X of Claws 10: X Deaths of Wolverine #5

X Deaths of Wolverine #5
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Federico Vicentini
Color Artists: Dijjo Lima
Letterer & Design: VC's Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert & Frank Martin
Production & Additional Design: Jay Bowen
Assistant Editor: Drew Baumgartner
Editor: Mark Basso
Senior Editor: Jordan D. White
Editor-in-Chief: C.B. Cebulski
Released: March 23, 2022

(Apologies for the delay - real life slowed me down.)

Time travel, betrayal, stabbing, techno-organic trickery, more stabbing – it's all come down to this.

But first, a detour, as most issues of “X Lives” and “X Deaths” take us on before getting back to the cliffhanger.

We're returned to the recently iconic scene of a young Professor X meeting a young Moira Kinross (not yet MacTaggart) for the first time, at least to his knowledge. But instead of flirtatiously striking up a conversation before revealing to Charles the truth about her mutant power of resurrection and the lives she's lived, this Moira appears a bloody mess, reflecting her condition in the here and now. Flashing between this imaginary scene and bleeding out on Krakoa, Moira rants that Charles is a traitor and she can't let him win, and I still feel like I missed something because Mystique and Destiny were the ones that depowered Moira and Xavier was – admittedly awkward for the most powerful mutant mind on the planet – a bit out of the loop, right?

We get a full-page spread of dying Moira and her past lives, reminiscent of some of the Wolverine splashes over in “X Lives.” Then it's on to the main event: a rapidly deteriorating Phalanx-verine looking to wreak havoc on Krakoa.

But Havok doesn't show up to stop him. The Wolverine Family is in hot pursuit, which, again makes sense thematically, but since this techno-organic terror is headed to a Cerebro cradle to, I presume, assimilate or annihilate all the backups that allow mutants to be resurrected, maybe bring in some other folks? Or at least explain why that isn't an option?

X-23-verine, Daken and Scout take their shots at Robo-Wolvie, who occasionally breaks out of Phalanx-speak to implore them to stop him. Points to Scout for eschewing the stabbing approach and dropping a boulder on him, but the skeletal robo-thing slashes through that with his claws as well.

When Gabby decides to try the claws after all, it's clear she's overmatched, which provides an excellent dramatic entrance opportunity for the real Logan to step in with a “Hey, bub, why don't you pick on someone your own size?”

He gets his future robot self's attention with the watch he was holding in “X Lives”#1, which we learned in “X Lives” #5 was actually given to him by an ancestor of Xavier's. But just when I thought things were going to zig instead of zag, Wolverine gets right to slashing.

Meanwhile, Beast is working to get the Cerebro cradle offline and Sage is trying to make the Cerebro Sword a relevant plot device again. When Beast asks what she plans to do, she answers, “I'm a living computer aren't I? I'm going to try to hack something.”

I've never loved Sage more.

A break in the action is provided by a list of the “X Deaths” – deaths of mutants that Future Wolverine recorded in his alternate timeline. There's some creative ways for X-Men to die, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm just grateful they were in prose instead of drawn. I don't know why the go-to in alternate timelines is killing heroes, but it remains the case here.

Wolverine continues his battle against his future former self, and his internal monologue focuses on winning this fight so Daken, Laura and Gabby don't have to. But as his opponent gets down to a techno-organic adamantium skeleton, it's pretty clear that having fleshy parts to stab is putting Wolvie at a disadvantage.

That's when Sage bursts onto the scene with the Cerebro Sword, which Wolverine's narration tells us, she's “programmed … with nanites meant to counterprogram the engineering of my skeleton.” I'm not quite sure that's how it works, since further narration says it burns the Phalanx out of the adamantium, but, hey, it stops the threat and I guess provides a little bit of balance as the McGuffin that started Omega Red on his time-traveling tirade in “X Lives” ends another chrono-threat in “X Deaths.”

Wolverine departs for the Green Lagoon to, in his words, drink all the whiskey. Beast and Sage discuss the reason they won the day, which Beast boils down to: “Stabbing $#&% is what saves the world.” Except...

Wolverine's desire to not only win but protect his children while doing so is a theme I love to see explored with the character. It's why I was so frustrated with the movie “Logan,” when (spoilers) he tried to tell the movie version of X-23 that she didn't have to be the killer the Weapon X program engineered her to be, only for her to have to be exactly that.

Beast has gone full Dark Side in the pages of “X-Force,” and it makes sense for him to justify it and only see the violence of what Wolverine did. And yeah, his butchering of Omega Red in “X Lives” #5 certainly wasn't noble or epic. But his recognition of the darkness in himself and his efforts to keep those he loves from having to wade into it? That's heroic.

Almost forgot, Moira rises from her own grave in the robot body Chakladar helped her build in “X Deaths” #3. Even if I hadn't seen this incarnation of Moira in the X-Men/Avengers Free Comic Book Day issue, I've got to figure this wasn't very surprising.

Moira's transformation from mutant puppeteer to enemy happened quickly in this series, and I guess the broad strokes make sense. But it still feels a little forced, and maybe that has to do with Percy picking up where Jonathan Hickman left off. I'm not saying Moira's heel turn is completely justified, but the Krakoans didn't exactly do anything to slow it down.

This half of the two-series-that-are-one ended with a lot more drama than “X Lives.” I'm not sure any part of it lived up to the level of “House of X” and “Powers of X,” but I don't think it needed to. Both series took interesting ideas and played them out to mixed levels of success, with a whole lot of violence, often excessive, and a whole lot of time travel. It won't earn a place among the classic X-Men or even Wolverine stories, but it sure wasn't boring.