James, Logan, Patch, Weapon X, Wolverine... Canada, Madripoor, New York, Japan... Krakoa... Names scramble. Time gets slippery. My brain feels bruised black. I don't know when, where or even who I am. But I do know this: I'm an expert on pain.
Wolverine (2020) is a comic book series from Marvel Comics. It's part of the X-Men franchise, the seventh volume of the solo series starring Logan, the titular Wolverine.
Set in the shared Marvel Universe, the series is part of the Dawn of X relaunch, and is written by Benjamin Percy (X-Force) and drawn by Adam Kubert (X-Men, Ultimate X-Men).
Logan has found a new reality he can't quite understand: happiness. With Krakoa established as the mutant homeland, the world's greatest mutant killer now has to deal with threats to this fragile peace at the cost of his own soul.
Collected editions
- Volume 1 — Collects Issues 1-3.
Wolverine provides the following tropes:
- AB Negative: Wolverine's blood type is a new one due to his Healing Factor. It's designated type E – for endless.
- Above Good and Evil: Beast comes to this conclusion about his role in protecting Krakoa."Morality is usually based on a fear of punishment. Some form of god (which could also find a lesser substitute in a parent, a teacher, a police officer, et al.) is watching your actions of even listening to your thoughts. And if you sin, you will burn.
"But I believe in no god beyond calculation and reason. There is no right or wrong. There are smart and stupid decisions. There are advantageous and disadvantageous moves. I am unafraid of any damning punishment. This makes me not immoral, but amoral, and thus clear-headed in my decision-making." - Affectionate Nickname: Black Tom gives Maddie the byname of Maddie Ha-ha because she laughs a lot.
- An Arm and a Leg: Naturally, this sort of thing doesn't faze Logan, but he is rather surprised when one of his arms turns up at an auction.
- Asshole Victim: Omega Red slaughters the racist lynch mob who were about to freeze Logan.
- Back from the Dead: Though he was killed in X of Swords, Apocalypse's son Death is back in issue #12.
- Badass Normal: Agent Jeff Bannister of the CIA. A normal human being who is tracking down the Flower Cartel and comes across Logan.
- The Bartender: Fred Dukes (the Blob) is now the bartender of the Green Lagoon, Krakoa's own drinking establishment.
- Black Market: The main storyline is about how a crime syndicate named the Flower Cartel is somehow taking the petals from Krakoa's flowers (which the mutant country use to make the drugs and sell to other countries) and selling them on the black market.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Sabretooth War has got to be the goriest Wolverine story to date: among other events, X-23's jaw gets torn off and Sabretooth kills and dismembers Daken and other mutants to write "Happy Birthday" in the snow.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: In #32, Beast appropriates one of Wolverine's.Beast: I'm doing what I must. And what I must do isn't very nice.
- Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Two goons on Maverick's "borrowed" submarine stop to discuss whether they should be worried when they discover a broken window. Needless to say, they don't live long enough to find out.
- Call-Back:
- Logan runs into someone in a bar whom he first met in Dunwich sanitorium back in Weapon X.
- Logan is being targeted by vampires because regular feedings of his blood allow them to walk in the daylight, calling back to when he willingly donated blood to Jubilee when she was a vampire for the same reason.
- When Omega Red claims Logan has hurt mutants and been suggestible to mesmerizing of late, he is calling back to the Pale Lady in the first three issues of the run.
- When Louise has been turned into a vampire, Logan argues that the moose-eating vampire teens in issue #6 prove that you can always stay true to yourself.
- When facing Blackmoore in a duel, Logan remembers that he has faced Arakkii fighters in the ring with uncertain rules before, that is, back in X of Swords.
- The Chew Toy: Poor Jeff Bannister. After getting disillusioned about his country while in the military, as well as whatever happened to his face, losing his wife, and his daughter getting bone cancer, he gets involved with mutantdom and has to go through getting brainwashed, go on the run, get machine gunned down to the point that his only hope is a mutant healer, falling into the arctic ocean, and becoming a hostage for Beast.
- Clone Army: Beast creates one when he forms the Weapons of X. It's made up of controlled Wolverine clones for soldiers and clones of himself for logistical support and research.
- Continuity Nod:
- Logan makes mention of the time Magneto ripped the adamantium from his bones.
- In issue #44, Wolverine remembers the time he used Muramasa Blade on Sabretooth to behead him, way back in Wolverine (2003) #55.
- Continuity Overlap: While Wolverine is running parallel with the entire Krakoan Age, it's most closely intertwined with Percy's still-ongoing run on X-Force (2019). Logan is the shared character, after all, and threads and plot points from one book frequently affect and/or get picked up in the other.
- Crazy-Prepared: After Sabretooth uses Forge's gun to shut down his healing factor, Logan has his allies take him to a secret storage facility he had set up in the event of things going wrong on Krakoa, this facility including the Muramasa blade that can shut down a healing factor and adamantium armor.
- Crossover: The August 2023 event Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance will serve as one between Percy's current runs on Wolverine and Ghost Rider.
- Cult: Members of a mutant worshipping cult are at the auction in Madripoor that sells mutant-related items. It's pretty expensive just to get in.
- Dead Man Writing: Subverted in issue #5. Logan leaves a note for Louise under a tile in her church.note: If you are reading this, it means you found my note.
- Duplicate Divergence: After stopping Beast's rogue Weapons of X operation, the following issue is Wolverine tying up loose ends by taking out his clones that managed to escape, each having returned to his various haunts across the world. One succumbed to the wendigo curse in Canada, one was used for his blood's healing properties by a Japanese cult, another became a figurehead for Tyger Tiger in Logan's Patch persona in Madripoor and the last was being used for prize fights in a coliseum. Each ones' burgeoning personality became shaped by the circumstances they ended up in, and besides the one that just wanted to heal in the cult, Logan considers killing them necessary due to how badly they would have turned out.
- Eats Babies: Invoked by Wolverine when he accuses Omega Red of being likely to treat a pregnancy ward as a buffet.
- Enemy Mine: Wolverine teams up with Maverick to take down Beast after the latter goes rogue.
- Everyone Has Standards: Invoked by Beast when he mocks Logan's moral code, saying that since he's fine with killing it's funny that he has a problem with gene-editing.
- Evil Is Petty: In an effort to remain the superior among his duplicates, Beast makes sure that all duplicates of himself are slightly nearsighted. This means Jeff Bannister is able to tell Wolverine that they're dealing with a duplicate when the Beast that Wolverine is negotiating with needs to wear a pair of glasses to read an armistice agreement.
- Face–Heel Turn: This book and the parallel-running X-Force (2019) chronicle Beast's descent into this.
- Friend to All Children: In issue one, Wolverine is playing hide-and-seek with a bunch of children. When Kate chides him, he claims he was teaching them wilderness survival skills.
- Funny Background Event: The seagulls running up and down the beach where Wolverine is interrogating Crosby. They seem quite unaffected by the intensity of the situation.
- Gratuitous French: Louise uses French for certain phrases, like "N'importe quoi" for "whatever".
- Heel–Face Turn: The first issue gives us a backup story of Omega Red coming to Krakoa and accepting the invitation to live there. It's double subverted, because he's actually working for Dracula, who is blackmailing him. Then Beast removes the blackmail without Omega Red's knowledge. Omega Red then turns on Dracula in favor of Krakoa.
- Hypocrite: Logan thinks Magneto has no right to be mad at him for stealing his helmet, after that time he ripped the adamantium out of Logan's skeleton.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Beast quotes Voltaire on there being no god, then declares that Krakoa is a god.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: As good a reason as any to go back to Canada as far as Logan is concerned.
- I Was Never Here: After Wolverine drugs Magneto's drink and steals his helmet, he tells the Blob (who is the bartender) "You didn't see nothing."
- Jabba Table Manners: In issue 34 Beast coerces Logan to accept a parley at a lobster dinner he blackmailed the owner into letting him have. As he pontificates to Logan his terms Beast gluttonously tears into the lobster, getting juice and shell pieces all over himself.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Issue #23 features Deadpool, who naturally does this a lot.
- He discusses two common topics for fan debate: whether his and Wolverine's severed body parts would fuse to the wrong person (the issue then goes on to show that it would be very temporary) and why Wolverine's teeth aren't adamantium.
- At the end of the issue, he is reading the issue.
- Love Interest: Louise.
- Malaproper: Bannister at one point says they're just shuffling pavement and pounding paper over at CIA.
- Mind Manipulation: The Pale Girl's specialty.
- Misplaced Retribution: The bartender who wants revenge on Logan in issue #4, wants it because his girlfriend was killed as a bystander in a barfight in Madripor years earlier. The fight happened to involve Logan.
- Morality Pet: Bannister's cancer survivor daughter is one to Bannister.
- Mundane Solution: The Pale Girl, who works for the Flower Cartel, can manipulate people's minds, including Wolverine himself. How can Wolverine, then, ever get even close to the Flower Cartel? Easy: steal Magneto's telepathy-proof helmet.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Analysis of captured Wolverine clones reveals that while Beast engineered them to operate on a basic animal level to make them easier to control, their healing factors appear to be overcoming this limitation; after a few hours being held captive by Logan and Maverick, two clones actually start talking, albeit in single-word sentences with a limited vocabulary. This creates the possibility that Beast's existing clones will soon reach a point where they at least have the potential to turn against him rather than be the loyal soldiers he intended.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Our vampires may be traditional and led by Dracula, but they are also daywalkers if supplied with healing factor-powered blood, and they are going for world domination. Not to mention that the infection can be slowed down using garlic and holy water.
- Our Zombies Are Different:
- Because our zombies are in service of the Russians and under the Pale Girl's mind control.
- Beast's mindless Wolverine clones with their vine collars.
- Pet the Dog: It's really quite touching how concerned soldier-for-hire Crosby is for his dog.
- Powered Armor: When Louise becomes a vampire, Logan arranges for Forge to make her one of these, with marrow on the inside that can provide the blood she needs to live.
- Pun:
- A small note on the intro page for the first three issues reads: [A_dam_MAN_[tium].
- Mariko makes one in issue #6, when she describes an extremist faction within the Hand having broken off and gone incommunicado as "the left hand isn't talking to the right hand".
- Issue #7: Counting down to the duel between Magik and Pogg Ur-Pogg, Saturnyne says "three, two…" and Pogg finishes by yelling "won!" and winning in the same moment.
- In issue #43, the female Sabretooth from another reality rips apart X-23's jaw from her head, and states that the "cat got her tongue", as in "sabretooth cat".
- Rebellious Spirit: The three vampire teens in issue five. They are not rebelling against drinking human blood out of a sense of morality, but rather because they are rebels and as such refuse to obey Dracula's voice in their heads.
- Recycled Title: As with many of Logan's previous solo comics, it's simply titled Wolverine, with no subtitle.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Wolverine decides he's had enough of Krakoa at the end of issue #35.
- Sequel: The arc "Sabretooth War" (issues #41-50) is a sequel to previous the two Sabretooth mini-series of the Krakoan Age: Sabretooth (2022) and Sabretooth & the Exiles.
- Shout-Out:
- Magneto tells Logan about how fitting it is that adamantine is the name of the metal the Gates of Hell are made of in Dante's Inferno. You know, since Logan has been through Hell in so many ways, including by having molten adamantium injected into his bones.
- The moose-eating vampire teens in issue #6 are one to The Twilight Saga.
- Wolverine mentions that some vampires try to survive on rats or dogs, but these are suicidal and hate their wretched existence, rather like Louis de Pointe du Lac.
- Slipping a Mickey: Wolverine does this to Magneto in order to steal his helmet. It's for a good cause.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: How Logan takes his leave of Bannister.
- Stealth Insult: Deadpool wonders if "bub" is short for "bubbles", in which case Wolverine is always calling his opponents "bubbles".
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: From issue #26 and onward, Beast becomes this for Weapon X alums Dr. Abraham Cornelius and Professor Thornton from the Weapon Plus mythos; with their Scary Shiny Glasses aesthetic; their personalities as menacing science leaders who take themselves very seriously; their management of a government-sponsored black-ops group with nationalist vibes; their reliance on mind control, brain washing, and insanely sketchy experimentation; their goal to make the world a better place through borderline fascistic methods, and the styling of Hank’s facial fur is similar to Dr. Cornelius’s hair and beard combo. The similarities to Doctor Cornelius and Professor Thornton are elevated to a very surreal degree when Henry develops a disturbing obsession with using and controlling Wolverine as a “perfect tool” to solving the world’s problems via assassinating the “enemies”.
- Unreliable Narrator:
- Invoked in #8, where Omega Red claims he never held Wolverine under an icy Canadian lake nor sold him out to Dracula. He suggests that Wolverine was merely mesmerized into believing so.
- Discussed when Bannister tells Logan of how he was lied to while stationed in the Middle East, and how the media then lied about what went down.
- Visual Pun: During the tie-in with X of Swords, in his duel with Summoner in Blightspoke, Logan gets turned into an actual wolverine.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Only two of the three teenage vampires that helped Logan out in #5 died, the fate of the remaining one is not shown or even mentioned.
- Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: Invoked by Deadpool. He asks Wolverine if he'd let him be in X-Force again if he threatened to kill a puppy if he refuses. Note that Deadpool doesn't actually threaten to kill a puppy, he just asks if that would work.
