Wolverine #37 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #37
“Last Mutant Standing, part 1”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colour artist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine fights the Hulk, with the three Wolverine clones in the background. Not really what happens in the issue, but close enough for a cover.
PAGES 2-3. Wolverine recaps the premise of “Fall of X”.
After last month’s diversion to do a crossover with Ghost Rider, Wolverine joins “Fall of X” proper. And for the benefit of anyone reading this in trade, Logan opens the issue by recapping the plot in narration (quite effectively, actually). Since the central themes of this book over the last year have included Wolverine’s disillusionment with the Krakoan authorities, and Beast thinking he’s above the law, Wolverine actually has slightly more sympathy for anti-mutant sentiment than some of his teammates, though obviously not to the point of sympathising with Orchis themselves.
The Orchis roadblock includes a robot with adamantium claws of its own. This is one of the X-Sentinels that Orchis created in X-Men #22 using the adamantium skeletons left behind on the Orchis Forge space station after X-Force’s repeated suicide assaults on the station, as shown in Inferno #1. We also saw an X-Sentinel in X-Force #44, Percy’s other “Fall of X” series.
PAGE 4. Logan meets with Jeff Bannister.
“Orchis is threatening to kill 10 humans for every X-Man they catch still on Earth.” That was the threat made to Professor X by Dr Stasis in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023. At that point, Orchis really were expecting the mutants to go to Mars, so the point was to deter them from coming back. It’s unclear how seriously Orchis are actually taking this threat. Wolverine wasn’t at the Gala (which is why he’s still on Earth), but he was shown resisting Professor X’s attempt to telepathically march all the mutants through the gates, and presumably learned about the threat through that.
Wolverine’s main concern in this issue is to track down the three remaining Wolverine clones that the Beast created as henchmen; we saw them escape when Beast’s base was destroyed at the end of issue #35. Wolverine takes Orchis’s threat seriously enough to worry that the clones might prompt a retribution attack by Orchis.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGES 6-7. Logan returns to the Howlett Estate.
The basic idea here is that the clones, despite their low level of brainpower, are drawn to locations that Wolverine feels a strong affinity to. This one has come to the estate where Logan grew up as a child, depicted here as a ruined mansion. This seems to contradict Wolverine #10 (2013), where Wolverine and Kitty Pryde return to the Howlett Estate and find a shopping mall. To be fair, that issue doesn’t outright say that the shopping mall is on the precise site of the family home, though it’s certainly the intention.
The addled Wolverine clone has apparently eaten human flesh, thus triggering the Wendigo curse.
PAGES 8-11. The Hulk rescues Logan from the Wolverine Wendigo.
The transformed clone still has its metal claws. And why not, it’s a magical transformation.
Page 9 panel 6 is a flashback to the final panel of Origin #2, where Logan has just used his claws for the first time to kill groundskeeper Thomas Logan (obviously implied to be his biological father). The body lying in the foreground is actually John Howlett Sr, killed by Thomas earlier in the scene. The woman kneeling in the background is Logan’s mother, Elizabeth Howlett.
The Wendigo tearing Wolverine in two seems to be a call-back to Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk, which did the same over-the-top spot.
As if it needs pointed out, the Wendigo was the villain in Incredible Hulk #181, Wolverine’s first story – so this is an exercise in reuniting the elements of Wolverine’s debut. In this version, however, the Hulk is on Wolverine’s side. Apparently Wolverine’s healing factor can repair this sort of damage if the body parts are put back in place quickly enough.
PAGES 12-13. Bruce Banner and Logan talk.
The current run of Incredible Hulk is back to Banner and Hulk fighting over control of the body. Banner’s explanation that the Hulk is being hunted by monsters refers to the opening arc of that series.
PAGE 14. Data page. Jeff Bannister points Logan to the next clone, near Mount Fuji. This one has been drawn to the site of what Bannister calls “Itsu and Muramasa and all that business”. This is Jasmine Falls, first seen in the Logan: Path of the Warlord one-shot, and much expanded upon in various issues of Wolverine: Origins. It was a community of ex-ninjas training for a more peaceful way of life; this is where Logan meets and marries Itsu, and fathers Daken. After leaving the community in disgrace, Logan meets Muramasa, who creates the Muramasa Blade that features prominently as a macguffin through Origins.
PAGES 15-16. Logan and Banner arrive in the Dead Forest.
Aokigahara is indeed a forest on Mount Fuji. It is indeed associated with tales of ghosts haunting it. It also has something of a problem as a suicide location – an alarming number of attempted suicides take place there each year, or at least did until the authorities stopped publishing the figures, apparently because they thought it was encouraging people. The more normal English language nickname for it is the Suicide Forest, but presumably someone felt a bit nervous about that.
PAGES 17-22. Logan and Banner encounter the clone with the Ghost Sect.
As far as I know, the Ghost Sect are new. Somehow or other, these guys have come upon the Wolverine clone, whose blood apparently has healing properties for them. Since Wolverine’s blood isn’t normally presented as having these properties, perhaps it’s something to do with the cloning process, or maybe there’s a magical aspect linked to these particular cultists. This Wolverine clone is trying, in his confused way, to help the cultists and save lives; that fits with Mount Fuji being a location that Wolverine associates with peace and tranquility.
You do have to wonder how these dimwitted clones actually got to any of these locations, given that they started in the Atlantic Ocean – were they actually able to identify a ship or a plane to stow away on? Apparently so.
PAGE 23. Data page. Unsurprisingly, the third clone is in Madripoor and has supposedly adopted the Patch identity. As Logan picks up, this makes no sense given the clones’ low level of intelligence, and it does indeed turn out that the clone is being kept in the shadows as a puppet figurehead.
PAGES 24-28. Logan and Banner enter the casino and Logan finds the clone.
Banner helpfully reminds us of his status quo in his own book, which is dutifully honoured as a plot point: he doesn’t want to turn into the Hulk because it’s increasingly hard to change back again.
The clone Logan does indeed turn out to be useless. The actual villain behind the throne is Solem, who has set himself up as the new Madripoor crimelord by leveraging Patch’s reputation. He still has his version of the Muramasa Blade, which he took with him when he voluntarily went to Hell at the end of issue #25. Although Wolverine hasn’t met him since, we already knew that Solem had returned – he shows up in X-Force #34-35 to bring down Beast’s black prison site, and he appears on Arakko in Marvel’s Voices: X-Men.
PAGES 29-33. Solem pits “Patch” against the Hulk in an arena.
Solem tell us explicitly here that he gives people “a glimpse here and there to let people know ‘he’s’ in charge.” That doesn’t fit with displaying the clone on a leash in front of this audience, and it’s the one part of the issue that really doesn’t make sense.
Once Banner turns into the Hulk, Logan defeats the clone. The Hulk irritably declares that he wants nothing further to do with this storyline before leaving.
PAGE 34. Epilogue: Logan is ready to move on to saving mutantkind.
PAGE 35. Trailers. The Krakoan just says LAST MUTANT STANDING, PART TWO. Again, there are spaces between the words which isn’t strictly how it’s meant to work.
This storyline has been going on so long that I have forgotten: have we gotten a moment where Laura reacts to Beast creating loads of mindless Wolverine clones?
We saw in Moira’s sixth life that she was able to survive into the far future due to blood transfusions from Wolverine. That would hint that Wolverine’s blood must have healing properties for others.
The writers have really been inconsistent with the “Orchis threatened to kill ten humans for every mutant found” plot this week. In this issue, Wolverine takes it seriously. In Uncanny Spider-Man, Orchis considers killing 10 humans to force Kurt to surrender but decides that it will might just drive him underground. In Uncanny Avengers and Alpha Flight, the mutant members of the team are operating publicly without anyone worrying about the threat. And in Dark X-Men, well, the readers know that Albert has a monitoring device inside him and Orchis is really after the Mercy Crown, but the Dark X-Men don’t, so you’d think Alex, Remy, Maggott and Gimmick would be worried about Orchis killing humans.
@Omar Karindu- no, we never got a moment like that.
This issue was good, dumb fun. I’m so glad Ryp & D’Armata are back on art. They do a mean Hulk! I like that the current Hulk plot was taken into account. Wendigo Wolverine (Wendigolverine? Wenderine?) was a stupid idea that actually fit the comic, and didn’t overstay it’s welcome. Did this issue make logical sense? Not really. I found myself not caring much, though, because I had a good time watching Hulk smash, Banner fret, Solem enjoy himself, and Wilverine slash.
Not that I necessarily wanted this storyline dragged out, but this issue felt rather rushed in terms of dealing with all three clones one after another.
And I find myself wondering just how Wolverine’s healing factor and adamantium skeleton work when it comes to something like being torn apart. Because so often, when we see Logan sans flesh, his skeleton is held together and intact in such a way that -something- is keeping things together… so if he’s torn in half, what does this mean for his spine or whatnot? What exactly -does- keep it together when he’s reduced to nothing but his bones?
I know, that’s a weird, nit-picky thing, but in this case, it’s a question I have to ask.
The harness that Wolverine’s clone wears in the arena is not a leash, but a kind of “security sling” that both contenders wear to prevent them from leaving the bounded space (in fact, Banner wears it too). Any gladiator fighting in the arena should wear it, so it does not mean to the spectators that “Patch” is on Solem’s leash.
I must say that I didn’t dislike this issue at all, I was afraid that the story of the three clones would drag on for as many issues in a repetitive way, changing only the location and the guest star, instead it was resolved right away. Really good drawings, very appropriate for this series.
Did Wolverine borrow the Muramasa blade (or some other magic sword)? He sliced through “Patch”‘s adamantium skull, which I presume a “mundane” katana could not do, no matter how well crafted.
I do wonder how Solem is traveling between Madripoor and Arrako, in the absence of gates. He’s been seen in both places after the start of Fall. It’s not a major plot-hole or anything; starships and long-range teleporters are both fairly common in this universe. But I wonder, nonetheless.
@Alexx Kay- Solem was only seen on Arrako in the flashback sections of X-Men: Red 15, not in the present-day sections. (He was also seen on Arrako in a story in Marvel’s Voices: X-Men but that was meant to take place before the Gala, since Iceman was on Arrako in the story.)
For the first time while reading a Percy book, this issue made me wonder what Beast was up to during this.
Huh. Coulda sworn I saw Solem in a present-day scene on Arrako, but I can’t find it now… Thanks, Michael!
Wolverine is held together by the all-powerful force of Main Character Plot Armor of course
It’s a nitpick, and I’m aware that I seem to comment here exclusively to complain about Ben Percy, but I was just looking at the letters page of the latest Hulk where it’s writer states quite affirmatively that it’s going to be set in the American South for the foreseeable future, so the between-his-own-issues side trip to Canada jumps out to me as much as the Howlett Mansion still standing does. Granted, guest spots will do this sort of thing and Hulk’s easier to handwave it with than most. But still, even someone enjoying Percy’s work far more than I do can’t have failed to notice that over the last year it’s felt more and more like a slightly different continuity from the rest of the x-line, and there’s some humour in the way Logan’s positioning at the periphery of the Fall of X status quo looked to give him some breathing room that would make this less conspicuous, but instead has caused it to metastasize to non-X titles.
@Midnighter
Are those security slings a common thing in mainstream competitions like MMA or whatever?