A Tale of Two Halves of a Trade

Damn, I miss Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

I heard pretty much nothing but good things about All-New Wolverine, the solo title where Laura Kinney (X-23) took over being Wolverine after Logan was dead for awhile. This was of course undercut by Marvel throwing as many other knockoff Wolverines out there at one time as possible, but that isn't this book's fault.

Volume 1 is kind of pricey (even with the new Omnibus available now), so I started with volume 2. Which is, naturally, a tie-in to Civil War II: Dumbass Boogaloo. Fortunately, only half of the six issues really deal with that, and those are, as you'd imagine, the crappier half.

That half follows the predictable pattern. The kid, Ulysses, sees a vision of something terrible happening. SHIELD tries to mobilize to stop it, and in turn, bring it about. The main characters yell at them for being dumbasses. 

In this case, Old Man Logan, the Wolverine from that shitty ripoff of Unforgiven Mark Millar wrote that one time that Marvel simply will not let die, is supposed to kill Gabby, the delightful clone of X-23 that Laura has adopted as her little sister. Captain America shows up (I assume this is HYDRA Cap, although Secret Empire is still several months away), Laura and Gabby object, and try to help the old man escape. He gets shot with a laser, then a bunch of tranq darts, and stabs Gabby when she tries to calm him down. Good thing she's a clone of someone with an actual healing factor and stabbing is a mild inconvenience. Granting Laura somehow hadn't figured that out, but what a waste of time.

The only interesting part of it is this Logan actually thinks he did a good job raising his Laura, and hates Gabby because the version from his timeline took Laura away. With that attitude, I'm guessing she didn't have to try very hard. No matter the timeline, Logan will fuck up his interpersonal relationships because he never learned sharing is caring. Laura tells him to stay the hell away, or else, because she's now dead certain he's not her Logan. Eh, closer than you think, kid. And I know he pops up again two stories later during a crisis.

Anyway, that's more time than that shit deserved.

 

The good half is the first three issues, kicking off with a team-up with the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Laura has committed crimes against the squirrels, and must make restitution. Which means helping to find a father squirrel she stuck a tracking device on, who has now vanished. Also, she made some people crash their car into the squirrels' tree home, knocking it down. 

Civil War III: Back For More Cash will be the squirrels deciding they're taking over our homes and exiling us to the trees, like the dolphins in that one Simpsons Halloween Special. I, for one, welcome our squirrel overlords. Get yourself a leader who eats nuts, instead of being nuts.

Doreen is cheerful and singing as always, except when she's serious, and she even brings a housewarming gift. An actual wolverine named Jonathan she rescued from a lab when she was rescuing squirrels. She's a little put out Laura can't speak to, sorry, understand wolverines, but Gabby loves him, so it's all good. Gabby's assessment: 'I will walk him and feed him and dress him up in fine suits and build little cities out of cardboard for him to tear through like some hairy, giant, formally attired monster.' 

Laura is fortunately new enough at being a big sister to think there's nothing wrong with having a wolverine for a pet.

After that, Laura is called in by SHIELD because an entire team went missing, and so did the person they first sent looking. Which would be Old Man Logan (hence him being around for the CW2 stuff). As it turns out, the SHIELD team was trying to interrupt a weapons buy, and the weapon is a pheromone. Not the one that sends Laura into a killing frenzy, but one that puts a certain dragon in the mood for love.

Yes, a Fin Fang Pheromone. I love how absolutely ridiculous that is. Gabby's assessment: 'So this is like when a giant rampaging lizard and a flying aircraft carrier love each other very much. . .' That kid is the best. 

Laura figures out Logan must be inside the dragon, which is how you get her diving inside. I'm not sure if we're meant to deduce he was swallowed because he's a klutz, or he got swallowed because that's where the trail led and he hoped some of them survived. The former probably, but he's an old man, he might have got confused and thought the giant dragon was a diner selling a Early Bird Special.

Iron Man and Captain Marvel show up, but since Civil War II hadn't officially started, there's no sniping at each other yet. The only awkward moment is when Tony states he has a lot of experience sterilizing rooms, and Carol and Laura are both disgusted. Which is totally understandable, so I stand corrected, Civil War III will be about Tony's tendency to overshare.