Posted in: Comics | Tagged: hunt for wolverine, hunt for wolverine: mystery in madripoor, marvel, mystery in madripoor, wolverine, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

X-ual Healing: An Unexpectedly Early Resolution in Hunt for Wolverine Mystery in Madripoor #2

Published Sun, 01 Jul 2018 17:00:12 -0500

by Jude Terror

Comments

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, but with a corporate merger on the way, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in comics.

Each week, armed with the joy, heartbreak, and frustration of 30+ years of reading X-Men comics, we crankily read every new X-book that comes out, recap the events, provide some back-links to Marvel Unlimited, and wonder when Marvel will let Chris Claremont write something again. Seriously, how do you have the greatest writer in the history of comics on the payroll and just not use him for anything?

It's the way X-Men comics were meant to be read! It's the column that can only be known as…

For more about the column, check out the reboot issue here.

HUNT FOR WOLVERINE: MYSTERY IN MADRIPOOR #2 (of 4)
JIM ZUB (W) • THONY SILAS (A)
Cover by GREG LAND VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS BACHALO
ONE X-MAN DOWN, FIVE TO GO!
• The new Femme Fatales claim their first victim (but not their last)!
• What is Magneto's connection to Logan's disappearance?
• Can Storm, Kitty, Domino and Jubilee survive when the whole city is hunting them?
32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

In the previous issue of Unnecessary Wolverine Pre-Return Event: Mystery in Madripoor, the X-Women found themselves outclassed by the Femme Fatales, led by Viper, while trying to hunt down Wolverine's body in his old stomping ground of Madripoor. Psylocke, Rogue, and Storm were captured, leaving Kitty Pryde, Domino, and Jubilee.

The issue opens with Kitty remembering the Wolverine & Kitty Pryde mini-series, in which she truly learned who Wolverine is (essentially, the cornerstone of the entire Marvel Universe — at least that's how he was written those last few years before he finally kicked the bucket).

In the present, she phases with Jubilee and Domino into the sewers beneath the restaurant where they were ambushed by the Femme Fatales. She and the others wonder how they can defeat the Femme Fatales when they took out the strongest X-Men already. Well, we're sure they'll find a way.

Elsewhere, Viper engages in some X-pository dialogue with the Femme Fatales, revealing that a mysterious client has hired them to do something mysterious. Caption boxes name all of the Femme Fatales and provide a brief summary of their powers, which is always nice. They're holding Magneto prisoner, having disabled him with a combination of Mindblast's psychic powers, which she reveals have been enhanced, and Sapphire Styx's life-draining abilities. Speaking of Sapphire, Viper, on a phone call with the client, explains that Sapphire's hunger is out of control. The client doesn't care about that, only the final objective.

Viper decides to let Sapphire drain Psylocke dry then, but when Sapphire finds Psylocke, she appears to be already dead.

Back at the Princess Bar, where Wolverine kept a secret room full of memorabilia, the remaining X-Men are regrouping… in their underwear for some reason. Kitty decides that the best way for them to survive in Madripoor is to get dressed up and hit the town, acting like they own the place, until they get some answers. They do that, and it eventually leads them to a casino where one of the Femme Fatales, Bloodlust, is watching over a man at the gambling table. The X-Men attack, kidnapping the man, who turns out to be a mathematician who was hired to plot flight trajectories for Viper. He agrees to take the X-Men to the launchpad.

Back at Viper's headquarters, Rogue awakens to find herself held captive my a machine blocking her powers. Storm is there too, and Rogue notices that Storm is about to have one of her I SHALL BE FREE moments. The storm outside is building. elsewhere in the building, Sapphire checks on Psylocke again only to find a familiar face waiting…

Hey, they found Wolverine! Can we call off the rest of these mini-series? No? Alright then, we'll find out what happens next issue.

The Bottom Line

Though it's true that the Hunt for Wolverine minis are a shameless cash grab capitalizing on the return of Wolverine that isn't going to happen until a follow-up mini-series, which is literally called Return of Wolverine, this one is still our favorite. You can't go wrong by bringing X-Men to Madripoor.

Our wife was looking over our shoulder while reading this one, and she kept asking why all the women were dressed "like prostitutes." Now, we're 100% in support of sex workers here in X-ual Healing, so no shame here. But try explaining why Psylocke dresses like she does out loud sometime if you want to hear yourself sounding very silly.