Things Finally Come Together in X Lives of Wolverine #4

Wolverine’s timey-wimey adventure continues in X Lives of Wolverine #4, written by Benjamin Percy, art by Joshua Cassara with Federico Vicentini, colors by Frank Martin, and letters by Cory Petit.

Chris Eddleman: I can’t believe we’ve already reached issue #4 of this mini, Rob. And yet Wolverine probably feels the grip of time even worse than I, since he seems to be dealing with conflicts in like six different periods of his life simultaneously. I’ve been kind of whelmed by the plot of this half of our double series, even as Cassara’s stunning art has lent a wow factor. Regardless, I’m glad to share an article with you, my original partner, as we sift through this bloody time-tossed tale.

Rob Secundus: I do think anything can beat the revelation of OMEGA DICK last issue, but at this point, all I really want from each issue of X Lives is a couple of moments that are bananas, and I think we got a few this time.

Change You Can’t Believe In

Rob: The solution to keep this story from creating a million changes in the present: mindwipe everyone at each temporal incursion. Now, I think this is solution is, on the one hand, pretty weird, because “Wolverine stabbed a different guy” or “some dude near Wolverine failed to murder someone” and “hundreds to thousands of people forgot an hour of their lives” don’t seem like comparable butterflies flapping their wings. Maybe the latter isn’t a hurricane or whatever, but I feel like it’s a step up from a butterfly to, I don’t know, a moth. One of those big cool ones. Not Mothra, just, like, a moth that you would jokingly call “Mothra” if you saw it outside.

Chris: Yeah, to me it initially felt like a bit of a cop-out. Like having our time travel cake and eating it too, but honestly, I think it provides a little bit more of a shaky ground. Messing with time itself seems to be yet another concession that mutantkind is willing to make in the service of nation-building (or at least Charles Xavier-protecting). That being said, the conduit of this time-messing being Wolverine is interesting. It’s never been outright stated but, I suspect they just needed to find a long-lived mutant whose life could line up with this. I mean, that’s the storyline conceit, obviously this is a Wolverine story because the folks wanted one.

Rob: It’s weird, but on another level, I think the solution is kind of genius, because part of Wolverine’s whole deal has been broken for a while; mapping out every bit of Wolverine’s past in convoluted continuity erodes part of what makes the character interesting and useful as a story-generator. With mind-wipes, you have people throughout Wolverine’s history who just aren’t certain about events that went down. Further, all those Mothra Effects (™™™) might mean that Wolverine himself is no longer that certain about what went down during a lot of periods throughout his life. This continuity tour is also restoring Wolverine to a character whose past isn’t so precisely known.

Chris: Wolverine having his entire past revealed was honestly a massive mistake to me. It puts too much of a brick wall in his stories when prior, you could just have a little Wolverine vignette at any point. It was a delightful little sandbox that provided for some excellent stories (and gobs of stinkers). But maybe a little hypertime can make for some fun and ambiguity.

Rob: There’s one jump that I want to ask you about— how do you feel about WEAPON XENOM?

Chris: I did not read Web of Ve’Nam so this absolutely floored me. I’m guessing this bit with Wolverine is suddenly new information? And not only was he hit with a symbiote but he was hit with the weird kind of Knull thing?! Is this too many mojos, Rob, or is it okay that Wolverine is both Weapon X, a symbiote test subject, a WW2 fighter, etc.? I don’t know if it added too much to this story other than “comic booky.”

Rob: In my opinion it’s comic booky in a great way. If we’re gonna have the Venom symbiote bounce around the marvel universe before Spider-Man (which, I’m not sure is a great idea, but that’s set in stone at this point,) then why not add Venom to Captains America and Marvel, Black Widow, Alpha Flight, etc, as Characters Who Hung Out With Wolverine At Some Point?

Chris: I have to admit, I’m pretty partial to Wolverine, the guy who definitely doesn’t fly planes (he had a pilot in his solo!) trying to fly a plane in World War II. I feel like he was somehow on every front of that war and maybe I don’t need to understand it.

Time is a Flat Comic Panel

Rob: I thought the structure of all this would be irritating by now, but at this point, I’ve just given in to it. What order does this stuff happen in? How are earlier sequences affecting later ones? I no longer care. I open an issue of X Lives expecting to see Logan punch a snake, jump to World War 2, jump to Madripoor, dick around with Romulus, back to the snake, back to the whale, etc etc. I just let it wash over me. Things are happening. Things are continuing to happen. It’s a kaleidoscope of violence, and for me that’s fine.

Chris: It makes for confusing pacing but that feels honestly pretty deliberate. I think this story is fairly simple and maybe even feels like an inconsequential overall but the pacing is kind of great? It’s frenetic and frankly disguises the fact that prior to this issue, the plot hasn’t actually done a whole lot of moving. It’s been rather introspective on Wolverine’s parts as he tries to figure out whether or not he has been a net positive on the world as he’s reliving his life trying to be a net positive on the world. Also, is he doing these all at once? Is this a splintered mind? Is that why this is story seems to be mostly the “Wolverine self-narrating story”? I feel you, Rob, it kind of doesn’t matter. He’s a claw guy and he’s gonna cut things in all times.

Rob: It really is odd how little has happened thus far, when it feels like things are happening all the time. I’m betting this would work a lot better, pacing-wise, as a weekly book on its own, without pauses for Death, or if it might work a lot better as kind of pacing-breaks for Death when all is said and done, and the story can be read in one go.

A Mikhail of a Time

Chris: So finally, after months of setup, honestly what feels like years of setup, Mikhail Rasputin finally enters the fray, somehow using Wolverine as a portal? Maybe? I have to admit it was a very surprising closing on the book, especially considering I have no idea how he arrived. Now, some of our audience absolutely doesn’t love when he use this space to speculate but, I have a lot of fun doing it. So first off, was this a solid cliffhanger? And second off, what’s the endgame here for our evil Russian?

Rob: Ok, the mechanics as I understand it work like this:

-Chuck and Jean project Wolverine into the past

-Mikhail projects Omega Red into the past

-Mikhail projects Omega Red into the same body that Chuck and Jean are projecting Wolverine into

-Wolverine dies, which means his psyche, his anima, his soul, his mind, whatever, goes away, both in the past and in the present where it originated.

-Mikhail was already linked up to them, and now he can just jump in present-day Wolverine’s soul-hole.

Does that make sense? The issue is confusing as it bounces around, but that’s basically what I put together.

Chris: Okay so this absolutely makes sense but the phrase “soul hole” is the worst thing I’ve ever read.

Rob: I am glad that we’re finally moving forward with Mikhail. This whole time, Deaths has felt like a book not just telling its own story but taking pieces from the previous status quo and setting them up for the next; It feels like Lives is finally starting to do the same. As for his endgame, I don’t know, but I think the elimination of Xavier is a smokescreen. He wants a powerful Russia ruled by himself; or, really, he wants a powerful Soviet Union ruled by himself. I don’t think a massively and chaotically changed timeline leads to this, and I don’t think, necessarily, that a timeline without Krakoa leads to this. I think we’ve yet to see what he’s really planning.

Chris: I’m wondering if this is going to be the thing that finally ties X Deaths into X Lives. I think the past timeline mucking of this series and the Terminator-esque future timeline mucking of the X Deaths is going to have a little party and make for some Destiny of X status quo. I’m hoping that something like that happens because other than a fun little Wolverine story, this half of the mini isn’t exactly my cup of tea.