an X-Sentinel in\u00a0X-Force<\/em> #44, Percy’s other “Fall of X” series.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.\u00a0<\/strong>Logan meets with Jeff Bannister.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Orchis is threatening to kill 10 humans for every X-Man they catch still on Earth.”<\/strong> That was the threat made to Professor X by Dr Stasis in\u00a0X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023<\/em>. At that point, Orchis really were expecting the mutants to go to Mars, so the point was to deter them from coming back. It’s unclear how seriously Orchis are actually taking this threat. Wolverine wasn’t at the Gala (which is why he’s still on Earth), but he was shown resisting Professor X’s attempt to telepathically march all the mutants through the gates, and presumably learned about the threat through that.<\/p>\n

Wolverine’s main concern in this issue is to track down the three remaining Wolverine clones that the Beast created as henchmen; we saw them escape when Beast’s base was destroyed at the end of issue #35. Wolverine takes Orchis’s threat seriously enough to worry that the clones might prompt a retribution attack by Orchis.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7.\u00a0<\/strong>Logan returns to the Howlett Estate.<\/em><\/p>\n

The basic idea here is that the clones, despite their low level of brainpower, are drawn to locations that Wolverine feels a strong affinity to. This one has come to the estate where Logan grew up as a child, depicted here as a ruined mansion. This seems to contradict Wolverine<\/em> #10 (2013), where Wolverine and Kitty Pryde return to the Howlett Estate and find a shopping mall. To be fair, that issue doesn’t\u00a0outright<\/em> say that the shopping mall is on the precise site of the family home, though it’s certainly the intention.<\/p>\n

The addled Wolverine clone has apparently eaten human flesh, thus triggering the Wendigo curse.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-11.\u00a0<\/strong>The Hulk rescues Logan from the Wolverine Wendigo.<\/em><\/p>\n

The transformed clone still has its metal claws. And why not, it’s a magical transformation.<\/p>\n

Page 9 panel 6 is a flashback to the final panel of\u00a0Origin<\/em> #2, where Logan has just used his claws for the first time to kill groundskeeper Thomas Logan (obviously implied to be his biological father). The body lying in the foreground is actually John Howlett Sr, killed by Thomas earlier in the scene. The woman kneeling in the background is Logan’s mother, Elizabeth Howlett.<\/p>\n

The Wendigo tearing Wolverine in two seems to be a call-back to Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk<\/em>, which did the same over-the-top spot.<\/p>\n

As if it needs pointed out, the Wendigo was the villain in\u00a0Incredible Hulk<\/em> #181, Wolverine’s first story – so this is an exercise in reuniting the elements of Wolverine’s debut. In this version, however, the Hulk is on Wolverine’s side. Apparently Wolverine’s healing factor can repair this sort of damage if the body parts are put back in place quickly enough.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-13.\u00a0<\/strong>Bruce Banner and Logan talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

The current run of\u00a0Incredible Hulk<\/em> is back to Banner and Hulk fighting over control of the body. Banner’s explanation that the Hulk is being hunted by monsters refers to the opening arc of that series.<\/p>\n

PAGE 14.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Jeff Bannister points Logan to the next clone, near Mount Fuji. This one has been drawn to the site of what Bannister calls “Itsu and Muramasa and all that business”. This is Jasmine Falls, first seen in the Logan: Path of the Warlord<\/em> one-shot, and much expanded upon in various issues of\u00a0Wolverine: Origins<\/em>. It was a community of ex-ninjas training for a more peaceful way of life; this is where Logan meets and marries Itsu, and fathers Daken. After leaving the community in disgrace, Logan meets Muramasa, who creates the Muramasa Blade that features prominently as a macguffin through\u00a0Origins<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-16.\u00a0<\/strong>Logan and Banner arrive in the Dead Forest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Aokigahara<\/strong> is indeed a forest on Mount Fuji. It is indeed associated with tales of ghosts haunting it. It also has something of a problem as a suicide location – an alarming number of attempted suicides take place there each year, or at least did until the authorities stopped publishing the figures, apparently because they thought it was encouraging people. The more normal English language nickname for it is the Suicide Forest, but presumably someone felt a bit nervous about that.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-22.\u00a0<\/strong>Logan and Banner encounter the clone with the Ghost Sect.<\/em><\/p>\n

As far as I know, the Ghost Sect are new. Somehow or other, these guys have come upon the Wolverine clone, whose blood apparently has healing properties for them. Since Wolverine’s blood isn’t normally presented as having these properties, perhaps it’s something to do with the cloning process, or maybe there’s a magical aspect linked to these particular cultists. This Wolverine clone is trying, in his confused way, to help the cultists and save lives; that fits with Mount Fuji being a location that Wolverine associates with peace and tranquility.<\/p>\n

You do have to wonder how these dimwitted clones actually\u00a0got<\/em> to any of these locations, given that they started in the Atlantic Ocean – were they actually able to identify a ship or a plane to stow away on? Apparently so.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Unsurprisingly, the third clone is in Madripoor and has supposedly adopted the Patch identity. As Logan picks up, this makes no sense given the clones’ low level of intelligence, and it does indeed turn out that the clone is being kept in the shadows as a puppet figurehead.<\/p>\n

PAGES 24-28. <\/strong>Logan and Banner enter the casino and Logan finds the clone.<\/em><\/p>\n

Banner helpfully reminds us of his status quo in his own book, which is dutifully honoured as a plot point: he doesn’t want to turn into the Hulk because it’s increasingly hard to change back again.<\/p>\n

The clone Logan does indeed turn out to be useless. The actual villain behind the throne is Solem, who has set himself up as the new Madripoor crimelord by leveraging Patch’s reputation. He still has his version of the Muramasa Blade, which he took with him when he voluntarily went to Hell at the end of issue #25. Although Wolverine hasn’t met him since, we already knew that Solem had returned – he shows up in\u00a0X-Force<\/em> #34-35 to bring down Beast’s black prison site, and he appears on Arakko in\u00a0Marvel’s Voices: X-Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 29-33. <\/strong>Solem pits “Patch” against the Hulk in an arena.<\/em><\/p>\n

Solem tell us explicitly here that he gives people “a glimpse here and there to let people know ‘he’s’ in charge.” That doesn’t fit with displaying the clone on a leash in front of this audience, and it’s the one part of the issue that really doesn’t make sense.<\/p>\n

Once Banner turns into the Hulk, Logan defeats the clone. The Hulk irritably declares that he wants nothing further to do with this storyline before leaving.<\/p>\n

PAGE 34.\u00a0<\/strong>Epilogue: Logan is ready to move on to saving mutantkind.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGE 35.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. The Krakoan just says LAST MUTANT STANDING, PART TWO. Again, there are spaces between the words which isn’t strictly how it’s meant to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. WOLVERINE vol 7 #37 “Last Mutant Standing, part 1” Writer: Benjamin Percy Artist: Juan Jos\u00e9 Ryp Colour artist: Frank D’Armata Letterer: Cory Petit Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Mark Basso COVER \/ PAGE 1. Wolverine fights the Hulk, with […]<\/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-9441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441","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=9441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9443,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441\/revisions\/9443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}