A Whale of a Time in X-Lives of Wolverine #3

X Lives of Wolverine #3, from Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara, Frank Martin, and Cory Pettit. 

Rob Secundus: Call him bub. 

Liz Large: I feel that, much like Dracula, if you do not include the public domain juggernaut Moby Dick in your fiction, you’re really missing out. I haven’t read Moby Dick, and it’s wonderful of Marvel to publish an illustrated edition of a classic like this.

Rob: Hey, Liz? I know we’re here to talk about Wolverine, but can I sell you (and anyone reading our conversation) on Moby Dick for a second? Because I think you would love it.

Moby Dick is a book that begins with a dude heading out to sea because sometimes he gets just so angry that he might run into the street and knock people’s hats off, and there are no streets in the ocean. He accidentally kind of marries a dude on the ship. In the middle of the narrative, the author, Herman Melville, will stop the book and go: “Hey reader. We’re gonna get back to Ishmael and his little friends in a minute, but did you know that whales are fish? Some people say whales aren’t fish, but here are my top ten reasons they’re obviously fish. Ten: they live in the ocean, where fish are! Ok, back to the story, we left off with Ahab forging a spear in blood—” and so forth. 

I feel like you would vibe with Melville’s energy.

Liz: This is the summary they should give you on the back of the book. I want to know why whales are probably fish, and I can’t believe they put the guy who used to hunt Rachel from the future out on the ocean! (I will read this.) Should we get into Wolverine before I reveal my ignorance of any other classics?

A Whale-y Good Dad

Rob: X-Lives of Wolverine #3 continues fights we’ve seen— Wolverine VS Omegafied Itsu, Xavier Sr. VS Omegafied HMS Terror, Wolverine VS the concept of imperialism in South America— but it begins to explore a bit further all the Timeline Ramifications of this stuff. Liz, what did you think of Lucky Jim’s Timeline Trials this go around?

Liz: Logan’s never been the best father, going as far as to murder his kids rather than pay his back child support, but he’s really doing his best on this issue. The possessed Itsu needs to be stopped. Killing her will retroactively prevent Daken from being born but Logan won’t even consider it. This has me wondering about all of the cannon fodder humans we’ve seen through this series— are we going full butterfly effect here? I just think it would be fun if, I don’t know, something drastically different has happened in history because of this. Maybe one of the bees Sabretooth killed was supposed to kill someone else, and now it can’t meet its destiny!

Rob: Maybe those were the bees that became Swarm, the Marvel villain that was a Nazi made of bees? Maybe, like Daken, the only way to save Swarm’s existence is to throw a computer into a black hole? Why do they have to throw the computer into a black hole at all? Didn’t the Scarlet Witch magically Gone Girl herself to create a mutant ghost forest removed from time? Couldn’t they take a Cerebro and put it in there? I don’t understand the mechanics of time travel at this point, even though I find every data page diving into weird time travel complications and provisions a delight. 

Liz: Sage is frantically calling Wanda for IT support because you know none of these Cerebro cords will be compatible with the magical forest ones, and they are on a time crunch because of time reasons. Jokes aside, I do like this time travel puzzle. The way they lay out the various problems with each option — ending with either Daken never existing, Xavier dead/Krakoa never existing, is excellent. It makes the stakes clear. Even someone like me, who actively roots for Xavier’s death most of the time, will have some second thoughts when considering all the retroactive implications.

Rob: Agreed. I think the frantic cutting between situations remains effective in conveying the tangled, thorny mess Wolverine finds themselves confronted with. However, there’s one complication I think will be new to most readers. Liz, I don’t believe that I have ever read a comic book with Romulus in it. What do you think about this guy?

Liz: Rob, did you know that Romulus isn’t a mutant? He’s from a different species of people who evolved from wolves instead of apes called lupus sapiens? Because I know that, and I hate it. He hates Wolverine and loves murder. He is a wolfman and maybe founded Rome, that’s all I know.

Rob: I wonder if he hates Wolverine because, in those comics, wolverines are supposed to be the natural enemy of wolves? Or maybe Daniel Way thought, as the writers of X-Men: Origins: Wolverine, that wolverines are wolves? Is Rahne a lupus sapiens? Is Sabretooth? Or is there also a felis sapiens? Maybe one of the felis sapiens founded Constantinople? Anyway. I kind of hope he pops up again in this series because I want to learn more about lupus sapiens, the wolves that became people. Yet, I do not want to read any of those weird old terrible comics where Wolverine’s forgotten history was that he used to get into many fights with wolves that had become people. 

Union of Soviet Cetacean Republics

Liz: Rob, if wolf people aren’t an option, which side do you choose in a fight between a country that forced you to rely on a carbonadium synthesizer or the country that implanted you with a surveillance device? Neither country is that nice to you in this scenario, but one has a cool sword, and the other has Wolverine (who you hate).

Rob: Hrm, I guess I would pick, uh, the cool sword? If, at the very least, the guy with the sword could reality warp the relevant synthesizer and surveillance stuff out of my chest. But I’d be wary of them; I would remember (speaking of wolves, people, and classic literature) that bit from My Antonia about those Russians who went to a wedding. Then, because of the Russia of it all, they were swarmed by an army of hungry wolves and so tossed the bride and bridegroom into the ravenous pack in a misguided attempt to save themselves. Which, not to generalize, I’m sure some Russians are trustworthy, but if I were Omega Red, I would not assume that the honorable Russians were the ones sending my consciousness and a set of bone tentacles on a voyage through space and time.

Liz: The bone tentacles are extremely cool, though! For me, the reader, not for the possessed people waking up with a headache and bone tentacles (I assume Omega Red isn’t the type to clean up after himself). For Omega Red, this just feels like such a terrible idea. Fight Wolverine throughout history? You can’t even defeat Wolverine in your timeline! Why does he think he’s qualified for this! Did Russia have no one else to send? Where’s that nice man with the KARL MARX knuckle tattoos?

Rob: Where is Ursa Major! And presumably his family of Ursa Sapiens!

WONDER YE AT THE FIERY HUNT

Rob: I have to say that this comic featured one of my favorite pages in recent memory:

OMEGA. RED. WARGS. INTO. A BIG. OL’. WHALE. Omega Red goes back in time and then possesses Moby Dick. Liz, I think comics are good? 

Liz: Me, you, and Benedict Xavier are all united on this. This possessed whale with a glowing Omega on its head? Perfect. 100%, no notes. The issue could have just been like a huge fold-out of a life-size possessed whale, and I would have loved it. Maybe Wolverine should give up letting Omega Red have this one? 

Rob: The final page reveal is also delightful. It’s setting up the next issue where, presumably, Wolverine will spend a significant page count punching himself in the face. I hope that’s not the next issue. I hope the next issue is all whale all the time. Maybe Wolverine isn’t even there? Perhaps, yeah, he gives up! Then Omega Red is like, “Mother Russia doesn’t need to kill this guy right away.” Then he spends the issue doing whale stuff. He sings some whale songs. He flips his tale around to the delight of whale-watching tourists. He emerges before the tortured captain of a doomed vessel as one immense white wall of nothingness, conveying the majesty of creation and the emptiness of God. WHALE STUFF. 

Liz: I demand this Omega Red-meets-Animorphs arc. He needs to embody the whale, to hear the majesty that is another whale in the distance, calling to its pod. He needs to use his morphing skills to fight an alien invasion during his study hall. He needs to use sheer size and majesty to drive his enemies away. Please, give me this. Alternatively, I will accept “stop hitting yourself” jokes for OmegaVerine. 

X-Traneous Thoughts 

• Another really great panel is this one, where Wolverine fights a snake that isn’t even Omega Redified. It’s just a snake that’s being a dick!
• I enjoyed the panel where Wolverine approached the boat fight via dogsled. It’s always good to bring friends whale watching!
• Krakoan reads WOLVERINES

Liz Large

Liz Large is a copywriter with a lot of opinions on mutants.

Rob Secundus

Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.