While Moira’s on the run in X Deaths of Wolverine, we return to Logan’s ? journey through the past ? in the second issue of X Lives of Wolverine. Torn between saving the future and atoning for his past, Wolverine is confronted with some difficult decisions and a lot of tentacles.
X Lives of Wolverine #2
Benjamin Percy (writer), Joshua Cassara (artist), Frank Martin (colorist), VC’s Cory Petit (letterer & production), Tom Muller (design) Adam Kubert (cover artist)
February 2, 2022
Marvel
Benjamin Percy is playing us Wolverine’s greatest hits here: first Logan’s fighting a bear and running into the Canadian wilderness, then he’s in Jasmine Falls, Japan, in bed with his long-dead lover Itsu. Simultaneously, Wolverine is also on a Weapon X mission in Colombia with his old bros Maverick and Sabretooth.
Joshua Cassara does a great job capturing the different sizes and shapes of Wolverine across the ages. The weathered yellows in the gutter and careful colors from Frank Martin give the past a tangibly aged feel, like an old photograph. Each location has a distinct palette, making it easy to follow as the story hops around. The scenes in Japan in particular have a softness underscored by a lack of panel outlines.
Those outlines return, the gutters and pages turn back to white when the story returns to the “recent past,” an abrupt shift. That recent past involves Omega Red, Domino, and Wolverine pulling off an X-Force mission, with Omega Red as a probationary member. I’m intrigued by the way time folds and overlaps and occurs all at once in this book — but this scene feels more like a scramble to add in one last plot point to the story that somehow didn’t make it into either of Percy’s series in the lead-up. It messes with the flow of Wolverine walking through his life, of us walking down three simultaneous paths with him.
Instead of his conscience to guide him, Wolverine has Jean Grey translucently hovering over his shoulder, awash in a pink aura. She warns him to stick to the script, as it were — to focus on saving Charles in each event they land in. He is, of course, tempted by the sudden chance to save not only potential innocent civilians, but also his own soul (proverbially, of course), despite the risk of upending the timeline. It’s a very classic Wolverine dilemma, returning (literally) to the scenes of his worst crimes but having to grapple with whether or not reversing them would be worse. Cassara renders Wolverine in a way that makes the weight of his past visible, in his snarl and his stance, heavy and omnipresent.
Whether or not Omega Red is more focused on his revenge on Charles Xavier or Wolverine is a question raised by the fact that Wolverine is attacked while seemingly not even near Xavier in Japan. Instead, he’s poised to cause maximum emotional damage by taking over Itsu’s body. But in Canada, Omega Red is playing the monster to Xavier Sr.’s The Terror expedition, nary a Wolvie in sight (yet). Perhaps just like Wolverine he thinks he can kill two birds with one time hop?
I’m not sure the story has hooked me here, but I am curious to see how serious the threat of a timeline butterfly effect is. While Jean warns him against killing any more people, it reads more like a joke than a serious concern — right until Wolverine begins to consider saving people. Will the death of some mook in rural North Canada affect the future of Krakoa? Probably not. But Wolverine deviating from his timeline might have untold effects on mutantkind, and those people. Sometimes it’s good to be the protagonist.
With some excellent emotional storytelling happening in Wolverine’s face, this series has some lovely art and a solid premise that will keep me reading until the end, I’m sure.
