Wolverine makes a jaunt back to the present to end this fight in X Lives of Wolverine #5 written by Benjamin Percy, art by Joshua Cassara, colors by Frank Martin, and letters by Cory Petit.
Cassie Tongue: Well, weāve run out of lives. The final issue of X Lives of Wolverine ends in a collision with its companion series, X Deaths of Wolverine, so while the story isnāt quite finished yet, our romp through time saving Xaviers and fighting Omega Red stops here. But would we call it a romp, Chris?
Chris Eddleman: Iām going to be completely honest with you here, Cassie. I think this last issue was beautiful but largely a fairly unsatisfying conclusion to an unsatisfying miniseries. X Deaths felt throughout like it carried a more meaty plot, while this was a little more of an empty carb. But I donāt want to belabor the point too much before we dive in, so letās get into it!
Ohhh, Thatās Why Itās Called Ten Lives
Chris: Iām maybe not the most astute reader so, it was nice to finally have my hand held that the reason why this was called X Lives was because it took place simultaneously(?) in ten different points in Wolverineās fairly long life. Cassie, Iām not sure how much you enjoyed the original reveal of Wolverineās life after House of M, but a part of me thinks was trying to bring a gestalt of Wolverine together with his general mission statement. Am I wrong, and if not, did you think it worked well at that, or was it just kind of a break-neck-paced rollercoaster?
Cassie: I donāt think you can ever create a definitive Wolverine. I donāt think the nature of comics as a medium – and the function of Wolverine in a character in the Marvel universe – allows for a truly consistent, developed through-line. And I donāt think he needs one. Heās lived a long life; heās been a hundred different people; he means different things to different writers and readers. I also think that trying to connect all of those past lives and histories together undermines the promise and potential of what Wolverine as a character can say about identity, community, growth, and change ā especially for a life frequently lived outside of the social contract.
All this to say that X Lives, to me, managed to make an exploration of one of the most necessarily dimensional and potentially complex characters feel flattened into a single idea: a dangerous loner who learns, over and over again, that heās different now because heās connected to and with other people. Ultimately, did we learn anything new about the character? Iām not sure that we did. Did it celebrate his long history? Iām not sure it really did that, either. Did it foreground a gruffly poetic thoughtfulness on a version of Wolverine thatās the most well-known? Yeah, it did, and thatās what I would say was the most successful thing about it.
Chris: I think this is supposed to re-mystify the history of Wolverine. Almost like a very personal hypertime. It talks throughout the issues of Wolverine STILL not remembering his whole life and having this jaunt through time possible mess with his history a little. Iām not certain how necessary that was, and Iām not certain this broke the mold enough beyond yet another kind of gruff warrior-poet Wolverine monologue with stabbing in the background. But it wasnāt a bad version of that. I think itās possibly the victim in my own mind of a failure of expectations. Itās funny because this kind of story was exactly what I expected but hoped I didnāt get and X Deaths is not at ALL what I expected.
Cassie: Itās certainly striking that the most nakedly emotional moment for Wolverine – the one given the most space on the page and in the story to really land – is in X Deaths, when Omega Wolverine looks at his children, long-lost to him in his timeline, and tells them he remembers how each of them dies. In many ways, thatās the evolution of Wolverine beyond the gruff warrior-poet into someone anchored in family and community. In many ways, it was the Wolverine I wanted to spend more time with in X Lives.
Chris: But alas. At least we got a pretty good Jean/Wolverine kiss. The power of community/love/cute redheads prevails!
Omega, Sanctioned
Cassie: Itās the final issue, so itās time to defeat Omega Red, a villain that Mikhail Rasputin witheringly describes as a āfailed toolā, which is accurate, but also totally discounts his creativity on this journey (we learn in a data page that in one particular attempt to destroy the Xavier line, Omega Redās first tool is to āsully [Sharon Xavierās great-grandfather’s] good name by bringing charges against him of cattle rustlingā which is maybe the only time Iāve ever enjoyed an Omega Red Plot). When Omega Red takes over Loganās mind, itās the beginning of the end: Logan has a habit of clawing himself out of brain nightmares when heās guided by Jean, and of course that experience gives him a clear view into Omega Redās own plans. Cue the hero music.
Chris: Iām completely with you in that I find Omega Red the most boring thing on the planet. Heās at least pretty cool looking but he always seems to have this eye-rolling effect on me. However, I also think youāre right in that this is one of the more interesting uses of him. So, with our big showdown set, we have Mikhail immediately leaving and calling Arkady a failure. He also leaves the sword with him! Canāt expect every villain to be smart, I guess. Anyway, Gateway (glad to see him back as always) teleports Wolverine and itās a knock-down-drag-out brawl. I think this action scene was very cool, and as always I will toot the horn of Cassara. We get some cool frenetic panels interposed with Wolverineās fights throughout history. We get more āhistoryā narration from Wolverine, as he beats his polar opposite, the man with the MUTANT DEATH FACTOR.
Cassie: Cassara makes a brawl look beautiful; thereās a generosity of line to his shapes that adds dimension but also emotion to the stand-off. As the caption boxes show Wolverine pontificating on the nature of history, and how he, specifically, can never really know himself or measure the weight of his life, Cassara turns the fight itself into physical poetry that has room for grace. Frank Martinās colours help here too: itās all cool blues and sepia tones, all past and sweeping present – until a sudden shocking burst of red as Wolverine slices Omega Red clean in two (comics!).
Thereās something very Wolverine about struggling with the shape of a self and the sense of the enormity of a life in the snow, about bowing your head against your defeated opponent against an enormous sky, trees as witness, just a mutant with a long and impossible life fading into the wilds.
Chris: And after your absolutely beautiful thoughts on this wonderful fight scene, Iām going to have to be a party pooper. I donāt FEEL a lot of chemistry between Wolverine and Omega Red. While this was a super gritty, nasty fightāitās not much of a payoff to me. Heās been fighting with Omega Red this entire miniseries, he just finally has the gumption to put him down. To get weird, it kind of reminds me of in wrestling, when two people in a feud have like 5 matches before they even get to the big show. I just didnāt feel like this payoff did it for me. Also, Mikhail is still at large?! Theyāre really playing the extra-long game on this.
Cassie: By the time weād reached the part of this issue, I wasnāt expecting us to land somewhere satisfying, and I agree with you that the fight isnāt so much a payoff as it is a moment – one that feels like it belongs in a patchwork of larger moments. X Lives, in the end, seems to be a book about moments, not statements. About constancy, not change. About, perhaps, even the futility of definitive endings? At any rate, Omega Red is down and out, but probably not for long, and Mikhail will move on to something else, and Logan will forget he is loved and will restlessly seek out answers to his past once more, and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Chris: Iām glad we have the sword that Magneto decided to make from a Cerebro back in the hands of Krakoa, I guess. It was perhaps the oddest Chekhovās Gun that Iāve ever seen but, it was at least a fun comic book idea. I was pretty whelmed by issue 1 of half of our double minis, and Iām slightly more impressed but still generally whelmed by issue 5. Iām excited weāve tied back into the more interesting half of this by the end, and Iām crossing my fingers for our finale.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Chris would again like to thank Joshua Cassara
- Wolverine fighting Pinkertons? Yes please.
Chris Eddleman is a biologist and co-host of Chrises On Infinite Earths.
