X Deaths of Wolverine #4
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 9,
2022
In “X Deaths”#3, we found out who and what Robo-Wolvie was: the real Wolverine (if we can call him that after umpteen resurrections), somehow sporting Phalanx tech. Here, we learn why, how and when.
What's Krakoa's mutant power? Anything, I guess.
Although it seems small potatoes after “X Lives” #4's Sabretooth-eating-Wolverine's-heart scene, we get a delightful moment where Forge gouges out Wolverine's eye to jam the time seed in the socket. Because what's the point of having a character with a healing factor if you aren't going to write and draw grotesque stuff like that?*
A bunch of Sentinels burst in, and Forge tells Wolverine to come back when he figures out how this happened and how to stop it. I was getting “Days of Future Past” vibes, the cartoon version where Forge sent Bishop back to the present.
The far-flung future scene we got last issue was Wolverine at the end of his quest. And despite Moira's bragging, she didn't kill the last mutant but managed to mortally wound him and infect him with the Phalanx's techno-organic virus. In this issue, Wolverine plucks the time seed out of his eye socket and plants it. He's enveloped in Krakoan... stuff, presumably the tumor-blob-thing he popped out of in the present/recent past (aka “X Deaths” #1).
Wolverine's explaining this to X-Twenty-rine, Daken and Scout as they close in on Chakladar's safehouse. Logan goes bad cop on the tech guru and finally convinces/scares him into telling where Moira went. Then he pops a claw up Chakladar's nose to destroy the part of his brain that has the knowledge to reproduce Moira's tech. I haven't seen such a strategic bit of brain damage since “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”
Moira, as Chakladar revealed, is heading back to Krakoa. But since she's no longer a mutant, she needs some help getting through a gate. She turns to ex-lover Banshee (in a transcript text page), who is surprised to learn she's alive but sympathetic to her plight. Unfortunately, Moira can't wait for him to help her on his own so...
She kills him and skins him (off-panel, thankfully) and wears his skin to go through the gate.
I don't think this reaches the level of Sabretooth eating a heart on panel, but come on. That can't be the only way to beat the gate, especially for someone a) as smart as Moira and b) in a story being made up so you can literally choose anything else. There is some thematic resonance to Moira remarking that her life is no longer disposable but theirs are. It touches on the cheapening of mutant life and the constant resurrections. But still, too much.
I might have been even more appalled had someone not posted this on Twitter a while back. I saw it coming but was hoping I misread the spoiler.
On Krakoa, Moira makes her way to Forge's lab to see if his Neutralizer gun, which he just left laying out on a table, can un-Neutralize her powers. He and Professor X's astral form assure her it can't.
Moira blasts Forge with the gun, steals a Krakoan mech suit, makes like King Kong with Destiny, who just wandered in, and runs smack dab into Wolverine conveniently emerging from a nearby portal. Blaming Moira for the extinction of mutants in general and his family in particular, he gives her six claws of adamantium vengeance. She responds with a blast from the Neutralizer.
At this point, I was awaiting the revelation that the gun didn't do anything except blast off a little force. I get leaving it laying around to trap Moira, but why would it still be operational? Turns out it is and Wolverine loses his healing factor, which was the only thing keeping the Phalanx from taking over.
So Moira's apparently dead (but her new creepy robot body is missing, so I'm pretty sure she already uploaded her consciousness into it) and Wolverine is going full Phalanx as we head into the final issues of these series. These events appear to be happening at the same time Wolverine, possessed by Omega Red, is stabbing Professor X over in “X Lives” #4.
Like most of this double series, there were moments of excitement, suspense and confusion. The gore for gore's sake is getting old at this point though. I just watched the fourth episode of season 4 of “Stranger Things,” which has a host of horrible happenings that might make me turn off a lesser show in disgust. But they fit the story and aren't done just for shock value. That doesn't seem to be what's happening here. It feels like Percy is telling the story, then going, “How can I make this extra gruesome?” Maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe that appeals to some readers. It's really dragging the series down for me.
Also, while I understand the enormity of the threat Moira poses and Wolverine's rage, remember when the X-Men went back in time to save the future by stopping folks from being killed?
I know Wolverine is the best there is at what he does and what he does isn't very nice. But it could be better than this.
* Can you read my eye roll?
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