Posted in: Comics | Tagged: marvel, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

Claremont Returns Again for Wolverine: Black, White, & Blood #2 [XH]

Published Tue, 22 Dec 2020 13:30:45 -0600

Last updated Tue, 22 Dec 2020 13:34:07 -0600

Welcome to a X-mas week edition of X-ual Healing, the weekly X-Men recap column where we read the seventy-two X-Men comics Marvel publishes every month and tell you what happened. There were four X-books released last week: New Mutants #14, X-Force #15, Wolverine: Black, White, & Blood #2, and Deadpool #9.

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities. Still, thanks to a corporate merger, a line-wide relaunch, and Jonathan Hickman's giant ego, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics for lovers of soap opera drama.

[MULTINAV]

The cover to Wolverine: Black, White, & Blood #2

WOLVERINE BLACK WHITE BLOOD #2 (OF 4)
OCT200548
(W) Vita Ayala, Chris Claremont, Saladin Ahmed (A) Greg Land, Kev Walker (A/CA) Salvador Larroca
SHARPEN YOUR CLAWS FOR ROUND TWO OF WOLVERINE'S ALL-NEW ALL-STAR BLOODY BATTLES!
The adventures of WOLVERINE continue in the visceral black, white and blood red format! Legendary X-scribe Chris Claremont re-teams with the incomparable Salvador Larroca to bring LOGAN back to Madripoor as PATCH, where he and KATE PRYDE face their toughest battle yet. Then, Saladin Ahmed and Kev Walker build a life-or-death catch-22, courtesy of the maniacal ARCADE, that will force Wolverine to make a life-or-death decision! Vita Ayala and Greg Land put Wolverine on a mission to stop a "cure" for the X-gene where he'll cross paths with his deadliest foe: SABRETOOTH!
Parental Advisory
In Shops: Dec 16, 2020
SRP: $4.99

Wolverine: Black, White, & Blood #2 Recap

Wolverine: Black, White, & Blood #2 contains three stories, the first of which is called Unfinished Business and is written by Vita Ayala with art by Greg Land, Jay Leisten, and Frank D'Armata. Wolverine goes to check out a scientist in Oregon who claims to have a way to eliminate the X-Gene (presumably using CBD), but it turns out Sabretooth got there first. He says he killed the scientist. He and Wolverine fight until Wolvie realizes he can hear the scientist, still alive. He chooses to let Sabretooth go and save the guy. Later, in the hospital with the guy's daughter, Wolverine tells him to find another line of work.

In Seeing Red, by Saladin Ahmed and Kev Walker, Wolverine heads to a Falafel joint for some Shish Kabob, but the waiter poisons him and he passes out. When he wakes up, he's in at "The Tower of Torment," a Murder World offshoot created by Arcade. Arcade, who forced the waiter to poison Wolverine, has put the waiter from the Falafel place in a cage and Wolverine has to make it to the top of the tower and rescue him before he gets doused in molten liquid. The trick is that the countdown goes faster as Wolverine kills Arcade's death robots, so he has to get past them without killing them. That proves tough, but Wolverine is able to shove the cage out of the way, taking the molten liquid hit himself. Wolverine tries to kill Arcade, but he's an Arcade robot. He returns the waiter to his family.

Finally, in Do We Die Today? by Chris Claremont and Salvador Larroca, Wolverine and Kitty Pryde (going by Patch and Cat) are on the top floor of a skyscraper in Madripoor's Hightown, trying to save Tyger Tiger from a group of villains named Sanzu, Beasty-Brute, and Soulscream. Unfortunately, neither of their powers are working because Sanzu has stolen them. She's now absorbing Tyger's life force. Things go poorly at first, but Cat manages to knock Beasty into Sanzu and then she touches Sanzu as well, overloading her and causing her and Beasty to pass out. That brings back their powers and leaves just Patch and Soulscream to battle it out. In addition to his powers of… er… making your soul scream, Soulscream also has a healing factor, but he's no match for Wolverine's prowess in a fight. Wolverine unleashes his catchphrase and his claws to murder Soulscream and end the fight.

Actually, Wolverine claims Soulscream will recover from being stabbed through the face (you take a look above and judge for yourself). Tyger is impressed with Cat's fighting skills. They all head back to the Princess Bar for drinks.

This title reminds me of the kind of short stories you used to find in old Marvel Comics Presents. And of course, I'm always down for more Chris Claremont stories (though I would have given him the whole book, not just one story out of many). Of course, that's been the rallying cry of this column for years and despite like 75% of their comics selling worse than any Claremont book ever did, for some reason, they just won't give the guy an ongoing comic. They are at least bringing back Claremont and other classic X-writers for the X-Men Legends series in February, so at least there's that.

I've got one more X-Book to recap for you, coming up soon: Deadpool #9.