X Lives of Wolverine #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X LIVES OF WOLVERINE #1
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Frank Martin
X LIVES OF WOLVERINE is one of two linked miniseries running over the next ten weeks, the other being X Deaths of Wolverine. It replaces most of the regular X-books during this period (but not all) and effectively serves as a season break before the next relaunch. This issue has been made available on Marvel Unlimited on its release date. I can’t imagine direct market retailers are going to be very happy about that, but that – and the reasons why Marvel might have done it – are a matter for another day. At any rate, if you have a Marvel Unlimited subscription, there is no need to buy this.
COVER / PAGE 1. Ten incarnations of Wolverine, all entwined in Omega Red’s tentacles. Specifically, the ten incarnations are:
- At the top, present-day Wolverine.
- Row 2, on the left, Wolverine as Weapon X.
- Row 2, on the right, Wolverine as he appeared in his debut in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #181.
- Between them, Wolverine as Patch, in the white dinner jacket from the early issues of his solo series.
- Row 4, on the left, a soldier Wolverine – I think this is Wolverine as shown in flashbacks to World War I.
- Row 4, on the right, Wolverine as a member of Team X.
- Between them, a Logan with no shirt and ragged trousers – probably Logan as a wilderness dweller after Origin.
- Row 6, on the left, what seems to be a cowboy Logan, presumably from his early post-Origin days.
- Row 6, on the right, Logan in the clothes from this issue, when he shows up at the Xavier Mansion.
- Right at the bottom, a Wolverine in a light grey version of his costume, probably from X-Force vol 3 (the Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost & Clayton Crain run).
PAGES 2-3. Wolverine philosophises about time.
This seems to be mainly intended to prime us for the story itself being told out of chronological sequence (both in historical terms and from the point of view of the characters). After all, once you’re doing a time travel story, why do it in sequence?
The point about time being disoriented because the Krakoan gates allow you to travel instantly between time zones is something that Wolverine also pointed out in his narration in Wolverine #19.
We’ll find out later (more or less) what Professor X wants Wolverine to do.
PAGE 4. Recap and credits. The larger Krakoan text reads “X LIVES”; the greyed-out text next to it says “X DEATHS”.
There are five linked sets of hexagons at the top of the page, two of which are greyed out entirely here; presumably they’re going to be highlighted in the equivalent pages of X Deaths. Of the other three set, the first shows Logan, Professor X and Jean Grey, wi th a fourth picture greyed out (and a name redacted from the accompanying list). The list has “X” after each name, and “Krakoa” as an apparent location. The second set has a picture of Logan and his name on a list, but everything else greyed out – though we can see the Roman numeral “VI” after each name. The third set has Logan’s name but all the names blanked out, along with all the pictures – including Logan’s. This list has “VII” by everyone’s names.
PAGES 5-8. Logan shows up to defend the birth of Charles Xavier.
The basic idea seems to be that Omega Red is possessing various people to attack Professor X at various points in his past, and Wolverine has been sent back in time by Professor X and Jean Grey to all these various points in history in order to stop it. We’ll presumably find out more about that as it goes on, but it’s spelt out relatively clearly in this week’s Life of Wolverine Infinity Comic #1, where Jean says “Sending Wolverine’s consciousness back through time requires me to act as his “mental anchor” in the here and now, keeping his mind safe no matter where this journey leads.” Presumably, then, this is meant to be Logan occupying the body of his past self, in the style of “Days of Future Past”. (If so, I’ll add all these appearances to the Incomplete Wolverine posts once the series is over.)
This is apparently meant to be the birth of Professor X, which we haven’t seen before. The closest we’ve had is a flashback in New X-Men vol 1 #121 (the silent issue), which shows Charles killing his evil twin sister Cassandra Nova Xavier in the womb, following by a single panel of Sharon falling down the stairs and landing at the feet of an alarmed-looking Brian.
The setting here doesn’t look much like the X-Men Mansion, but maybe the family haven’t yet inherited it from Professor X’s grandparents. The New X-Men #121 flashback seems to show a fairly normal suburban house, but it’s part of a wonky surrealist dream sequence, so you don’t have to take it literally.
More of an issue is that the art seems to have some very odd ideas about what decade it is. It’s 2022 now, so even if Xavier was 70, this scene would have to take place in the 1950s. Wolverine mentions later that he’s “twice as old as the Professor” – if we take that literally, Logan was apparently born in around the 1890s, and that would also fit with a timeframe in the mid-20th century. The art feels a good 30 or 40 years out to me.
Xavier’s parents are Brian and Sharon Xavier, both of whom died long before X-Men vol 1 #1. Sharon first appeared in X-Men vol 1 #12, which contains a lengthy flashback to the back story of Professor X and the Juggernaut. Brian is mentioned in that flashback, but doesn’t actually appear on panel until a flashback in X-Men vol 2 #12.
PAGES 9-10. Omega Red breaks into the Hatchery computers.
The unnamed guy he beats up is Egg. The significance of the information Omega Red accesses is explained on the following data page.
PAGE 11. Data page: an exchange of memos by which X-Force (specifically, the Beast) insists on Omega Red being resurrected with a version of his carbonadium synthesiser that can be used to track him without his knowledge. This is basically recapping X-Force #15 for newcomers. For present purposes all you really need to know is that Omega Red is generally compelled to kill people and absorb their life essence; the C-synth is a device that gives him more control over all that; and Beast secretly replaced it with a version provided by Forge that included a tracking device, so that he could track Omega Red and investigate his dealings with Dracula and the Vampire Nation.
The Five have increasingly been shown resisting directions to do things they have moral objections to, but that came along after the point where they resurrected Omega Red.
PAGES 12-19. Cassandra is stillborn, and Omega Red tries to kill Sharon.
As already noted, Cassandra was killed in the womb by Charles, all as shown in flashback in New X-Men vol 1 #121. She eventually returns as a psychic villain, and we’re due to see more of her in the next season.
Wolverine’s period body only has bone claws, because we’re way before the Weapon X Project.
PAGES 20-22. Present day: Wolverine is connected to Cerebro and sent back in time.
This sequence is expanded upon in Life of Wolverine Infinity Comic, where it serves as a framing device to recap Wolverine’s history. In this version we just get a double page spread with fractured images from Wolverine’s life. Starting from bottom left and working roughly clockwise, the images are:
- Wolverine fighting the Silver Samurai, in what could be any of several stories.
- Young Logan (James Howlett) discovering his powers for the first time.
- Logan as a crying newborn. This is technically an original appearance, and counts as his chronologically earliest appearance, unless you count the photograph of him as a baby which appears in Wolverine: The End #4.
- Wolverine fighting Lady Deathstrike in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #205.
- Logan as Weapon X.
- Logan healing from hideous facial injuries; this could be all sorts of things.
- Logan accompanying Professor X in his wheelchair; this is generic.
- Wolverine fighting the Hulk in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #181.
- The (abortive) wedding of Logan and Mariko from Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #172.
- Logan kneeling in fire with a sword next to him; this might be something to do with him visiting Hell to get the Muramasa Blade in “X of Swords”.
- Wolverine fighting Sabretooth, who’s awfully marginal in all this for a character who used to be presented as Wolverine’s arch-enemy..
- Wolverine fighting Omega Red.
- Wolverine looking regretful over his blood-covered claws.
- Wolverine on an X-shaped cross, from Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #251.
- A generic shot of Logan extending his claws.
PAGES 23-25. Logan fights Omega Red while Charles Xavier is born.
All pretty straightforward. The point being set up here is that Logan is at a disadvantage because he doesn’t want to hurt Omega Red’s host body.
PAGES 26-28. Omega Red arrives in Russia.
The Russians have been generally hostile to Krakoa throughout the current era.
The man approaching Omega Red is Mikhail Rasputin, one of the main villains from X-Force. He’s a high end reality warper, and I suppose the art is meant to show him taking Omega Red to some sort of pocket location so they can talk – though it’s not really very clear.
PAGE 29. Data page. Apparently Mikhail is working on a “new constitution” to give him equal power to Vladimir Putin. We’re only told that it’s been drafted, not that it’s been adopted. Mikhail was using Chronicler’s mind-control powers to influence the Russian government in X-Force #23, so this is presumably something to do with that.
The Cerebro Sword is an artefact made by Magneto from the Cerebro helmet that was destroyed by a sniper bullet in X-Force #1. It was stolen by Mikhail Rasputin in X-Force #12. As of X-Force #23, he was still trying to access and decrypt its data.
The reference to “twins in the womb” obviously echoes Charles and Cassandra; the reference to “nesting dolls”, aside from a rather obvious Russian stereotype, relates to the artificial “nesting doll” soldiers seen in various issues of X-Force.
PAGES 30-33. Baby Charles is saved.
It’s not entirely clear whether Omega Red’s host body falls to her death (she’s still murmuring at the end), or whether it’s simply that the serious injury makes him move on. Maybe we’ll find out in due course. Needless to say, plots of this sort invite all sort of story-breaking questions – why not just come back two weeks earlier and kill Sharon? – but perhaps the ground rules will be clearer as we go on.
PAGES 34-35. Logan arrives in his next jump.
This is Team X, the black ops squad that Logan was a member of. Sabretooth and Maverick are teammates at this point, and Sabretooth is dutifully saving him from an explosion while he’s disoriented. That’s in character for Sabretooth at this point in history.
Basically, it’s Quantum Leap, isn’t it?
PAGE 36. Trailers. The Krakoan reads OMEGA.
I recall an interview where Rob Liefeld admitted that when it came to creating new characters in the X-books back in those days, he and Jim Lee were “Mortal Kombat-ing everything.” His words. That game informed their character designs.
Not surprising then that Omega Red ended up in an X-Men video game. He was basically a video game character already. The tentacles? Well, look at Goro and Kintaro. Multi-limbed characters are pretty popular in those fighty-fight video games. Allan M already pointed out that Spiral appeared in the same game. Not the most obvious choice for an X-Men villain, but hey, she’s got arms all day long.
Liefeld must have been mistaken in his usage of Mortal Kombat because that game didn’t come out until long after he and Lee had both departed Marvel to found Image. Both Youngblood and WildCATS were both out by that point from memory.
It’s funny to see Maverick mentioned – he also was inexplicably a big deal in the 1990s too – remember he got his own short-lived solo series?
I remember Wizard talking up both his and Omega Red’s first appearances as being valuable or rare (neither of those things were true)
@Dave: In the Real World(TM) it isn’t all that difficult to have materials that are supposed to be very resistant to damage be damaged by slightly “lesser” competitors.
Also, there are significantly different forms of mechanical resistance. A material can be difficult to break but relatively easy to bend out of shape; it can be pliable yet resilient. It can suffer microfissures that don’t mean much until a certain threshold is reached.
That would actually make for better drama: “Wolverine’s claws are superior to Omega Red’s tentacles… but what if Omega goes for the kill and bludgeons the claws until they break, even if it costs him a tentacle or two? And if Wolverine survives, what will it cost _him_?”
But the 1990s had little time for such writing. It was all testosterone, extremeness and “kewlness”.
Aside from the infinite tentacles (from the tentacle dimension?) and maybe the ponytail, I was fully on board with Omega Red’s design when he debuted. Definitely better than early Cable.
With some of the streamlining to his powers suggested in this thread, I think he’d be an interesting villain. Frankly, given how rarely he’s been used and how little interest he attracts, a writer could probably make a lot of those changes immediately without many people noticing. Well, until this miniseries gives him a much higher profile, I suppose.
Come to think of it, Omega Red could be a nice foil for Doctor Octopus. Having the vastly more intelligent and experienced Otto Octavius face a vampiric and more brutal version of himself could be very satisfying.
But it would hurt Omega’s street cred a lot, I think. Go for it!
It’s probably not a good sign that the comments on the first issue of the kinda-sorta successor to HOXPOX is predominantly consumed with exploring how much Omega Red sucks.
This series is a successor to HoX/PoX what Search for Spock is as a successor to Wrath of Khan. There, I said it.
“Liefeld must have been mistaken in his usage of Mortal Kombat because that game didn’t come out until long after he and Lee had both departed Marvel to found Image.”
Guess so. I tried searching online to find that interview again but I didn’t have any luck. I’m positive he said “We Mortal Kombated everything” though. That part stuck in my mind.
Back to Omega Red sucking; it’s probably for the best. Had he caught on, Marvel would’ve milked the shit out of him and the X-Universe would be cluttered either with multi-coloured Omegas (Omega Blue, Omega Yellow, etc) or something like Alpha Red, Beta Red, Gamma Red, etc.
I just wanted to say thanks for posting this, as I wasn’t really following what was happening in this comic and stopped reading about halfway through. The fact that there’s an Infinity Comic that was released that helps to explain it is peak Marvel.
Chris V said: This series is a successor to HoX/PoX what Search for Spock is as a successor to Wrath of Khan. There, I said it.
Is that better or worse than being the Final Frontier to HoX/PoX’s The Voyage Home?
More seriously, HoX/PoX is going to cast a long shadow, not least because, being essentially a big, promising false start, everything after it has to compete with fans’ speculation about how great Hickman’s original plans would have been.
Inviting a direct comparison to HoX/PoX by trying to bite on the “Life X” concept for Moira is just creative suicide, especially when the scope here is so limited.
I mean, this isn’t a million miles from the 2001 Fabian Nicieza X-Men Forever project that had characters leaping into their past selves to fill continuity gaps.
But it’s limited to two characters — Wolverine and Omega Red — and doesn’t seem to have the kind of “explaining character arcs and providing narrative closure” elements that motivated Nicieza’s project. For example, it was actually a plot point that someone assassinated Graydon Creed, and and we didn’t know who. But what’s Percy’s miniseries meant to be tying off? Where’s the sense of scope or sweep in either HoX/PoX or Nicieza’s limited series?
And “Wolverine battles a foe across his secret past” is rather redolent of the whole unnecessary, excruciating Romulus fiasco of the early-to-mid 2000s.
Moo said: Back to Omega Red sucking; it’s probably for the best. Had he caught on, Marvel would’ve milked the shit out of him and the X-Universe would be cluttered either with multi-coloured Omegas (Omega Blue, Omega Yellow, etc) or something like Alpha Red, Beta Red, Gamma Red, etc.
Well, Geoff Johns is pretty well ensconced in DC’s film and television division these days, so we should be safe.
Even so, there was Epsilon Red, who turned out to be a pretty OK fellow for a Russian super-soldier, and more recently X-Men ’92 went ahead and introduced an Alpha Red, who was a literal vampire.
Well, we did get the Omega Clan, consisting of Omega Red (clone), Omega Black and Omega White (also clones; apparently they’re three clones of OG Omega Red).
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Omega_Clan_(Earth-616)
I’ve read all of Remenders’ Uncanny X-Force, but after the pretty great Dark Angel Saga it goes so off the rails that I barely remember any of it.
“Well, we did get the Omega Clan, consisting of Omega Red (clone), Omega Black and Omega White (also clones; apparently they’re three clones of OG Omega Red).”
They… already did multiple Omegas? In that case, maybe I’ll start pitching to Marvel because I have plenty of other unoriginal and/or stupid ideas they might like.
You could have Gamma Red and tie it into the Hulk. He could fight that Hulk/ Wolverine mash-up character from a few years ago. I wouldn’t put it past Donny Cates. Hell, he’d probably have him merge with Venom or Knull or something and become Gamma Black.
Quick note — X-Deaths #1 preview shows Moira immediately in the aftermath of Inferno so it’s possible this may somehow be more tied in than issue #1 showed.
“They… already did multiple Omegas? In that case, maybe I’ll start pitching to Marvel because I have plenty of other unoriginal and/or stupid ideas they might like.”
Brilliant.
I have one, what if there was a character connected to Apocalypse, but their name was Genesis? Get it? Like the Bible (except his name isn’t actually Revelations)! I can’t believe this hasn’t been done like three times by now.
Wait, so Remender’s Omega Clan appeared in PoX #5?
Very briefly. They show up in a non-speaking role on one of the panels when Xavier invites the “evil mutants” to enter the gates and join Krakoa.
@Mike Loughlin: LOL. And then Gwen Stacy can become Gwenma Black for a mini-series or two.
I’m still waiting for Omega Red to take on Alpha Flight in, say, Mykonos.
Preferably with Elektra standing off to the side offering snarky commentary.
[…] continues this week with the first issue of the concurrent second miniseries. I had to read House to Astonish’s always-helpful annotations to figure out what was actually happening in last week’s issue, as I don’t read X-Force […]
LOL. And then Gwen Stacy can become Gwenma Black for a mini-series or two.
Later, when improbable circumstances warp her into a villain she can become the Superior Dark Gwenma Black.
The Avengers won’t notice, but the Shi’ar will go to war over it.
Those are all some pretty stupid ideas. Great job, everyone. Marvel’s got a goldmine of story ideas here.
Also, Madison Jeffries should hook Tabitha Smith up with some Box armor so she can call herself Boombox.
“…the X-Universe would be cluttered either with multi-coloured Omegas (Omega Blue, Omega Yellow, etc) or something like Alpha Red, Beta Red, Gamma Red, etc.”
It’s a good job he wasn’t Omega Violet, or we’d have had a 2000s reveal that he was seventh in a line which started with Omega Red and Omega Orange.
Dave said: It’s a good job he wasn’t Omega Violet, or we’d have had a 2000s reveal that he was seventh in a line which started with Omega Red and Omega Orange.
Wasn’t Omega Violet one of the Warhol Superstars?
Never mind. The Venture Bros. did that joke first and better.
And who is the secret mastermind behind the Omega Rainbow Corps? Why, none other than the Multi-color Marauder, a goofy Silver Age villain from the Squadron Supreme’s universe!* Only, he’s not a joke anymore! He’s for-real dark and gritty and he kills people and paints their bodies different colors based on their worst sins! Yes, like Se7en, which was on the streaming service I was scrolling through last night, why do you ask?
Anyway, when the Omegas kill Superior Dark Gwenma Black’s friend or relative or teammate or romantic partner (who haven’t we killed off this year? One of the Runaways?), they’ve gone too far! She’ll team up with Deadpool or something, whole multiverse in danger, yadda yadda, from the ashes arises a new something we can spin off into a series that runs for like 7 issues.
* I’ll let you figure out which goofy DC villain he’s an expy for.
^Crazy-Quilt.
The Rainbow Archer?
Roy G. Bivolo – The Rainbow Archer. Debuted in 1980’s “Flash #286”.
Believe it or else, he actually inspired another villain (sort of): DC’s take on Doctor Spectro, Thomas Emery, debuting in 1987’s Captain Atom #5.
Sorry, I meant that Roy Bivolo is the Rainbow Raider.
Luis Dantas said: Believe it or else, [the Rainbow Raider] actually inspired another villain (sort of): DC’s take on Doctor Spectro, Thomas Emery, debuting in 1987’s Captain Atom #5.
Which is an in-joke by Cary Bates, who created the Rainbow Raider and DC’s version of Dr. Spectro…since the Rainbow Raider’s powers and look were pretty damn close to the original Ditko-co-created Charlton version of Spectro. Ditko’s Doctor Spectro was even dubbed “the master of moods” on the cover of his debut issue!
Ding ding ding, Luis Dantas for the win! All this talk of multi-color versions of a ‘90s villain made me picture a “serious” Rainbow Raider (which may have been done?) and I got a little loopy.
Omar Karindu: that Dr. Spectro story is everything right and wrong with long-running superhero comics and what superhero movies are turning into.
Mike Loughlin said: That Dr. Spectro story is everything right and wrong with long-running superhero comics and what superhero movies are turning into.
In Cary Bates’s defense, the Rainbow Raider came along in 1979, when many readers wouldn’t have much access to the old Charlton stuff, which had mostly survived in fanzines.
Roger Stern, John Byrne, and others even finished Ditko’s last Captain Atom story in their very earliest pro or pseudo-pro days. So in 1980, when he created the Rainbow Raider, Ditko’s Captain Atom was one of those cult classics that a small number of people knew, but which the average reader wouldn’t have ever heard of.
Even today, DC doesn’t have any of the Charlton 1960s superhero material in print, so far as I can tell. There was a brief window in the mid-’90s or late ’90s when the hardcover DC Archives series had volumes covering the Charlton Action Heroes stories of the 1960s, but that was it.
Even Bates’s later Captain Atom material was pretty metafictional — the Charlton comics stories are reimagined, in Miracleman style, as the government’s fake backstory for Captain Atom. There. Dr. Spectro wasn’t a “real” villain, just a guy who knew the propaganda was phony and thought he could deal himself in on some government money by forcibly inserting himself into the propaganda machine.
So I might argue that Bates’s metafictional nod to his inspiration for the Rainbow Raider was more appropriate in that context — Bates essentially saying he had done what his version of the bad guy was doing — and less the kind of tiresome recycling disguised as clever pastiche we get today.
And let’s not forget Roy Thomas was doing all this stuff in the 1960s already, with homages to old Justice Society stories and 1940s Timely Comics characters he’d grown up reading sometimes turning up in his Avengers material. The Vision is probably the most successful such homage character. Superhero comics have been like this for a long time.
Hell, even within the first year of their runs, Marvel was publishing letters talking about the new version of the Human Torch in Fantastic Four and the new version of the Angel in X-Men.
For that matter, by most reckonings the Silver Age started with a story about a guy who chose to call himself the the Flash because, in-story, he grew up reading the 1940s Flash comics written by the same people who wrote the Silver Age Flash comics.
Johnny Storm knew who Namor was in his first Marvel appearance because he’d read the old comics.
Goddamnit. I always choke on game shows.
Never heard of the Rainbow Archer but Rainbow Raider I was already familiar with, and yet stupid Crazy-Quilt is who immediately leapt to mind.
Stupid Crazy-Quilt.
Crazy Quilt connects to an odd bit of continuity or two himself.
He started out as a recurrent “Boy Commandos” villain in their own book. Then he faced what is now understood to be the Earth-Two Robin in his Star-Spangled Comics feature in a 1951 story. But something similar must have happened in Earth-One, because 1979’s Batman #316 has that Robin remember Crazy Quilt as his own one time opponent.
And to this day it is unclear whether the Crazy Quilt of a 1963 Blackhawks story has any connection to either. The DC Fandom wiki is a bit confused on the matter.
Luis Dantas said: And to this day it is unclear whether the Crazy Quilt of a 1963 Blackhawks story has any connection to either. The DC Fandom wiki is a bit confused on the matter.
The 1963 story in Blackhawks is, oddly, enough, about a criminal named Paul Dekker who deliberately impersonates the Crazy Quilt character so he won’t be blamed for his crimes. The Simon and Kirby creation was a gangster whose real last name was originally given as “Quilt.”
However, fan sites latched onto “Paul Dekker” as the real name of the actual Crazy-Quilt, probably because Crazy-Quilt being called “Quilt” seemed like an alias.
Comics writer have been confused by this for years, since several of them — including Scott Snyder — have used the name “Paul Dekker” for the “actual” Crazy-Quilt.
It’s not too far from the way the one-shot 1940s Mad Hatter ended up getting the name “Jervis Tetch,” which was originally the name given to the very different Silver Age villain, the one with gimmicked hat-weapons.
But that was down to Gerry Conway reviving the 40s version, giving him his now-signature mind-control gimmick, and then inexplicably deciding to have him claim the Silver Age guy was an impostor who stole both his codename and real names.
Has the Vanisher been re-retconned to actually be named Telford Porter yet? Because that’s another one I think the Internet has been pushing hard for years.
Omar: I was being flippant in my last comment, but I absolutely take your point that comics creators mining the past for clever (or “clever”) homages or re-imaginings was happening in the Silver Age. Also, your knowledge of comics continuity is amazing. I’ve never heard about the Crazy Quilt confusion or the Mad Hatter merging.
Moo: An alternate-universe Crazy Quilt called the Multi-color Marauder makes sense. There’s a character from that universe named Remnant who has could fit the bill.
That’s his real name in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.