Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013

We’re halfway through the Paul Cornell run – which is to say, we’re in the gap between Wolverine vol 5 and 6, and Wolverine no longer has his healing powers. Will things improve for him in 2014?

The Cornell stories don’t really fit very well with the rest of the line – they have Wolverine in a very shaken and traumatised state following the loss of his healing factor. Unfortunately, plenty of other stories acknowledge the loss of his healing powers while completely ignoring his mental state. So…

WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN vol 1 #41
by Jason Aaron, Pepe Larraz, Todd Nauck & Matt Milla
February 2014

The X-Men finally get around to firing Toad as the school janitor, because of his role in spying for the Hellfire Club. Wolverine is in grumpy hypocrite mode here, complaining that they were silly ever to think that the Toad could change.

X-MEN LEGACY vol 2 #22-23
#22 by Simon Spurrier, Khoi Pham & Rachelle Rosenberg
#23 by Simon Spurrier, Tan Eng Huat, Craig Yeung & José Villarrubia
January & February 2014

The X-Men show up to help Legion stop one of his own personalities from starting a nuclear war. Since it’s not their book, they get sidelined pretty early, but Legion gets a moment of vindication when Wolverine and Cyclops both look to him to take the lead. (The series concludes in issue #24 with Legion erasing himself, but the X-Men aren’t in that.)

(more…)

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
2010 | 2011 | 2012

We’re still in the phase when Wolverine is running the Jean Grey School. The end is drawing near, but you wouldn’t know it just yet, as Marvel continue to launch new books.

SAVAGE WOLVERINE #1-5
“Savage”
by Frank Cho & Jason Keith
January to May 2013

Savage Wolverine ran for 24 issues with rotating creative teams, but most of the stories are set at various points in the past, so it won’t generally be troubling the timeline. In this first arc, Wolverine and Shanna the She-Devil team up to deal with a mysterious island in the Savage Land which causes technology to fail. Amadeus Cho and the Hulk show up too. The island’s temple turns out to be a containment unit for an evil space god, the Dark Walker (Morrigan); they accidentally wake it, and in the epilogue it flies off into space to encourage its creator Visher-Rakk to attack Earth. Which never happens.

Wolverine and Shanna have met multiple times before but the script seems entirely unaware of that. The story is little more than an excuse for Cho to draw stuff, predominantly Shanna’s arse. Awful.

(more…)

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
2010 | 2011

It’s 2012, and we’re in the first year of Wolverine as the headmaster of his very own school. At this point, Wolverine is still a member of the X-Men (well, half of them), the Avengers and X-Force as well as having a solo title. But compared to last year, 2012 is relatively restrained.

We left off with Wolverine vol 4 #20, which was the first part of another Japan storyline. But this is where Marvel goes through its brief enthusiasm for legacy numbering, and so the numbering jumps to…

WOLVERINE #300-303
“Back in Japan”
by Jason Aaron, Adam Kubert, Paul Mounts, Ron Garney, Billy Tan, Jason Keith, Steve Sanders & Sotocolor
January to March 2012

That’s a somewhat abbreviated credits list, as issues #300 and #303 have a lot of artists credited on them.

Anyway, Wolverine heads to Japan, where a war between the Hand and the Yakuza is brewing. The Hand are controlled by the Kingpin at this point, but Hand boss Azuma Gōda wants rid of him. Gōda hires Sabretooth as an ally, and kidnaps Wolverine’s foster daughter Amiko – for once, not to get at Wolverine, but because her boyfriend Shingen Harada II is the rightful heir to Clan Yashida. Shingen responds by making his debut as the new, hi-tech Silver Samurai; he’s not an outright villain yet, but an upstart who Wolverine and Sabretooth both view with disdain. Ultimately, Wolverine rescues Amiko himself, then goes after the Hand. During all this, Wolverine has sex with Yukio, who is actually a disguised Mystique (with enhanced powers that stop him recognising her by scent). Wolverine then slaughters a lot of the Hand ninjas in Tokyo, which Gōda views as a wonderful opportunity to get rid of the dead wood and rebuild from the core Hand organisation that remains in the shadows. Of course, he winds up getting killed by Wolverine. Having apparently defeated the Hand – or this splinter faction, at any rate – Wolverine is ready to return home, albeit with a sense of vague dissatisfaction about the whole thing.

What he doesn’t know is that Sabretooth, Mystique, Silver Samurai and Lord Deathstrike form an alliance to take over Tokyo organised crime, and effectively seize control of the Hand. (Or part of it? Kingpin keeps showing up in Hand stories for a while.) That’s Sabretooth’s status quo for the next few years.

(more…)

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
2010

It’s 2011, we’re still in the Utopian era, and we’re midway through the “Wolverine Goes To Hell” storyline. The first arc in that storyline already took us through to January 2011. When we left off, Wolverine had just been summoned back to his body, which was still occupied by demons.

Oh, and brace yourselves, because this is an insanely busy year.

WOLVERINE vol 4 #6-8
“Wolverine vs the X-Men”
by Jason Aaron & Daniel Acuña
February to April 2011

While his possessed body fights the X-Men, Wolverine fights the (literal) demons inside his mind, who are “razing” parts of his personality to make room for themselves – something that seems to have no impact whatsoever in later stories, so evidently they don’t do that much damage.

Wolverine defeats the demons with help of Emma Frost, a “Phoenix” who appears to be part of his subconscious, and a ghost of Nightcrawler who’s strongly implied to be genuine. Basically, Logan can purge the demons if he finally lets Jean Grey go – and he does, but only so he can take revenge on the people who banished him to Hell. He regains control of his body just as Cyclops was about to kill him (on the logic that it’s probably what Wolverine would have wanted).

This is really an extended fight scene. It comes across as an oddly extended coda to the main event in the previous arc, but it’s quite fun on its own terms.

(more…)

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009

It’s 2010, we’re in the Utopian era, and Jason Aaron’s run is in full swing. The final Wolverine: Weapon X arc of 2009 already took us through to January 2010, so we pick up with…

WOLVERINE: WENDIGO!
One-shot
by Frank Tieri, Paul Gulacy & Thomas Mason
January 2010

Wolverine saves a low-rent TV crew from the Wendigo. Despite the title, this is really a story about the TV crew and the Wendigo myth; Wolverine himself only cameos.

WOLVERINE: CARNI-BRAWL
One-shot
by Tom Beland, Miguel Sepulveda & Jorge Maese
January 2010

After ducking the job for ages, Wolverine grudgingly allows Sunspot to tag along for a solo mission to the Brazilian jungle, where they stop Bloodscream from building an army of zombies. Ultimately, Sunspot impresses Wolverine.

This is a continuity trainwreck. It’s obviously meant to go during the original New Mutants run, but it also has Bloodscream as an established Wolverine villain, and he didn’t debut until years later. With a bit of squinting, it can be shoehorned in roughly in publication order, since Sunspot was back in the New Mutants at this point and wearing the same costume. Or you could just disqualify the whole thing as non-canon, which would be perfectly reasonable too.

(more…)

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008

We’re just past Secret Invasion, and in the early days of “Dark Reign”. The Wolverine solo title is in the middle of “Old Man Logan” right now, but that takes place in an alternate timeline and doesn’t feature on our list.

X-FORCE vol 3 #11
“Who the Hell is Eli Bard?”
by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Alina Urusov & Clayton Crain
January 2009

Warpath recounts Eli Bard’s origin story to his teammates.

UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #506
by Matt Fraction, Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson & Justin Ponsor
February 2009

Wolverine attends a briefing on Simon Trask’s anti-mutant activities, and the X-Men give sanctuary to various ex-mutants (despite Wolverine pointing out that they don’t have the facilities.

(more…)

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007

For once, the start of this year makes a nice break point for Wolverine. Last time we went up to the January 2008 issue of his solo book, which completes the Marc Guggenheim run. His new regular writer is going to stick with him for several years and several books.

At this point, Wolverine is a regular character in Wolverine, Wolverine: Origins, Uncanny X-Men, Astonishing X-Men and New Avengers. So clearly something’s going to give… right?

NEW AVENGERS vol 1 #38
“The Breakup”
by Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos & Jose Villarrubia
February 2008

Danny Rand gives the New Avengers one of his apartments as a new base. Wolverine shows up for that bit, in what’s otherwise a Luke and Jessica story.

NEW AVENGERS vol 1 #39
“Echo”
by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack & Jose Villarrubia
March 2008

This is an Echo spotlight story, but Wolverine is in it prominently. She thinks the Skrull conspiracy theory is just a way for the New Avengers to justify to themselves the disastrous state of their lives, but Logan points out that this theory doesn’t explain why he’s there, as “my life’s about the same level of disaster it always was”. Later, he saves her from a Skrull who tries to replace her, proving the conspiracy theory right. There’s a suggestion in here that Logan and Echo have slept together at some point, which is probably best forgotten about.

(more…)

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006

Welcome to 2007. We’re in the middle of Civil War. But the X-Men are on the margins of that crossover, and Wolverine’s already had his tie-in arc. In Civil War #6, we’re told that Wolverine declined to join Captain America’s rebel forces because he wasn’t ultimately willing to break ranks with the X-Men. Instead…

BLADE vol 5 #5
“Vendetta’s Echo”
by Marc Guggenheim, Howard Chaykin & Edgar Delgado
January 2007

Despite the fact that Wolverine isn’t actually an unregistered hero, SHIELD want to hunt him down in this story. Blade agrees to do the job in exchange for SHIELD’s help against vampires. But when he realises that Wolverine saved him from vampires decades ago, Blade abandons the mission and tells SHIELD to leave Wolverine alone. As for Wolverine, he doesn’t recognise Blade at all and is baffled by the whole thing. Officially this is a Civil War tie-in, but nothing turns on it. For some reason Wolverine is shown living in an apartment in Brooklyn.

The rest of Civil War plays out without Wolverine’s involvement, and Captain America is assassinated at the end. Don’t worry, kids, he’ll be fine.

In a flashback in Fantastic Four #543, Wolverine appears briefly as an interviewee in a documentary about the Fantastic Four, and criticises Reed’s choice of side during Civil War.

FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA – WOLVERINE
One-shot
by Jeph Loeb, Leinil Francis Yu & Dave McCaig
April 2007

Wolverine persuades Daredevil and Doctor Strange to break into the Helicarrier with him, and verify that Cap is really dead. It’s strongly implied that Wolverine really wants to confront the apparent assassin, Crossbones (Brock Rumlow), who is already in SHIELD custody, and find an excuse to kill him – but Crossbones seems to be innocent. Wolverine verifies that the dead body really is Cap, then persuades Iron Man to let him confirm the news to the heroes who are still on the run after Civil War.

FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA – AVENGERS
One-shot
by Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines & Jason Keith
April 2007

Wolverine duly confirms Cap’s death to the New Avengers. Spider-Man refuses to believe it and storms out; Wolverine goes after him. We skip the next chapter (which rejoices in the title Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America – Captain America) and pick up again with…

FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA – SPIDER-MAN
One-shot
by Jeph Loeb, David Finch, Danny Miki & Frank D’Armata
June 2007

At Uncle Ben’s grave, Wolverine tries to cheer up Spider-Man by inventing a story about how much Cap believed in him. Spider-Man sees right through it, so Wolverine offers advice about coming to terms with grief instead. There’s also a fight with the Rhino, but Wolverine’s not involved in that.

FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA – IRON MAN
One-shot
by Jeph Loeb, John Cassaday & Laura Martin
July 2007

A cameo of the New Avengers watching Captain America’s funeral on television, regretting the fact that, as outlaws, they can’t go. There’s a fundamental problem in the next year or so, where New Avengers wants Wolverine to be part of an outlaw team on the run from the authorities, but the X-books have him living at the Mansion, which is monitored by O*N*E around the clock. You can square this somewhat by claiming that nobody ever manages to prove that he’s hanging out with the New Avengers, but it really is getting close to parallel tracks of continuity in a way we haven’t quite seen before.

X-MEN: PHOENIX – WARSONG
5-issue miniseries
by Greg Pak, Tyler Kirkham, Sal Regla & John Starr
September 2006 to February 2007

The sequel to X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong. That mini was better than I remembered; this one is not.

The Stepford Cuckoos turn out to be escapees from a batch of flawed Emma Frost clones created by John Sublime. An A.I. copy of Sublime plans to trap the Cuckoos’ fragment of the Phoenix force within their organic diamond bodies, and then use that fragment to access the Phoenix’s infinite power. The Cuckoos thwart his plan, but have to stay in their emotionless diamond forms in order to contain the Phoenix. The X-Men chase around after them, during which they meet SHIELD agent Jake Oh. Mediocre.

X-MEN vol 2 #200-203
“Blinded by the Light”
by Mike Carey, Chris Bachalo, Humberto Ramos, Carlos Cuevas, Tim Townsend, Edgar Delgado & Antonio Fabela
June to September 2007

The X-Men fight a new Marauders team; Wolverine is there, among the guests from other X-Men titles. Not much more to it, as far as he’s concerned.

A flashback in the third story in Wolverine vol 6 #12 appears here on the MCP timeline: Detective Chikeko Tomomaatsu takes Logan to the Guernica bar, newly popular wihth the superhero community. Wolverine meets the current writer of his comic, Marcus Harold, and they argue. If the bar owner is to be believed, “Logan and some of the guys who’ve written his comic, they go back a long way. They’re close like brothers, but damn they fight.” Does Wolverine really have the profile to have a long-running solo title within the Marvel Universe? Apparently so.

NEW X-MEN vol 2 #38-39 and #41
“The Quest for Magik, parts 1, 2 and 4”
by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Skottie Young, Sean Parsons & Jean-Francois Beaulieu
May to August 2007

Belasco captures the X-Men while searching for Magik; they get freed at the end just in time to get teleported back home by the Darkchylde, a soulless version of Magik. Little more than cameos.

MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS vol 2 #8 (Cyclops & Wolverine story)
“The Rabbit Hunt”
by Andy Schmidt, Marco Turini & Chris Sotomayor
April 2008

Prompted by the death of his father (which happened in July 2007, hence the placement of this story), Scott Summers decides to brush up his survival skills, claiming that it’s a response to mutants’ current predicament of near extinction. Logan shares some tips. They discuss Xavier’s dream and realise that Scott comes to the wilderness to vent, while Logan goes there for calm. Logan’s advice prompts Scott to talk properly with Alex about the death of their father. This is a nice little story, the subtext being that Scott is turning to Logan as a possible replacement father figure.

X-MEN: ENDANGERED SPECIES
One-shot
by Mike Carey, Scot Eaton, John Dell & Frank D’Armata
June 2007

The X-Men attend the funeral of a mutant boy who retained his powers only to get run over by a truck; the boy’s father is furious at what he sees as an intrusion into the family’s private grief by a bunch of mutants mourning a kid they never met, solely because he was another mutant. It’s basically a collection of character vignettes. Logan reflects on how it’s taken the near wipeout of mutants to make the X-Men truly value every life, and says that they will fight on because they don’t know how to do anything else.

In a flashback in the backup strip in X-Men vol 2 #201, the X-Men ask Wolverine for information about the Neverland death camp (from Weapon X) and he gives them some fairly uninformative answers.

SHE-HULK vol 2 #16
“Planet Without a Hulk, part 2”
by Dan Slott, Rick Burchett, Cliff Rathburn & Dave Kemp
February 2007

Wolverine and the She-Hulk team up to capture a new Wendigo. He lets SHIELD’s Hulkbuster Unit take the Wendigo into custody – this group includes Clay Quartermain, Agent Cheesecake and Agent Crimson – but privately tells She-Hulk that he doesn’t trust them in the slightest.

SUB-MARINER vol 2 #2-3
“Revolution, parts 2-3”
by Matt Cherniss, Peter Johnson, Phil Briones & Paul Mounts
July & August 2007

Namor shows up at the X-Men Mansion, looking for Professor X’s help in dealing with Atlantean terrorists who have destroyed a Kansas town. Wolverine tries to drive Namor off, on the curious pretext that his presence will provoke Sentinel Squad O*N*E and endanger the remaining students. It’s a very gratuitous fight scene, in other words. Professor X eventually calms the situation but ultimately refuses to help anyway.

PENANCE: RELENTLESS #3 and #5
5-issue miniseries
by Paul Jenkins, Paul Gulacy & Rain Beredo
November 2007 and March 2008

This is from the desperately stupid period where sad Speedball was wandering around in a BDSM suit and calling himself Penance. He steals nuclear launch codes as part of a convoluted scheme to get his hands on Nitro, currently a prisoner in Latveria. Wolverine tries to deal with that, but winds up diverting the new Thunderbolts – Moonstone (Karla Sofen), Songbird (Melissa Gold), the Swordsman (Andreas Strucker, formerly of Fenris), the Radioactive Man (Chen Lu) and Venom (Mac Gargan) – so that Penance can steal their plane for his actual plan. Later, Wolverine helps him escape after he’s finished torturing and killing Nitro. Cheerful!

NEW AVENGERS vol 1 #27-31
“Revolution”
by Brian Michael Bendis, Leinil Yu & Dave McCaig
February to June 2007

The “New” Avengers are now hanging out at Dr Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, which is magically disguised to look abandoned. Following a tip-off that Captain America is alive after all, they try to rescue him from the Raft, but it’s a trap set by Iron Man’s official Avengers – himself, Wasp, Ms Marvel, Sentry, Wonder Man, Black Widow and Ares. Fortunately, Iron Man’s team aren’t prepared for Dr Strange’s magic, so the New Avengers escape. The next day, the official Avengers show up at the Sanctum with Brother Voodoo (Jericho Drumm) to have another go, but they can’t get in.

The New Avengers discuss whether there’s any real point in staying together, and Luke Cage continues to insist that there’s an alien invasion they need to deal with. Clint Barton joins as the new Ronin, and they all head to Japan in answer to a distress call from Echo, who has been investigating the Hand. (Wolverine claims later that he only sticks around at this point to make sure Echo gets rescued.)

The Avengers fight the Hand and Elektra – who gets killed and turns out to be a Skrull impostor. Despite the fact that the Hand are Wolverine villains, he doesn’t get much to do here. A flashback in Daredevil vol 2 #112 shows the New Avengers reacting to the Skrull body, and the MCP has a generic fight with ninjas, from a flashback in Punisher vol 8 #3, placed as taking place during the fight.

NEW AVENGERS vol 1 #32-34 and #36-37
“The Trust”
by Brian Michael Bendis, Leinil Yu & Dave McCaig
July to December 2007

The New Avengers fly back to the USA on Iron Fist’s private jet, bring the body of “Elektra” with them. Wolverine blithely points out that if there are Skrull infiltrators around, none of them can be trusted, including himself – someone who “is everywhere at once”. Because of an EMP taking place over in Mighty Avengers, the plane crashes. “Spider-Woman” (still a Skrull impostor) takes the opportunity to escape with the corpse. Wolverine notices, but wrongly concludes that she’s taking the body to Iron Man.

Once he’s back in New York, Logan goes looking for Skrulls, but winds up fighting the Hood (Parker Robbins) and his sidekick John King. He learns that the Hood is planning to attack Avengers Tower using a Deathlok cyborg. The New Avengers decide to warn the official team, but wind up getting stuck in a team-up against a horde of symbiotes instead. “Spider-Woman” switches teams and joins the official Avengers; Wolverine confronts her about it, but gets fobbed off again. Later, the New Avengers take down the Hood and his army of villains, who include the Wizard (Bentley Whitman), the Wrecking Crew, Madame Masque (Whitney Frost) and Chemistro (Calvin Carr). Wolverine gets a couple of nice moments in this arc, but there’s still no particularly good reason for him to be here at all.

CABLE & DEADPOOL #43-44
“With Friends Like These–?” / “Head Games”
by Fabian Nicieza, Ron Lim, Jeremy Freeman & Gotham
July & August 2007

We’re in the dying days of Cable & Deadpool here, where Cable had been written out and the book was limping on as a Deadpool team-up series.

Wolverine travels to Benghazi to investigate contraband shipments of hi-tech materials. Deadpool’s old sidekick Weasel, currently a reluctant ally of HYDRA, is gathering these materials in order to make his “Penetrator” teleporting armour. Deadpool and his new sidekick Bob, Agent of HYDRA try to rescue Weasel before Wolverine can get to him and kill him. But Weasel has talked the HYDRA agents into accepting him as their new sector commander, and outfits them all with his new teleporter devices – which take them all directly to Guantanamo Bay.

Wolverine is basically a foil here, playing the unstoppable force that Deadpool has to try and rein in. He does come across as a bit dim, since he fails to figure out a twist that even Deadpool anticipates.

NEW WARRIORS vol 4 #2-3
“Defiant, parts 2-3”
by Kevin Grevioux, Paco Medina, Juan Vlasco & Marte Gracia
July & August 2007

New heroine Wondra, from the latest incarnation New Warriors, is actually the de-powered Jubilee, using tech to fake new superpowers. Wolverine warns her that it’s dangerous to try to replace lost powers, and reminds her that when he lost his adamantium, he had to learn that he was still himself.

WORLD WAR HULK: X-MEN
3-issue miniseries
by Christos Gage, Andrea DiVito & Laura Villari
June to August 2007

The Hulk has returned to Earth after being fired into space by the Illuminati, and shows up at the Mansion to confront Professor X. Even though he wasn’t actually there for the meeting in question, Hulk wants to know how he would have voted. Much fighting ensues, until the Hulk sees the graves of all the mutants who have died recently, concludes that the X-Men are already in hell, and wanders off to get back to the main plot of his crossover event. Wolverine is just a face in the crowd.

WORLD WAR HULK: AFTERSMASH! – DAMAGE CONTROL #2-3
3-issue miniseries
by Dwayne McDuffie, Salva Espin & Guru eFX
February and March 2008

Just two cameos in the crowd – one among the heroes helping to rebuild after World War Hulk, and one among the heroes who fight the Chrysler Building when it briefly comes to life. (Literally, his hand is in one panel.) Wolverine ticks a few minor names off his list here: Black Goliath (Tom Foster), Monstro (Frank Johnson), Visioneer (Abby Dunton), Slapstick (Steve Harmon), Komodo of the Initiative, a Skrull impostor Thor Girl, and Damage Control intern Bart Rozum.

WOLVERINE vol 3 #50-55
“Evolution”
by Jeph Loeb, Simone Bianchi, Andrea Silvestri, Simone Peruzzi & Frank D’Armata
January to June 2007

Oh dear. This.

Brace yourself, because this is really bad.

Ever since regaining his memories, Logan has been plagued by visions of a werewolf-like race, the Lupine, who have existed since the dawn of time with a repeated cycle of conflict between warriors who resemble himself and Creed, while a shadowy villain watches from above. By this point, Sabretooth is living at the Mansion again, and Wolverine fights him for no particular reason. He asks Sabretooth what he meant when he said “quod sum eris” after killing Silver Fox years ago, and after more pointless fighting, Sabretooth explains that it’s Latin for “I am what you will be” – in other words, one day Wolverine will become like Sabretooth. After yet more pointless fighting, the story randomly heads off to an archaeological dig in Wakanda which has apparently discovered Lupine skeletons. Wolverine’s visions reveal the Lupine’s leader as Romulus.

The Black Panther and Storm then explain a bizarre pseudoscientific theory: the Lupine are a split evolutionary strand evolved from wolves, who somehow became part of mutantkind. This supposedly explains the number of mutants who have lupine components, and Sabretooth indicates that all Lupine degenerate into murderers like him in the end. When Wolverine asks directly about Romulus, Sabretooth is shaken and won’t answer. Soon after that, Wolverine has an encounter with Wild Child, and winds up pursuing him to the Weapon X facility alongside Sasquatch, Wolfsbane, Feral and Thornn (who are all presented as somehow linked to the Lupine, even though Sasquatch isn’t a mutant, and Feral and Thornn are cats). Logan now recalls seeing Romulus in Weapon X when he was a prisoner there. Finally, all this builds to Wolverine confronting Sabretooth at the old cabin that he used to share with Silver Fox, and beheading him with the Muramasa Blade. Romulus briefly puts in an appearance in person, to tell Wolverine that everything he has learned is true, before moving on.

“Evolution” is incoherent drivel, and its attempt to tie Wolverine and Sabretooth to some sort of hidden race never took off – in fact, Loeb’s own sequel will brush it aside as mind games by Romulus. It’s particularly bizarre that this idea was introduced at the same time that Daniel Way’s Wolverine: Origins was already under way, initially set up as a straightforward story of Wolverine hunting down the black ops conspiracy that had exploited him in the past. Romulus gets plugged in to the Origins conspiracy as the head of a shadowy criminal organisation, but even that book didn’t touch the Lupine nonsense.

WOLVERINE vol 3 #50 (second story)
“Puny Little Man”
by Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines & Dave McCaig
January 2007

Weird meta story in which Wolverine dreams about his first fight with the Hulk, and it then segues into the version from Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk (which at the time was the most recent version of the fight). I suppose the idea is meant to be that the story keeps being re-told, but so what?

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS ANNUAL #1
“Return to Madripoor”
by Daniel Way, Kaare Andrews & Shannon Blanchard
July 2007

Logan returns to Madripoor in search of a box kept by his old partner Seraph, which supposedly contained secrets that she would take to the grave. Police officer Tai turns out to be part of Romulus’s conspiracy and commits suicide; Seraph’s coffin contains no box of secrets, but does have Romulus’s name written inside.

Largely a framing sequence for a flashback story set in 1942, but very pretty at least.

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #16-20
“Our War”
by Daniel Way, Steve Dillon & Matt Milla
August to December 2007

Wolverine reminisces about his encounters with Captain America and Bucky during World War II, in a private wake for the late superhero. Just a framing sequence for a story we covered back in the World War II chapter.

NEW X-MEN vol 2 #43
“Children of X-Men, part 2”
by Christopher Yost, Craig Kyle, Skottie Young & Jean-Francois Beaulieu
October 2007

The X-Men discuss the traumatised state of their remaining pupils, but get them back to training regardless.

WOLVERINE ANNUAL vol 2 #1
“The Death Song of J Patrick Smitty”
by Gregg Hurwitz & Marcelo Frusin
October 2007

Logan has a pleasant encounter on the streets with an old woman, only for her to be killed by crossfire in a bank robbery soon after. He hunts down the robbers, but leaves one of them – the titular J Patrick Smitty – alive in order to send a message of fear to the others, promising to return and kill him last. And in the end, that’s exactly what happens.

It’s really Smitty’s story, the point being that he spent his whole life telling himself that there was still time to change, and that he left it too late. Quite good, though it does veer towards the Punisher interpretation of Wolverine.

WOLVERINE vol 3 #56
“The Man in the Pit”
by Jason Aaron, Howard Chaykin & Edgar Delgado
August 2007

A mystery villain (identified in the epilogue as Romulus) keeps Wolverine in a pit for eight weeks, with guards paid to keep shooting at him in order to keep him subdued. Over several weeks, Wolverine drives one of the guards to madness and convinces the guy to let him out in an act of attempted suicide.

It’s a banality-of-evil story told from the point of view of the guard, along with a Sherlock Holmes routine based on Wolverine picking up details about the guard’s life through his enhanced senses. A lot better than the over-the-top high concept makes it sound.

BREAKING INTO COMICS THE MARVEL WAY #1 (New Avengers story)
“Modern Love”
by Brian Michael Bendis, Christian Nauck, Terry Austin & Matt Wilson
March 2010

The New Avengers have a brief cameo, reacting to a whirlwind romance between Iron Fist and Spider-Woman.

WOLVERINE vol 3 #57-61
“Logan Dies”
by Marc Guggenheim, Howard Chaykin & Edgar Delgado
September 2007 to January 2008

And now, back for the last chunk of Marc Guggenheim’s run. Remember Amir, the Atlantean spy from the Civil War arc last year? Well, she and Wolverine head to Iraq to fight the mercenary group Scimitar. But Amir is killed, and Scimitar agent Shogun kills Wolverine. When he heads to his regular fight with Lazaer, he loses – meaning that his body heals but he remains comatose.

Dr Strange sets out to retrieve Wolverine’s soul from Purgatory. He shows Wolverine how he’s been fighting Lazaer every time he dies, and theorises that Wolverine lost this time because he was so upset about, er, the death of Amir. If you say so. Strange then takes Logan on a tour through his history, and Logan finally figures out that he’s been struggling in his battles with Lazaer ever since being resurrected by the Hand during “Enemy of the State”.

Somehow or other, this realisation allows Logan to return to his body. He then hunts down Phaedra, the woman who resurrected him for the Hand. After fighting a resurrected Shingen Yashida (and re-killing him), Wolverine learns that Phaedra and Lazaer are taking revenge on him for escaping death so many times. If that’s their objection, then one might have thought that a good plan would be not to resurrect him during “Enemy of the State” in the first place. But instead, their more ornate plan was to resurrect him with only part of his soul; the other part of his soul is now Shogun. Wolverine kills Shogun, then offers to kill Phaedra in exchange for Lazaer fully restoring him (since Lazaer doesn’t like any resurrectionists running around). Lazaer agrees, on condition that Wolverine will never be able to return from the dead again. Phaedra tries to buy him off by offering to resurrect Mariko, but Wolverine refuses to have her sullied. He then kills Phaedra and all the Scimitar members, and leaves contentedly.

Presumably, this whole arc was supposed to provide an explanation for Wolverine’s more extreme healing stunts, and then rein in his powers to put a stop to that sort of thing. It didn’t stick in the slightest, but the idea had some merit. This arc also features Howard Chaykin drawing Wolverine in a chainmail T-shirt and combat trousers, for absolutely no reason other than that’s what Chaykin thinks he wears.

NEW AVENGERS ANNUAL vol 1 #2
by Brian Michael Bendis, Carlo Pagulayan, Jeff Huet & Justin Ponsor
January 2008

The Hood and his army of supervillains attack the New Avengers; they get driven off, but Dr Strange declares that he needs to leave the team and rebuild his strength.

Among the random villains, Wolverine ticks off the Living Laser (Arthur Parks), one of the Blood Brothers, Centurius (Noah Black), the Corruptor (Jackson Day), the Answer (Aaron Nicholson), Cutthroat (Daniel Leightoon), one of the Brothers Grimm, the Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave), Dr Demonicus (Douglas Birely), the Griffin (Johnny Horton), Crossfire (William Cross), Jigsaw (Billy Russo), the Slug (Ulysses Lugman) and Shockwave (Lancaster Sneed). Oh, and Night Nurse (Linda Carter) is at the Sanctum too.

WOLVERINE: FIREBREAK
One-shot
by Mike Carey, Scott Kolins & Moose Baumann
December 2007

When a HYDRA chemical warfare test goes wrong and starts a forest fire, a blinded Wolverine helps a squabbling family to escape. It’s a gimmick story but it’s done well.

WOLVERINE: FIREBREAK (second story)
“Little White Lies”
by Macon Blair, Vasilis Lolos & Nestor Pereyra
December 2007

Psychotic criminal Carmelo SS (Carmelo de lo Santo Silva) abducts Samuel Lacey. Samuel is the estranged son of White House drug czar William Lacey, who asks Wolverine to sort it out discreetly. Unfortunately, by the time Wolverine reaches Samuel, he’s been infected with a slow-acting fatal poison, to which there is no antidote. Satisfied that the boy’s condition really is terminal, Wolverine puts him out of his misery (at his own request). He falsely tells the father that the boy died instantly and painlessly, but Lacey is most hurt by the truthful news that his son died bravely. This is quite good, aside from a baffling diversion to fight some circus performers.

Next time, Jason Aaron writes his first arc in a lengthy stint as Wolverine’s regular writer; and the X-Men head to San Francisco.

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005

We left off in the aftermath of House of M. Almost all mutants have been depowered by the Scarlet Witch – though by a happy coincidence, almost all the main characters happen to be exceptions, including Wolverine. On top of that, Wolverine has regained all of his memories. That took us through to the “Origins and Endings” arc from Wolverine vol 3 #36-40, where Daniel Way kicked off his Wolverine: Origins storyline. That arc already took us through to March 2006, but it continues into Origins itself. And that arc runs for a good long while before allowing a break in the action. So…

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #1-5
“Born in Blood”
by Daniel Way, Steve Dillon & Dan Kemp
April to August 2006

Origins is Wolverine’s second ongoing monthly series, running for 50 issues and attempting to tie his back story into a coherent whole. On that score, it was a failure. It ties everything into a byzantine conspiracy arc involving Romulus, which has barely been mentioned since, presumably because nobody finds Romulus very inspiring. But it would be unfair to say that nothing in Origins matters. It also introduced Daken, and he’s still appearing prominently today.

In the opening arc, Wolverine starts hunting down people who were part of the conspiracy that exploited him in the past. He feels that he’s done terrible things in his life, that it’s no excuse that he wasn’t in control of his mind, and that he’s beyond redemption – but that’s not going to stop him from taking revenge. We establish that Logan started as a thug for the conspiracy, but went on to become a handler who treated other people the same way in a cycle of abuse. One of his victims, Nuke, resurfaces to lure Wolverine out. Wolverine defeats Nuke, but Captain America shows up to stop Wolverine from killing him. Wolverine beats up Cap, then gives the Muramasa Blade (which he retrieved in the previous arc) to the X-Men for safe keeping. Finally, he heads off in search of his long lost son Daken, believing that the conspirators are planning to engineer a fight between them.

(more…)

Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004

We’re midway through the Mark Millar / John Romita Jr run. It already carried us through the first couple of months of the year, and when we left off, Wolverine had just been captured by the good guys after his brainwashed rampage on behalf of the Hand. If you haven’t read this storyline, you can probably guess what happens in the second half.

WOLVERINE vol 3 #26-31
“Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
by Mark Millar, John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson & Paul Mounts
March to August 2005

S.H.I.E.L.D. deprogram Wolverine by putting his mind through repeated simulations in which his normal personality can finally reassert itself. When the Hand attack with a bunch of brainwashed villains, Wolverine has to be woken ahead of schedule to fight them, but his normal personality is indeed restored. The attackers include a bunch of minor villains that Wolverine hasn’t encountered before – Slyde (Jalome Beacher), S.H.O.C. (Todd Fields), the Spot (Johnny Ohnn), Vibro (Alton Vibereaux), Poison (Cecilia Cardinale) and Leap-Frog (Buford Lange). In a completely random bit of continuity, the scientist who cures Wolverine, Dr Weinberg, is the former Rabble-Rouser, a one-off Human Torch villain from 1964.

Naturally, Wolverin sets out for revenge and atonement. In practice, this means killing everyone he can get his hands on from HYDRA, the Hand or the Dawn of the White Light cult. Basically it’s a mirror of the first half, except now he’s going after the villains. S.H.I.E.L.D. also fret about whether he’s really deprogrammed, but nothing really comes of that.

In the course of his casual slaughter – and this arc is really casual about having Wolverine kill large number of bad guys – the brainwashed Northstar is captured. As for Elektra, she was never under Hand control after all, and she was just playing along. Finally, Wolverine and Elektra lead SHIELD against the bad guys. Elsbeth is apparently killed in a missile strike, while Gorgon is turned to stone by his own powers and shattered. His ridiculously OTT powers are better suited to being a one-off villain, which is how Millar seems to have conceived him.

(more…)