Wolverine gets revenge and Phoenix heads into space in X-Chat #16!

He’s the best there is at what he does, and apparently what he does is take revenge! It’s Wolverine: Revenge #1 from Jonathan Hickman, Greg Capullo, Tim Townsend, and Cory Petit!

And Jean Grey takes to the stars in Phoenix #1 & 2 from Stephanie Phillips, Alessandro Miracolo, David Curiel and Petit!

Tony Thornley: Hey Matt, question for you — you ever hated someone so badly that you wanted revenge for something they did to you?

Matthew Lazorwitz: I don’t think so. But I also haven’t had a bomb planted in my chest by anyone.

Yet.

Tony: The one person I can think of knows what they did. And I’m waiting…

Things START Ugly & Get Worse

Tony: So I’m going to get this out of the way first, X-fans. Wolverine: Revenge is not an in continuity book, and that works to its benefit. But that does mean that I don’t want to hear any complaints about the Savage Land Zebra Men, the costume Bucky is wearing, or which version of Nick Fury we get. This is Hickman and Capullo unleashed, and I love it.

A week after Magneto’s apparent death unleashed an EMP that shut down the northern hemisphere, SHIELD has gathered what heroes it can to try to restore the world. Unfortunately, the world’s greatest hope is held by Wolverine’s most dangerous foes. No one has a chance.

I did not expect this to be a dark and violent alternate timeline story, but holy crap, I’m glad it was. This was fantastic.

Matt: Utterly gorgeous. I get vibes of Batman: Last Knight on Earth from Capullo, really embracing the gonzo. And Hickman does something I didn’t think he could do: does an entire issue without a data page. This is wall to wall action, and I am here for it.

Tony: You say that, but wasn’t the opening page a data page…? (I mean, technically speaking.)

This seems like a bit of a mixture of those classic Wolverine specials from the 90’s, “Old Man Logan,” and the high-octane action of Capullo’s Batman. Last Knight on Earth is definitely pretty apt for a comparison.

I say quite a bit that Mark Waid has entered an era where his plotting process clearly includes talking to his artistic collaborators and asking “what do you wanna draw?” This book feels to me like Hickman’s take on that. It’s got everything! Dinosaurs, SHIELD Helicarriers, original flavor Nick Fury, Wolverine’s deadliest enemies, chest bombs!

I mean, I had a lot of fun reading it, and that’s exactly what it set out to do.

Matt: I completely see where you’re coming from with your Mark Waid comparison, and I agree. I think Snyder worked with Capullo in a similar way, and that feels like how you get the best work out of him. I read this in the review copy we got, but I bought the single issue Red Band version.

Tony: Hey, me too!

Matt: So, now I am going to get into something I have talked about before we site EiC and my co-host/best friend, Dan Grote. Because, you see, it’s not just Wolverine’s deadliest nemeses here as the Brotherhood. It’s also Colossus. And I have a theory I will elucidate on after I lay out my thesis.

My thesis is this:

Logan is an inherently good person who, due to circumstance and his particular mutations, is constantly fighting for redemption. Piotr is an inherently selfish person (I won’t go so far as to say bad, but if someone were to argue it I wouldn’t put up too much of a fight) who, due to his artistic temperament and how he came to the X-Men, gets forgiven regularly for shitty things and he doesn’t have to actually work for that forgiveness.

Any thoughts on that before I go into detail?

Tony: Just that it A) makes perfect sense, and B) like Beast, Colossus has definitely seen some moral drift. What started as poorly thought out decisions by some writers turned into a complete shift for the character. Colossus has generally weathered it better than Beast, but it’s there.

Anyways, go on.

Matt: There is a line from an episode of Doctor Who, “A Good Man Goes to War,” where the Doctor says, when he is told he won’t kill the villain because he is a good man and has too many rules, “Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.” This is how I picture Piotr Rasputin. He acts like a good man because that is what is expected, and there are rules he must follow. When Peter is left to his own devices, he acts selfishly. When Xavier first found him, he was not using his powers for the good of the many. He only used them publicly to save Illyana and joined the X-Men because he was caught out and was going to get in trouble for destroying that tractor.

Colossus struggled with taking his first life, Proteus, but then it seemed to become easier. He dates the underage Kitty Pryde, just to cheat on her with Zsaji on Battleworld. If the Shadow King hadn’t possessed him, would he have ever stop being Peter Nicholas after the Siege Perilous? He joins the Acolytes out of despair and disappointment in Xavier, rather than any real moral reasoning. He beats the snot out of Pete Wisdom in a fit of pique. There’s the Phoenix Five and Juggernaut stuff. X-Force is a whole mess, and how much of that is him vs. him being controlled is worth arguments.

There could be a mental health argument made here as well; that Piotr has depression/anxiety/bipolar disorders. But regardless, I think the noble artist thing, the sweet innocent Colossus, is inaccurate, and this feels like a natural progression for the character.

Meanwhile, Logan has been jerked around by everyone for his entire existence, and yet still always immediately steps up to help others. He’s a shit dad, but damn if he doesn’t try to be a better dad, and he is a quality mentor. I can go into more detail about him, but I feel like I want to anger Colossus fans today more than I want to engender affection from Wolverine fans.

Tony: I love it.

Even with that, Colossus’s inclusion here is WEIRD.

I mean, Wolverine, Cap, Bucky and SHIELD infiltrate the Russian facility to save the day. Deadpool, Sabretooth and Omega Red slaughter the SHIELD team, taking Cap, Logan and Bucky hostage… Then we get the Colossus reveal. This version of the Brotherhood is Mastermind, Sabretooth, Deadpool, Omega Red and Piotr.

I don’t understand the heel turn at all. The only thing in the text that comes close to explaining it is a couple nationalistic things he says after the Brotherhood does their villain speech.

Otherwise, I’m pretty happy with Wolverine: Revenge #1. The fates of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were brutal, and SHIELD is just plain decimated. Logan himself gets blown up, and that’s where this issue ends, having given us the incident that Logan needs to take revenge for.

I liked it a lot, but also the more I think about it, the more it kind of falls apart.

Matt: It’s rare to have a Hickman comic you’re NOT supposed to think about, but I think this is that. Just enjoy the wild, violent vibes and ride the wave,

Phenomenal Cosmic Power

Tony: In Phoenix, Jean Grey has the power of life incarnate once again. She’s taken to the stars to use her terrible power for the benefit of all. But threats she doesn’t expect are brewing as the Black Order is looking for a mysterious power, and a terrible cosmic evil is preparing to strike!

Matt: Tony, my friend, you are a Superman guy, yes? You used to do SuperChat on the site, after all. So tell me, have you read Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow?

Tony: I have not. It came at a time that I was somewhat burnt out on Tom King doing his Tom King thing, and combined with our friend Cori McCreery’s thoughts on it, I avoided it. However, I think I see where you’re going with this…

Matt: So that mini-series, which I agreed with Cori on, was narrated by a young girl traveling with Supergirl across the galaxy, and so it just echoed for me here. We’re not deep enough in to know if the two really speak to each other, but that similarity jumped right out to me.

I should be an easy mark for this book. It combines my two favorite corners of the Marvel Universe: mutants (and specifically Summers family drama) and cosmic. But I’m not feeling it. Jean is so over-powered that I’m curious how they’re going to make anyone a threat, but that’s not necessarily curiosity about how the book will move forward. Extra sleazy Corsair is a new take, and one I don’t love. And we have the Black Order, a group of characters so ill defined in personality that they might as well be working for Mr. Sinister or Stryfe in the 90s, and not Thanos in the modern day.

Tony: Yes, I’m in complete agreement. This is almost exactly my shit, but it didn’t land.

So I’ve said this a handful of times, and so I’m going to say this on the record here. Plot-wise, this is a Thor book. Yes, there are plenty of small touches that are uniquely Phoenix/X-Men, but using godlike power to save a space prison, fighting the Black Order, the cosmic villain subplot, and ESPECIALLY the Asgardian zombies that concluded the second issue… Sub Jane Foster for Jean Grey and it’s not all that different of a series.

X-Men in space are such an easy concept. There are so many alien races, cosmic entities and concepts closely tied to the X-Men. I get the Phillips might be avoiding them because, yes, everyone does a Shi’ar story, everyone does a Brood story, etc, etc. Avoiding tropes and cliches aren’t a bad thing. But there’s a way to avoid them without making this so generic that you could insert a different protagonist and see minimal changes.

Matt: I hadn’t thought of it that way (probably because I haven’t read much Thor), but that makes perfect sense. There’s no reason this HAS to be a Jean Grey/Phoenix story. I don’t want to see her seeking redemption for the death of the broccoli people again. But at least that is a thing that would be unique to her. 

Swinging back to something I talked about before, am I remembering Corsair with ruby-quartz lenses, or is he coming off as sleazier than normal here?

Tony: Thinking about it, I actually haven’t read tons of Starjammer stories. “Trial of Jean Grey” and the Cyclops series that came out of it is probably the most I’ve read of Corsair.

So I don’t have a comparison, but I always thought he was pretty committed to Hepzibah. So yes, this is pretty sleazy. There could be a perfectly good explanation, but I don’t see it.

I have to come around to the art here too. Miracolo’s art is good, but there’s a reason it became instantly controversial. In issue #1, I could see the Olivier Coipel swipes when they were pointed out to me. In issue #2 though, there’s some incredibly iconic Coipel panels swiped here. I mean, it looks pretty good, but it’s painfully obvious.

Matt: It really is. I’m a story guy rather than an art guy, unless the art is really good, really bad, or noticeable for a distinct reason like this. And it’s a shame, because the stuff that isn’t a swipe is pretty good. Especially when you’re dealing with a book that feels like it was stolen from another character, that doesn’t help, does it?

But, hey, Nova is back, and I’m always happy to see him.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• How are “Rise & Fall of the Shi’ar Empire” and “Realm of Kings” the only extended X-Men In Space stories I’ve seen published in my lifetime?
• It’s really unfortunate that Phoenix has so many swipes, because the art that isn’t obviously swiping Coipel is truly good.
• The Red Band version of Wolverine: Revenge had maybe two panels and a page that were different from what I saw. Wasn’t enough in this issue to justify the extra $1, but hey maybe next month?

Matthew Lazorwitz

Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.

Tony Thornley

Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.