Wolverine #47 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 6 #47
“Sabretooth War, part 7: Bad Seed”
Writers: Victor LaValle & Benjamin Percy
Artist: Geoff Shaw
Colour artist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine (Laura) fights the “Savage” alt-Sabretooth.
PAGE 2. Paul Neary obituary.
PAGES 3-5. Laura escapes her cage.
Laura cut this control collar off one of the beheaded Sabretooth drones last issue. Apparently, the collars trigger the security systems, so once the others are at a safe distance, she’s able to use it to escape. This doesn’t seem like a very good security system, but she is dealing with a whole crew of Sabretooths.
PAGE 6. Recap and credits.
PAGES 7-8. Wolverine and Sabretooth fight.
This picks up directly from the end of the previous issue, where Sabretooth had just zapped Wolverine with Forge’s de-powering gun. Note that even though this is Wolverine’s book (where he’s normally the narrator), Sabretooth is the narrator in this scene, and Wolverine only gets a single line of dialogue. In fact, Wolverine doesn’t get any more proper dialogue until the final page of the issue.
In his narration, Sabretooth acknowledges that he is caught between wanting to kill Sabretooth and wanting to fight him forever.
PAGES 9-10. The Exiles discuss their next move.
This confirms that only Toad and Melter actually died last issue. They were the only two to explicitly die on camera, but it wasn’t very clear why everyone else had vanished from the scene. Apparently the idea is that Wolverine and Sabretooth brawled on through the lab and left the remaining three Exiles behind, but that wasn’t exactly clear in the storytelling.
Nekra reminds us again of the Death Seed that Cypher gave her in Sabretooth #5; the flashback is a direct repeat of that scene. Cypher told Nekra: “You track down Sabretooth and drop this in the soil on which he stands.” Understandably, Nekra blames Wolverine for killing her teammate Melter, since that’s exactly what he saw. Oya argues in Wolverine’s defence, since she’s the one Exile who actually knows the A-list X-Men like him – she was a regular cast member in Wolverine and the X-Men back in the day. But Nekra isn’t that interested in being reasonable, not least because her powers are linked to her level of hate.
PAGES 11-12. Quentin contacts Phoebe.
Quentin previously contacted Phoebe (rather incoherently) at the end of issue #44, prompting Wolverine to head to Krakoa and walk into Sabretooth’s trap. This time he largely updates her on the plot. He claims to be unable to resist Sabretooth’s instructions but we’ll see later on that he actually can. To be fair, he’s been trying to obey in the most unhelpful way up until now. It’s possible that the connection with Phoebe gives him the ability to resist – either emotionally, or just because she’s literally helping him from a distance with her powers.
Quentin manifests as a severed head because “this is all that’s left”, but then produces a hand a couple of panels later in order to hold Phoebe.
PAGES 13-14. Sabretooth forces Quentin to blast Wolverine.
According to the previous page, this attack is supposed to leave Wolverine brain dead. We’ll see later that, thanks to Quentin’s resistance, it does nothing of the sort.
Sabretooth ultimately seems unsatisfied with his apparent total victory over Wolverine, since it’s all a bit underwhelming. Sabretooth’s line “I wanted you raw and rough” is, let’s say, firmly on the “love” side of “love/hate relationship” – and note the contrast with Nekra coming in and yelling about hate at the start of the next page.
PAGES 15-17. Nekra deploys the Death Seed.
As Nekra says here, her powers are meant to be linked to her emotional state; trying to be a responsible team leader was not conducive to her being at full power. When she’s being hateful, however, she’s more than a match for Sabretooth. Quentin takes the chance to attack Sabretooth – in Wolverine’s style – and Nekra finally uses her seed, which turns out to be a Venus flytrap kind of thing. We don’t find out yet what it does beyond imprisonment.
Quentin tells Nekra that his team (X-Force) will “come looking for me”, even though he specifically warned Phoebe not to come. But Sabretooth’s defeat changes the calculation.
PAGES 18-19. Came Sabretooth and Savage Sabretooth speak to Graydon Creed.
Camo and Savage recovered Graydon from an alternate timeline in issue #45, hoping to use him to bring down Sabretooth Prime. We were told that something had happened to Graydon’s face, but we didn’t see him until now. Basically, he’s gone a bit cyborg, and given himself the codename Bad Seed – which seems intended to echo Nekra’s seed from the previous scene.
PAGES 20-21. Laura fights Savage.
Laura’s birthday present to Wolverine was seen back in issues #41-42.
Savage tore out Wolverine’s tongue in issue #43.
Savage dies here, leaving Camo as the last remaining alt-Sabretooth with a mind of his own.
PAGE 22. The remaining Exiles escape with Wolverine.
The Ship – which has the personality of Madison Jeffries – is being weirdly unco-operative in this scene for no immediately apparent reason. Presumably there’s some significance to that.
PAGE 23. Bad Seed, Camo and the beheaded Sabretooth corner Laura.
Straightforward.
PAGE 24. Wolverine wakes up.
Evidently Quentin didn’t kill Wolverine as intended; Oya attributes this to Quentin “lov[ing] you too much to do that”, which would fit with the awkward father-son relationship they’ve mainly been written with.
The idea of Wolverine continuing to pursue Sabretooth without his powers has been done before in the Paul Cornell run, although with a rather different emphasis there on Wolverine’s own self-destructive impulses.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The Krakoan reads ALONE TOGETHER.
Meanwhile, we’ve got details on the NYX book starting this summer.
The book will be about Laura (still as Wolverine), Ms Marvel, Prodigy, Anole and Sophie Cuckoo living in New York as part of a post-Krakoa wave of mutant immigrants. Written by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing.
…this might be the closest I get to a New X-Men (Academy X) reunion book. Yay. Kelly and Lanzing are pretty hit or miss for me, but this could be a fun cast.
“In his narration, Sabretooth acknowledges that he is caught between wanting to kill Sabretooth and wanting to fight him forever.”
@Paul: Should be wanting to kill Wolverine.
I’m surprised at how much complete sense it makes–and, in hindsight, how obvious it is–recontextualizing Sabretooth’s obsession with Wolverine with a romantic, almost sexual subtext. The focus on Sabretooth’s narration really works for me too. Shockingly entertaining over the first 2 issues of this arc.
Also @Paul: Would you consider writing up a Krokoa era postmortem/retrospective (the sort you used to do after 6 or so issues of an ongoing before you brought back X-Axis) once FoX wraps in its entirety? Regardless of what side people are on, it would certainly be a thoughtful, entertaining read…especially the inevitable tsunami of bad takes in comments.
=p
@Krzysiek Ceran: The re-absorption of the mutant population back into the rest of the world post-Krakoa is certainly a book I’d be interested in, as it’s becoming increasingly apparent that FoX isn’t headed for a Sins of Sinister style hard reset. Really staggering how hideous Laura’s costume seems to be, though.
“In his narration, Sabretooth acknowledges that he is caught between wanting to kill Sabretooth and wanting to fight him forever.”
Now I’m picturing Sabretooth punching himself in the face repeatedly. 🙂
(It should be “wanting to kill Wolverine”.)
Note that Quentin says that the secrets in Forge’s lab might be able to restore him. This is presumably how Quentin gets his body back and it might even explain how Daken is restored.
After this issue, I’m more skeptical than ever that there’s going to be a mass resurrection at the end of the Krakoan era. Aside from Quentin and Daken, the only characters that need to be brought back are Sinister. who has 10,017 backup plans in case the X-Men kill him, and Warren. So assuming that Quentin and Daken are brought back by Forge’s gizmos, only Warren needs to be brought back to life.
Note that Wolverine says he going to need a new suit to stop Sabretooth. Back in X-Force 4, Wolverine looked at Forge’s adamantium and asked Forge to build him something. Presumably what Wolverine asked him to build was the adamantium suit of armor we’ve seen in the solicits.
The bit with Wolverine trying to hunt down Sabretooth while minus his powers was also done at the tail end of Tieri’s run, though Tieri didn’t drag the whole mess out nearly as long as Percy is.
Hoping for a HTA episode with discussion of the new X-books
The “venus f;ytrap” looked to me to be a mini-Pit, which would certainly qualify to Sabretooth as “worse than death”.
Maybe Logan’s adamantium surfboard can make a return?
(Please no)
“Understandably, Nekra blames Wolverine for killing her teammate Melter, since that’s exactly what he saw.” Who’s “he”? Wolverine?
“Came Sabretooth and Savage Sabretooth speak to Graydon Creed.” Camo.
There’s a Shebertooth now?
Nothing new under the sun.
Catching up on things, but seeing as each time Wolverine loses his healing factor it makes no difference at all to the damage he sustains and pulls through with not a problem, barely an inconvenience, it does make me wonder why they bother to pull the card out at all.