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

Wolverine #2 Recap: Wolverine Does What He Does Best Again and Again

Published Mon, 06 Apr 2020 05:00:03 -0500

Wolverine #2 was written by Benjamin Percy with art by Adam Kubert, colors by Frank Martin, and letters by Cory Petit. It's only the second issue of the series, but like all of Marvel's comics, its on a hiatus after this issue. But Wolverine still must figure out who's been making street drugs out of Krakoan flowers and that same person has been forcing Wolverine to murder his friends. Let's see what happened in Wolverine #2.

The cover to Wolverine #2 from Marvel Comics, with art by Adam Kubert and Frank Martin.

A Recap of Wolverine #2

The issue opens with Bishop having a very bad dream. He's on the Marauder but everyone is acting strangely. Iceman is freezing flowers in ice blocks and throwing them into the ocean, for instance. Bishop himself falls into the water, where he sees Kate Pryde's corpse.

After the title page, we catch up with Wolverine, in the snow, facing off against some of his greatest enemies: Dr. Cornelius, Sabretooth, and Lady Deathstrike. He murders them, but as he stabs Deathstrike, she turns into Jean Grey. He's murdered the X-Men again.

Wolverine wakes up in the healing gardens as the Morlock healer tells him he's having a bad dream. Apparently, C.I.A. agent Jeff Bannister dropped him off hereafter finding him at the end of the last issue. The Healer explains that others are also having these nightmares, such as Bishop. A text report tells us that everyone on the Maurader was affected by the same thing.

In Baltimore, Bannister is sleeping in his daughter's hospital room. She wakes him up because his phone is ringing. Bannister receives a report from Agent Milly that members of a task force focused on Pollen, the illegal street drug made from Krakoan flowers, have suffered the same hallucinations. One killed himself, and the other melted her face with an iron but still lives. She mentioned "a pale girl." Agent Fink, the one who slit his wrists, wrote "look away and live another day" on the wall in his own blood. Bannister's daughter tells her dad he needs to get the mutants involved in this.

At the mutant egg hatchery on Krakoa, Cyclops watches Wolverine from afar. Wolverine watches the bodies of the X-Men he killed last issue gestating in their eggs. Wolverine apologizes to Cyclops for murdering their girlfriend. Cyclops walks away silently.

A Tale of a Fateful Trip

At CIA headquarters, Agent Bannister tells Agent Milly that they need to shut down the task force. It seems like they have a mole. He needs to bring in the mutants. Bannister meets with Wolverine and reveals he got the scar on his face as collateral damage in a mutant battle. He doesn't like mutants and they don't like him, but they need to work together. Wolverine agrees.

The unlikely duo set off on a boat filled with Krakoan petals to serve as their own bait. Milly calls Bannister and Wolverine to the bridge to look at something. It looks like Milly was actually the pale girl. Wolverine, his eyes glowing red, stabs Bannister in the back of the head, apparently killing him. Under the influence of the pale girl, he steers the ship toward an unknown location.

My Opinion on Wolverine #2

It feels like Marvel is doing True Detective starring Wolverine here, and I guess it kind of works. Jeff Bannister is an interesting character at least, so it's a shame he's dead now. Hopefully, there's more to it than that, because it would be a shame to build up his character only to kill him off so soon. So who is the pale girl, anyway? What does she want? What are the odds she's Bannister's daughter? And how many times can Wolverine be mind-controlled into killing his teammates before the other X-Men refuse to work with him?

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 in the past decade. But that dark era is past. Now, thanks to a corporate merger and a line-wide relaunch, the X-Men can finally return to doing what they do best: entertaining fans of the greatest soap opera of all time.