Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira
What Went Down: The issue starts out with Elektra stalking Super Feral Wolverine and recapping the events of Wolverine #100. At the offices of Landau, Luckman, and Lake, Professor X is asking a woman named Ms. Cullhoden about the whereabouts of Wolverine. Xavier reveals that he knows about all twenty-six branch offices as well as the ones in alternate dimensions. The X-Men are waiting for the Professor outside in the car. Jean mentions that she and Wolverine worked for LLL in Wolverine #97, while Cannonball and Iceman talk about how Sam blames himself for losing Wolverine.
Jean picks up Logan’s telepathic echo, and Xavier tells the team to leave him at the office. Ms. Cullhoden then shoots Xavier, but it is revealed to be a trick of Xavier’s telepathy. Xavier holds the woman with his mind, and explains that he will not lose Wolverine.
Wolverine discovers an abandoned city and falls through a trap door, frustrating Elektra as she tries to follow him. Wolverine falls and discovers Ozymandias, a servant of Apocalypse who was once his enslaver. He is the scribe of Apocalypse and has visions of the future that he makes into sculptures. He shows Wolverine some of his sculpting depicting Holocaust’s destruction of Avalon and the Age of Apocalypse.
The X-Men interrupt Ozymandias’ revelry and burst through the wall. The villain uses his powers to make his sculptures come to life and attack the X-Men; most of them are from the Age of the Apocalypse. Ozy also explains that he was manipulated by Apocalypse in much the same way that Sinister was. During the fight, Cyclops gets knocked down a hole, while Wolverine is grabbed by Ozymandias.
How It Was: We continue to explore “New” Wolverine in part two of this unnamed crossover story. And much like New Coke long before it, New Wolverine is a huge mistake. After rereading these issues today, I am now convinced that Logan’s new design had to have come from Joe Madureira since it matches his style so well, with his over-muscled torso and the exaggerated proportions for his hands and feet. Absolutely horrible.
The surprise of this issue is that Xavier gets to kick ass. First he puts the LLL representative in her place, shows he is fully aware of their “secret” organization, and then messes with the woman to demonstrate how serious he really is. I don’t know if this is Onslaught talking or not, but Xavier is awesome in this issue.
Cannonball’s guilt feels a little misplaced since he did save Wolverine from Genesis by himself. And Ozymandias isn’t really that great a villain, although he looks pretty cool. Even though the cliffhanger seems like it would be pretty good, there is absolutely no sense of urgency at all to save Cyclops. Plus, I have no idea why Joe Mad is obscuring Elektra’s identity the whole issue, when we already know who it is from Wolverine #100. This is definitely the definition of a middle issue in a story, and not a great story. Grunting Wolverine isn’t compelling, Ozymandias isn’t really that interesting, and the whole thing comes off as rather ill-advised.
D+
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