X of Claws 9: X Lives of Wolverine #5

X Lives of Wolverine #5
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Color Artist: Frank Martin
Letterer & Production: VC's Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller
Cover Artists: 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 16, 2022

Spoiler alert: Of course I'm going to be spoiling “X Lives” #5 here, so I suggest reading it first. But I'm also going to delve into moments from “Siege” (2009) and “King in Black” (2020), and you really would have no reason to expect that. So I'm warning you now.

Well, after Wolverine and Omega Red have battled each other through time, across 10 different lives, to cut off or protect the Xavier family line, it all comes down to...

A fight. Between Wolverine and Omega Red. In the present. With not really much on the line.

Unlike previous installments, this one jumps right in on the previous issue's cliffhanger, with an Omega Red-possessed Wolverine jamming one set of claws (not two, like I wrote last time) through Professor X's shoulder and snaking his hand-tentacle thingies out at the Professor and Jean. Logan is lost somewhere in the timestream, not going after Mikhail Rasputin in Omega Red's body like I expected.

Logan's quantum-leaping consciousness drops back into his circa-1900 teenage self, right after he gets some advice from Xavier's ancestor about finding a place to belong. Professor X calls psychically, through time, for Logan/Wolverine/James/Weapon X to come back to his country, Krakoa. And he does.

That was resolved pretty quickly.

Not only is Wolverine back in his own body, but he knows where Omega Red and Mikhail are holed up. A text page fills us in on a couple of the battles we didn't get a good look at, then we see Mikhail chastising Omega Red for failing and Red saying, “Hey, send me back even further in time.” Which does beg the question, why did they just target Xavier's ancestors during Logan's lifetime? Primarily, of course, because Wolverine's name was in the title, and I'm grateful they didn't go back and reveal there were, like, colonial X-Men. But in-story? I don't know.

Anyway, Mikhail decides it's time to go and take his Soviet super mutants with him. He leaves Omega Red to face the music (i.e., Wolverine, so I'm thinking some kind of southern rock?).

Then we get a lot of stabbing and slashing and philosophical musings about life and memory and time from Logan, intercut with highlights from battles that were... a lot more interesting than this one. (Well, I still prefer this one to the naked fight.) At one point, it looks a little perilous for Wolverine when Red smacks him with a tree trunk, but in the end, claws beat tentacles.

And then they cut off Omega Red's hand. Not to be outdone, Red shoves the Cerebro sword through Wolvie's throat. So Wolverine jams both claws in the glowing hole in his foe's chest where the Cerebro Sword had been stuck to facilitate time travel (I prefer a DeLorean)... and rips him in half.

This feels like Marvel's go-to move for shock value. It's not enough to stab someone. Or cut their head off. In “Siege” #4, the Sentry ripped Ares in half, a scene that was even more gruesome than this one. In “King in Black” #1, Knull returns the favor, tearing the Sentry asunder. I'm not sure if it's happened more, but three seems like too many.

Mikhail gets a stern talking to from Russian leadership and Wolverine looks to take five back on Krakoa. That's when Sage informs him there was a whole 'nother limited series going on at the same time and that his family is fighting him (a Phalanx-corrupted him from the future) on the island right now. And apparently there's no one else among Krakoa's many combat-trained mutant inhabitants who can do something about it.

On the violence and gore, I know: it's a Wolverine series with a parental advisory. I'm not expecting a pillow fight (though I would have been curious to see how that played out). But if you're going to stack this with blood and gore, give me something else to go with it.

At first, the crazy time travel concepts and stakes made it interesting. But that was all resolved in the first third of this issue. Maybe we could have gotten a look at those other two battles instead of the Sage Notes versions?

Instead we get a cameo by Gateway since there are still some places Krakoan gates don't go and Wolverine fights Omega Red for... what, exactly? I mean, I guess he had to be brought to “justice.” Maybe getting bisected in Siberia was more merciful than going into stasis on Krakoa. But if he'd won, Wolverine would have been quickly resurrected and Red would have wandered the tundra with the Cerebro Sword, which he probably couldn't have used for anything other than cutting stuff. I suppose it's good that Wolverine took him out to spare some Russian bystanders from being killed later.

The most interesting question at this point is whether Red will be resurrected. Probably not, since his actions were taken post-Krakoa and therefore after the blanket amnesty that put the X-Men's rogue's gallery on the governing body or tending bar at the Green Lagoon. But given the command to “make more mutants” and the general attitude among some Krakoan leaders that genetics matter more than character or anything else, I could see a debate. Especially given the role Beast's manipulations in X-Force played in driving Omega Red to Rasputin.

But beyond that, I feel like this series wrapped up on page 10, and the rest was a long epilogue.

Nine down, one to go...