Wolverine #105

Wolverine #105
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Val Semeiks

What Went Down: Wolverine starts the issue with a splash page (no pun intended) of him being hosed down. Well, he’s not entering a wet t-shirt contest. He’s actually getting ready to run into a burning building to rescue a little boy. When Wolverine jumps off the ladder to save him, the boy runs back into the fire to save his teddy bear. The roof starts to collapse, so Wolverine and the boy can’t make it out the way he entered. To calm the boy named Sean, Wolverine puts his mask on him to convince him that he’s a super hero and can’t die.

Elektra’s sensei Stick just happens to show up. Since he is blind, he has no problems leading Wolverine through the smoke. The escape involves having Wolverine leap through a huge wall of flames. After healing from some horrible burns, Wolverine runs back into the building to try to save Stick. He is thanked with a crack on the head.

Stick fights Wolverine on the roof of the burning building. Wolverine reveals that he knows who Stick is and that Stick should be dead. Stick then goes through a whole explanation about how Wolverine hasn’t been the same since he lost the adamantium and how he needs to pull himself together. As the roof collapses, Stick points to an area in the smoke and tells Wolverine that he’ll survive if he jumps there. The Human Torch appears at the end telling Wolverine to meet them at Four Freedoms Plaza for the final battle with Onslaught.

How It Was: Once again we have another Onslaught issue that is not about Onslaught. And to tell you the truth, that’s fine at this point since nobody is allowed to progress the story anyways. Instead we have our hero saving some civilians caught up in the destruction. Ignoring that the firemen’s trucks shouldn’t be working after the EMP, this issue has a perfectly fine set up. It’s nice to see Wolverine interact with the small child, and there is a kind of cute part where the victims he saves can’t remember his name. All fine and very competent. On the other hand, it does feel a little generic, as in you could take out Wolverine and put any other Marvel hero in this story and it would still work.

Stick’s appearance comes out of nowhere, especially due to the fact that he’s supposed to be dead. I understand Elektra, his disciple, is supposed to be helping Logan through his recent changes, but Stick’s own help feels redundant. What makes it worse is that Stick is kind of a jerk to Wolverine after he goes back to help the old man, and all the advice he gives to Wolverine is stuff that we already know he needs to do at this point. All I can say is that I really don’t care about Stick at all and he feels so out of place here. Wolverine is out doing what he should be doing, there’s no real need to do the chastising mentor bit right now. At least Wolverine’s speech patterns are back to normal.

It’s not bad, it just feels like Hama is stalling until he can get back to his own storylines. The appearance by the Human Torch at the end serves only as a reminder of how little is going on at this point as all the heroes are pretty much just gathering for the final issue.

C-

Wolverine #104

Wolverine #104
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Val Semeiks

What Went Down: Troll Wolverine starts off the issue climbing up the side of the Massachusetts Xavier School—home of Generation X. They’re not around, but it doesn’t matter because Wolverine is here to see Gateway. He thinks that Gateway can show him how Xavier became Onslaught. Gateway shows Logan his bullroarer, the stone on a string that he spins to use his powers, before using it to show Wolverine the memory of when he had to kill his love Mariko from back in Wolverine #57. Wolverine is overcome by the scene and falls off the roof, but Elektra saves him.

Wolverine claims this isn’t her business, but Elektra insists that he is her responsibility. They both climb to the roof again and ask Gateway to show them the truth about Xavier. Instead, Gateway shows Elektra a repressed memory of hell from back when Bullseye killed her. She sees her father and a number of dead Hand Ninjas rise out of the lava to attack her. Elektra is overcome with emotion, but Wolverine steadies her. Then Wolverine asks Gateway to show him more.

This time Gateway transports all three of them to Xavier’s mansion. Wolverine reflects on what has transpired in the last couple of months before the world becomes distorted, and Wolverine and Elektra are sucked into Gateway’s eye molecularly. Here they are shown the scene from X-Men #25 right after Wolverine had his adamantium sucked from his bones. At the moment Xavier shuts off Magneto’s mind, the two heroes’ level of perception changes. They watch as part of Magneto’s “dark essence” is transported from Magneto to Xavier. Wolverine tries to call out to Charles that Magneto planted something in him, but it’s too late and the heroes are transported back to the Massachusetts Academy.

Outside Wolverine broods because he blames himself for Xavier being pushed to destroy Magneto and getting infected as a result. Elektra brings up that at least he has an important piece of the Onslaught puzzle. Wolverine also mentions that when he saw himself lying there in the memory, it made him realize how much he missed being a normal man. Elektra tells him he still is one (Awwww).

How It Was: As with many stories in the Onslaught crossover, this issue feels like it should be more significant to the overall story, but ultimately it doesn’t really affect anything. Plus, the main revelation of the story has already been completely ruined by previous issues in the crossover where the X-Men already alluded to Magneto’s persona somehow corrupting Xavier, because of the character design obviously influenced by Magneto. Since the whole Onslaught story has been so poorly organized from the start, this issue never pays off as an important contribution plot wise.

Well, there’s still the chance that it could stand on its own merits as just a one-off story, but no, it’s pretty bad as far as that goes as well. Gateway, who is more a plot device than a character since he never talks, is wheeled out as an easy means of discovering the “mystery.” And really, there is no logic behind Wolverine thinking that Gateway would have the answer he would need in the first place. Also, it’s odd that there is no mention of Gateway’s appearance in X-Men #50, or for that matter, what the heck he was doing in that issue.

Unfortunately there are twenty-two pages to fill, so Gateway can’t just give Wolverine a straight answer to the question of “What the heck happened to Xavier.” Instead we have to sit through a number of unrelated flashbacks to once again establish that being a super hero is hard. There’s a weak attempt to set up the flashbacks as being necessary as a means of building up Wolverine and Elektra’s tolerance for pain and misery, so that they won’t be overwhelmed by the “horrifying” scene of Wolverine’s ultimate loss and Xavier’s corruption. But really most of this issue is just padding.

Worst of all, we’re still dealing with Angsty Monkey Wolverine. I like that Wolverine shares the responsibility for Onslaught since it was his injury that pushed Xavier over the edge, but nothing really ever comes from this. Furthermore, Elektra seems to have no purpose in this issue other than to give Wolverine someone to talk to and encourage him. This characterization of her as a nurturing friend never seemed quite right to me since she is normally more of a reckless thrillseeker/vicious assassin.

Most disappointing of all is the discovery that Onslaught isn’t just Xavier’s fears, dark desires, and doubts manifested; instead, Marvel had to make it clear that Xavier is a victim by having him become infected with evil by Magneto. This doesn’t work at all because Magneto isn’t really evil; he just sees coexistence between humans and mutants as impossible, and quite frankly there is a good chance that he might be right. Plus it just undercuts the impact that Onslaught has; instead of showing that Xavier, with all his power, is susceptible to the same disappointments and frustrations as anyone else, it just forces him back into the benevolent saint category by making him entirely free from blame. And really, as I’ve said before, this particular story has no effect on the larger narrative; it doesn’t play any part in the progression or resolution of the story. So it is largely disappointing.

D+

Wolverine #101

Wolverine #101
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Adam Kubert

What Went Down: Wolverine starts off the issue by stabbing Ozymandias and jumping into the abyss after Cyclops. Cyclops is busy shooting his optic blasts to slow his descent, but it’s not working, and he gets knocked unconscious by some debris. Jean fights a stone Magneto who has complete control over rock.

Wolverine catches Cyclops and stabs the wall to stop their descent. Scott wakes up and sees a carving of Professor X in the wall in front of him; he wonders out loud why Apocalypse would revere a carving of Xavier. Then Cyclops flashes back to the plane crash in his origin and passes out. Wolverine starts climbing the stone face.

Above, Iceman, Jean, and Cannonball are slowly being overwhelmed. Jean tells Iceman to extend a bridge, but the stone Wolverine attacks him. Some more stone statues are about to ambush the group, but Elektra knocks them off the ledge. The Magneto statue pins Jean, and flings some rock spikes at Wolverine, who shields Cyclops with his body. Scott responds by blowing the statue away with a laser blast. Ozymandias destroys the column in the center with all the carvings to preserve its secrets, so Iceman saves Wolverine and Cyclops.

Afterwards Wolverine acts savage, but Jean calms him down. Everyone agrees that it’s time to leave.

How It Was: I cannot see what the X-Offices were thinking at all with this one. How does giving your main character absurd proportions and reducing his mind so that he can only growl make for a better book? At one point he actually licks Cyclops’ face like a dog! Frankly this story is stupid for so many reasons, the main one being Wolverine’s transformation. The second reason is that I can’t really tell why Ozymandias is fighting the X-Men, other than the fact that he’s a bad guy and they’re good guys.

So it’s just an issue of the X-Men fighting stone statues for no reason. Kubert competently renders the action, but there’s no real investment in any of it. Elektra’s role in this story is so minor that she might as well not be in it, and as I said before, Wolverine is not compelling now that he has the brain of an animal with no personality. And the reveal of Professor X’s depiction in Apocalypse’s temple feels significant here, but is never mentioned again, so it’s hard to get excited by it.

Overall, I do not have a lot to say about this issue. It’s dull, boring, and disappointing overall.

F

Uncanny X-Men #332

Uncanny X-Men #332
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+

Wolverine #100

Wolverine #100
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Adam Kubert

What Went Down: Genesis and the Dark Riders have captured Wolverine, and they are planning to re-bond his skeleton with adamantium, so he can serve their master Apocalypse as a Horseman. This adamantium was harvested from the Wolverine villain Cyber, so there are concerns that Wolverine might reject it because it is an inferior grade.

In a vent up above, Cannonball is hiding with woman named Zoe who claims she is an Expediter. She’s an employee of Landau, Luckman, and Lake, an interdimensional law firm that appears in Wolverine and Deadpool a lot. In another part of the base, they see hundreds of sarcophagi filled with live prisoners surrounding a single sarcophagus with Apocalypse’s image on it. This obviously means that the Dark Riders are going to try to resurrect Apocalypse.

Wolverine’s skin starts to excrete adamantium because they are flowing too much into him. Cannonball tries to get Zoe to help him, but she teleports away. Cannonball decides to attack the Dark Riders. As the Riders beat him, Cannonball apologizes to Logan. Wolverine starts yelling in his tube, and all of a sudden rejected adamantium shoots out of his body, freeing Wolverine and killing/wounding many of the bad guys.

Cannonball flies after Wolverine and picks him up. We don’t get a good look at him, but Cannonball tells him that they have to stop Apocalypse from rising. In a cabin in the mountains, Elektra and Stick sense Wolverine’s “fall.” Back in Genesis’ lair, Cannonball is about be killed by Spyne and Deadbolt, but Wolverine kills them both. He then uses Deadbolt’s glowing, severed head to lure Gauntlet into a trap. While Genesis fights Cannonball, they can hear the screams of the Dark Riders.

We finally get the reveal of the new, more savage Wolverine—part dog, part troll, all stupid. As Wolverine kills Genesis, Cannonball pries open Apocalypse’s sarcophagus, only to find that it is empty. Wolverine asks Cannonball to tell Cable that he’s sorry about killing his son, and then disappears. The issue ends with Elektra leaving to help Wolverine.

How It Was: Wolverine celebrates its 100th issue with a big, double-sized, character-altering story. Also, there’s a big reflective hologram thing in the middle of the cover. Now I can see where the writers were coming from with this one. Every reader and their mother was predicting that Wolverine would get his adamantium back in issue #100, so the X-office decided to do something different to surprise readers. And I can respect that; it’s good that the writers wanted to keep readers guessing. Hama even structures the villain’s plot to involve putting the metal back in Wolverine, right before pulling the old switcharoo.

And that’s where it all goes bad as the Wolverine creative team turns their eponymous character, arguably the most popular Marvel character of the time, into a giant troll with no nose, huge hands and feet, long nails, and no personality. This, to put it lightly, is terrible. Yes, all of the X-books had been dealing with Wolverine’s feral regression, and they wanted to make Wolverine even more tough and savage, but he looks absolutely ridiculous. This is easily the silliest looking version of Wolverine ever.

The whole story is a bit of misfire, especially since it focuses upon Genesis, who is supposed to be a Cable villain.  There’s no real sense of weight or closure after Wolverine kills him because we haven't ever seen him in this series up to this point. I guess turning Wolverine into a Horseman is as good a reason as any to try to put the metal back, but it leads to Logan spending half the double-sized issue in a glass tube. And there is way too much exposition while he’s in the tube with every member of the Dark Riders chiming in for no reason. Zoe is little more than a plot device who disappears when Hama runs out of exposition, but Cannonball does get to shine by taking on a far superior force on behalf of Wolverine. Too bad the twist of Apocalypse not being in the coffin is a total anticlimax.

The parts that work best in this book are right before the big reveal of “new” Wolverine. When he’s stalking the Dark Riders and murdering them one by one, you can’t help but feel like Wolverine is the most badass hero there is. Also, the scene where Wolverine’s body spits out shards of adamantium is kind of cool in a ridiculous, WTF sort of way. It’s unfortunate that this leads to such a boring and silly looking iteration of the old Canucklehead because Hama does manage to get a couple of neat moments out of this particular issue.

C-