What I Bought 9/23/2026

I've spent most of this week doing remediation on an old site. We had some work done by contractors three years ago that didn't entirely take. Vegetation not establishing, erosion cuts, things of that nature. My bosses won't authorize using mechanical equipment on it after they've already done that once. So I've been out there trying to knock the sides in on multiple trenches 3+ feet deep to level everything back out, then seeding it, spreading straw and whatever else, by hand, alone. I may not move all weekend.

Weather's been lovely, though. Couldn't have asked for better on that score. 

D'Orc #8, by Brett Bean (writer/artist), Frank William (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer) - Great, the feral hogs have invaded my blog, and I don't own an AR-15 to protect my non-existent children.

Chicken's attempt to trick knobgoblins out of their roasted unicorn is interrupted by a pig-man duel-wielding meat cleavers. Schweinehund - I can see a little dog in the snout or ears, but he really just looks like a boar - kills the knobgoblins, but shares the meat. The tradeoff is he criticizes D'Orc for hiding from violence and sitting around bemoaning his fate. Everyone has sob stories, and nobody wants to listen to yours, unless you make them. By hurting them.

They travel to the castle of a Goblin King who Pig-Man says deserves death. D'orc's supposed to steal the valuables, but balks at killing the guards and Schweinehund killing the king. Chicken possesses the king to keep him alive long enough for D'Orc to get there. Chicken also alerts the guards which, less good. But he pushes Schweinehund off the castle wall into the moat, mid-spiel about how he works alone, with no one to watch his back. Or dry you off after falling in a moat!

At which point the angry golem from the end of the previous issue shows up, telling D'Orc to come peacefully to the Lords of Darkness. But when D'orc asks if she would peacefully go meet with people who wanted to execute her, she answers no. Then D'Orc gets airmailed out of there by Chicken's body. I found that scene, I guess because of her straightforward answer.

It was probably meant to blunt the Golem into less of antagonist, but I'd say we can add two more people to the list of those hunting him. D'Orc is not great at making friends, so I'm still not sure what Bean is planning with this. D'Orc rejected Schweinehund's psychopathic worldview that no matters but him, and everyone is to be used and discarded as the situation demands. I can't imagine the point is for D'Orc to just run off and hide somewhere forever, either.

But he's not really made any allies, so what's the path forward here? Get the two sides so crazed about killing him he can lead them into a battle with each other, and let Light and Dark annihilate one another? Would expect a lot of innocent deaths in that event. Maybe the Golem is the first step on the path of gaining allies.

Generation X-23 #8, Jody Houser (writer), Emilio Laiso (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Logan, take your brokedown ass home. 

The Wolverines and the Generated finding a spiral staircase in the Facility none of the Generated knew about. Laura, noticing Logan's healing factor isn't working, takes point. Nanny intercepts, but after disarming her, Laura tries talking. Schweinehund does not approve. You have unbreakable claws, simply hack the egg-woman to pieces, before she can kill you. Or use Logan for a bullet shield if he is no longer an effective fighter.

Talking works, though. Nanny brings them to the nursery she found, telling how she got there in a nursery rhyme. Is that a new thing? I don't remember Nanny doing a lot of singing in the few Claremont comics I saw her in. Laura tries to leave Logan behind with the Generated, but they just follow. Not showing much respect for your authoritah, Laura.

While Laura tries to figure out if these are mutant babies that were being used as a source of genetic material for powers, or human babies mutant powers were being grafted onto, Nanny leaves. Just like that? She didn't try to take even one with her? Just decided the Wolverines were suitable parental figures and that's that? I'm not saying there needed to be a huge fight in a room full of infants - maybe that's why Nanny left, to avoid endangering the children - but it feels odd. Nanny went to all that trouble, all the killing, to get to these babies, then just left.

Laura and Logan have a rooftop conversation about the difficulties of guiding children. Logan says the key is he cared. I thought it was that he taught them ninja stuff. They don't talk about his non-functioning healing factor, beyond Laura admitting she worries about him, and Logan assuring her he'll be fine. Yeah, he's getting to be in two different team books again and everything. Life is good for the ol' Canucklehead!

I know the book ends in two issues, so Houser is probably trying to get in position to wrap up stuff with X-Infinite - seen on the final page planning something involving Robo-Scorpion Kimura - by then. But that just makes wasting two issues on another awful secret of the Facility and/or gratuitous Logan appearance all the worse. Maybe it plays out the Generated have to protect Laura from X-Infinite, the way she stepped forward to protect Logan. That could be something. I don't figure Laura would let the Generated take sole responsibility for looking after all the babies, so I can't imagine that's going to be the resolution.

What I Bought 8/12/2026 - Part 2

As I begin another no doubt exhausting week as Emergency Unit Chief - I'm 20 minutes into my term as this post goes up, so I'm probably still sifting through last week's e-mails - we look at the two comics from last week. A pair of 7th issues, books that narrowly avoided the ax in July.

D'Orc #7, by Brett Bean (writer/artist), Frank William (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer) - Dual-wielding a shield and a headless chicken. Bold choice, Cotton, let's see if it works for him.

D'Orc, the shield and the chicken fall into the Boglands. D'Orc's still reeling from the angry dwarf's "I am your father!" reveal last issue, and wanders about until he finds a cabin. Where a polite woman named Mylinda offers him tea, and the door is kicked in by bog monsters. Which are repelled by the tea, just like I would be.

D'Orc seems smitten with Mylinda, so he sticks around to help repair her door, and fend off more bog monsters. Mylinda kicks the chicken and the shield out to find ingredients for more tea, then drugs D'Orc with a candle. Because she's a succubus. Man, no luck at all for this kid. Chicken and shield are approached by the bog monsters, who are what's left of her past victims, including her first love, Charles. Chicken animates his body and guides Mylinda into the water, leaving the trio to press on again. Except now there's an angry golem-woman on their tail.

D'Orc can't find anyone that's not trying to use him. Even those not actively trying to kill or harm him, like the Bone Witch, want him alive to take revenge for them against someone else. There was Barry in issue 4, I suppose. He wasn't out to harm D'orc or get anything from him, but he also wasn't really helping him. Everyone who lends one hand is concealing something in their other. Which is a depressing state of affairs. He can't find anyone that is simply willing to help another person?

I mean, it's not like the shield or the chicken have much choice. One can't move on its own, the other wouldn't get far with a headless body. I don't know what Bean's trying to say with that state of affairs. The people on both sides are too concerned with "good" and "evil" as abstract concepts that are absolute, and miss the spirit of what doing good (or evil) really is? I may have to wait until D'Orc spends a little more time on the dark side of the scar, then compare who he met there versus the light side.

Bean does a good job on Mylinda's initial design, making her look unassuming. Some of it's the big eyes, and the wiggly, uneven line he uses for her mouth. Plus her tendency to make herself look small. Lean on a railing, or hold her arms in close to her body. Makes her look shy or a bit awkward, like she's worried about D'orc taking offense and leaving. Which she was, in a way. Nothing suspicious to see here! She's just oddball who likes living in this swamp, even with the frequent bog monster attacks.

He also mostly draws her and D'orc's interactions in profile up to that point, so that they're on the same level, even if she's taller. But when things shift, Bean either uses her bangs to shade her eyes ominously, or angles the perspective so she's looming over D'Orc. Of course, D'Or's also drugged unconscious by that point, which is ominous enough on its own.

Generation X-23 #7, by Jody Houser (writer), Marco Renna (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Awwww, look who's front and center on the cover like he's still a sales draw. Who's the angry Canadian that still thinks it's 1993?

Laura and Gabby come home to find Logan bleeding on their floor, though he apparently didn't expect them to still be living there. Nor did he know they'd picked up some new boarders. Logan downplays his lack of a healing factor, because he's a man and that's what we do. Curiously, nobody mentions the set of broken claws. I guess it's obvious the claws wouldn't grow back if there's no healing factor, but you'd think the lack of adamantium would raise questions.

The Generated are listening in, and finally barge in when the conversation turns to them. They want to return to the Facility and explore. Learn more about themselves, and how much of what X-Infinite told them was true. The Snikt Squad reluctantly agree to take them back, where they find a bunch of dead humans, and that some of the Laura-bots have been rebuilt. There's a fight, and in the process, they find the Orphan-Maker. Which means Nanny's around, stealing genetically-altered mutant babies. Because apparently there was an entire nursery ward nobody found the last time.

We get to see the Generated help in the fight, and they seem to have gotten a little more comfortable since last issue. Which is strange, considering it's been one day since then. Maybe fight unliving robots is easier, but Port and Time Bomb combine their powers effectively, and Surprise! (she insists on the exclamation point) doesn't hesitate on what to shift into, and works up a combo with Scout.

Renna illustrates the fight pretty well, although it's funny to see Logan slashing at robots with his busted-ass bone claws. Or was he punching them? On the other hand, Nanny's Mr. Potato-head press-on lips were terrifying. When did that get added to her look? Admittedly, I'm not sure I've read a comic with Nanny in it since Storm got de-aged to a kid back in the Claremont/Jim Lee days, but I do not remember fake lips being part of the package. Does Nanny think they make her more acceptable to children?

What I Bought 7/29/2026

I had to cover for a coworker on an unpleasant task Tuesday, because the boss didn't bother to check if her schedule was clear when he set the time and date. The task was, indeed, a real pain in the ass, but when I saw said coworker on Wednesday, they presented me with a big bag of Skittles, with a note card that read "BRIBE" taped to it. I'm pretty sure bribes are supposed to come before I do the dirty deed, but my coworkers already confused "mutiny" and "desertion" this summer, so clearly, the meaning of words is not a strong point.

Generation X-23 #6, by Jody Houser (writer), Emilio Laiso (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - This issue one of these characters will die! No, wait, sorry. One of these characters won't appear, because they already appeared to die.

The three survivors of the Facility are now living with Laura and Gabby, to mixed results. X-99 has gotten immediately way too online, calling things "mid", and quoting internet memes like nothing happened, to X-74 and Gabby's annoyance. X-92 is using his power to peek in on the lives of Laura's neighbors. X-74 is trying to get her powers under control after blowing up someone she didn't intend to last issue, without success.

So Laura gets them out of the apartment, by taking them to the big tree in Central Park where people left requests for help in Laura Kinney: Wolverine. And there's a family that's planning to leave tonight that needs help! Remarkable timing! Seriously, I thought that was going to end up being a trap by X-Infinite, but there really is a family getting attacked by your prototypical bigots in ski masks with bats. Really, not even any guns?

While the family is protected, it doesn't go great, because none of the X-Generated have ever used their powers in a real world situation. X-99 can't decide what to change into, X-73 blows a car way up into the air and nearly kills people. Something to work on, then. Maybe they can get some practice with their powers cleaning up the unconscious Logan that's bleeding on Laura's hardwood floor.

New artist. Liaso's line are heavier than Renna's. Gives the characters a little more weight, although everyone feels like they've become the same height. I'm pretty sure 74 was significantly taller (and older) than 99 or 92, who were both closer to Gabby's height. That said, the art's expressive enough, which is handy in the first few pages, when Laura is sitting back and observing how the Generated are adapting.

For the fight scene, Liaso alternates between Gabby or Laura assertively kicking bigots in the face, and 74 or 99 mostly looking at their hands and mumbling to themselves while they try to figure out what to do. And when 74's attempt to get involved goes wrong, we get a panel of her standing and staring in horror, followed by panels of Laura rushing in to cut open the car so the passengers can escape. The difference between using your powers for real, and following around in some knock-off Danger Room.

What I Bought 6/24/2026

Alright, this is it. Last day - hopefully - I have to play fake boss. He's supposed to be back in the office Monday. I'm so ready to be done with the added stress. It makes me dread getting up, and makes me want to go to bed earlier so I can wake up and be one day closer to being done.

Here's two X-books.

Generation X-23 #5, by Jody Houser (writer), Marco Renna (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - That is definitely a picture of Laura Kinney lunging at the reader, claws extended.

X-80, the time traveler that originally clued Laura into this whole mess, shows up to rescue her. This is a younger version than the one Laura met earlier, because time travel, although that power is one that was grafted onto her later. The energy blades X-Infinite uses are her original mutation.

While Infinite drags Gabby off to use as a genetic material source, and the rest of the cast figure out he's a bad guy, 80 takes Laura on a trip through the past to see how things got to that point. Infinite (X-39, then) used to try and protect the others by getting the guards angry at him, but eventually a Dr. Chiles (and for some reason that name seems familiar) convinced him to help her with this grafting of powers. Except she was only interested in powers rich humans would pay for, which apparently doesn't include having wings and feathers? I mean, there are lots of other powers I'd rather have, but it's not a bad power.

Laura and 80 rescue the others, then free Gabby. Whose enhanced senses somehow still work, even with the mutant power neutralizing collar on. Don't quite understand that. Laura's willing to leave Infinite there and take the others to safety, but 74 decides to blow him up. Except 66 - with the bird powers - throws herself on the grenade, so he's still alive.

If the point of this arc was to give Laura and Gabby a supporting cast - and the remainder of this bunch are going to live with them, so that seems to be the case - Houser probably should have moved faster. Speed-run Infinite's reveal as the villain, weed out whoever you were going to kill, get on with having Laura be a leader/mentor/friend to the survivors. Especially given Marvel's quick-trigger on the cancellation button these days, I'm not sure you can afford to burn 5 issues just getting to the actual point of your book.

(Also kind of strange to introduce the Kimura Scorpion-bot and not have it be a bigger deal. Maybe save that for after Infinite was dealt with, or vice versa.) 

Especially since none of the new characters Laura's going to be interacting with have much in the way of personalities yet. 92 is silent and lurks in the walls, 99 is chipper and playful, which seems to be designed for her to interact with Gabby rather than Laura. 74 is the one with a quick temper. That's pretty much what I've got on them so far.

Moonstar #4, by Ashley Allen (writer), Edoardo Audino (artist), Arthur Hesli (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - We got a zombie bear, zombie elk (stag?), zombie wolf, and zombie hyena? I was thinking this was in North America, in which case the hyena's a long way from home, but they end up in Iran, so maybe all those are native fauna.

Dani thinks it through and concludes Kyrion will want to kill her parents in front of her. So they have time to get to the tablet first, and hide it, then rescue her parents. Dani has enough of the residual magic from the sword infecting her to use it as a tracking beacon, so they fly to Iran on Brightwind. Dani says she learned a spell that can provide acceleration over short distances, but Colorado to Iran wouldn't seem to qualify as short.

As it turns out, this is where Kian grew up, and where he first started messing with magic, which is why his eyes are messed up now. Something else that's messed up: the native wildlife, which is back from the dead and running rampant. Kian tries some kind of spell to dissolve the reanimated corpses, but they just combine into a monstrosity that would make John Carpenter proud. I mean, that thing is truly disgusting looking, props to Audino.

Dani's able to panic the chimera by hurting it, then playing off the instinctive reaction that pain causes, which leaves them free to continue to the tablet. Kian keeps advising her to at least consider alternative approaches, like taking out Kyrion's backup and saving her parents, but Dani won't be swayed. She's certain she can save everyone if she does things her way.

It's funny she doesn't ever point out that if they don't keep Kyrion from getting the tablet, saving her parents will be a moot point, because he'll kill everyone. As it turns out, the tablet is somehow too big to move now, and Kyrion's brought her parents along to use it as a sacrificial altar. And Dani's arrows don't seem to be doing much. That's not a great turn of events.

I'm curious to see how Allen wraps this up. Kyrion and Kian both keep commenting on Dani's optimism or hopeful attitude, which feels significant in a story about accepting death as part of life. Or refusing to accept it, in Kyrion's case. Whether Dani saves people today, she can't save them forever, but she still persists in trying, and in believing she can save everyone today. I don't know where Allen's going with that. There's also the fact Kian's caught feelings, as we get a panel where he's very close and asking if she can lend him some courage, while Hesli colors the background a very soft focus pink. Dani's either oblivious or too locked in to notice, so I guess we'll see if Kian just booked himself a room in the fridge next month.

Sunday Splash Page #430

"A Fractured Mirror," in All-New Wolverine #1, by Tom Taylor (writer), David Lopez (penciler/inker), David Navarrot (inker), Nathan Fairbairn (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Around 2016, Marvel killed Wolverine. Marvel, being Marvel, didn't let the concept lay fallow. They pumped out more Wolverine books than ever. Wolverines, about a bunch of characters that weren't that particular Logan, but liked to carve things up with claws, so close enough. Old Man Logan, because some dumbass thought we needed more of Mark Millar's bullshit in the Marvel Universe. And All-New Wolverine, which was about Laura Kinney trying to take on the legacy of her genetic donor. I hesitate to apply the label of "father" to Logan, given how bad he was at it.

Tom Taylor wrote the title, which ran for 35 issues, plus an Annual. It had a host of artists, because of course it did. Pretty much a different primary penciler for each arc. David Lopez on the first six issues, Marcio Takara and Ig Guara splitting the next six, Nik Virella and Djibril-Morissette-Phan on the third story, Leonard Kirk on the fourth arc, Juann Cabal on the fifth, and mostly Ramon Rosanas in the sixth arc, some "Old Woman Laura" thing I didn't keep, as should be self-explanatory given my comments in the previous paragraph.

Taylor's focus is on Laura trying to branch out and build a life, with friends and loved ones, while also moving beyond her past as a weapon. He starts by establishing Alchemax - this was when Alchemax was a thing in the present, rather than just in 2099 - cloned Laura. The clones were implanted with nanites to block their healing factors and lack claws - or so it seems - but the few survivors are trying to take out the ones responsible before they die. Of the four, only one appears to survive, the youngest, named Gabby (later Honey Badger or Scout.)

Gabby's the one constant presence throughout the run, despite Laura often trying to handle things alone to protect her new kid sister. Taylor writes Gabby as very quick to get excited about things and equally quick to judge. She's usually got some funny or clever remark ready, but a lot of Taylor's writing seems to revolve around that kind of quippy dialogue. It probably works here because Laura is mostly subdued. She's the quiet core all the more bubbly or outgoing characters orbit.

Besides Gabby, Maria Hill and Nick Fury (the one they put in the Marvel Universe that looks like Sam Jackson, 'cause Whitebread Nick Fury was/is busy being a Watcher) show up a few times, usually with something they want Laura's help with. Critically, Taylor makes these tasks Laura trying to rescue or help people, rather than kill. In the second arc, they need her to look for several missing SHIELD agents. In the fourth arc, it's a dying alien child who said Laura's name before keeling over of some engineered plague. People wanted her to kill, to take advantage of how much punishment the healing factor would let her take, but now she's using it to save lives.

To that end, Taylor uses the third arc to get rid of the "trigger scent" that sent Laura into berserker furies. As far as I know, nobody's undone that yet. Fittingly, that arc is the one that seems to delve most into previous Laura Kinney stories, as she's being hunted by Kimura, the woman who trained and/or tormented her in the Facility, and Gambit shows up for support, after being a big part of Laura's first ongoing series.

There's also the fifth arc, where a group of people who lost loved ones to various Wolverine-themed characters formed a support group to hunt down and kill them with bullets made of broken shards of the Muramasa Blade. Laura has to convince them she understands what they lost, because she lost part of herself being made into a killer, so she wants to help them by finding and punishing the ones who did that. Which is swell, but doesn't really address the fact she saved Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike or Daken, who don't have the excuse they were kids when they were slaughtering people, nor have they demonstrated much regret.

But regret never stopped Logan from killing people. Why should the knockoffs be any different?

At times, though, the book feels like Wolverine Team-Up, as every arc has some guest star. Dr. Strange and the Wasp both appear in "Four Sisters", as well as the time-traveling teen Angel, who at least has the excuse of being Laura's boyfriend. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl shows up in the story Marcio Takara drew, which is a fun little team-up about rescuing a squirrel that Laura's actions endangered, and then Old Man Logan and HYDRA-Cap show up in the obligatory Civil War II tie-in. You've got Gambit and Teen Jean Grey in the third arc, plus Tyger Tyger, Maria Hill and Nick Fury, then Laura travels to space with the Guardians of the Galaxy to find the source of the sick alien kid.

It's old hat for the new kid to meet up with established characters and get their stamp of approval. In the '90s, Spider-Man was a lock for a guest appearance by issue #3 in every new Marvel book. But it feels like Taylor spams that particular button. I guess the point is to use people who knew Logan to contrast Laura to her predecessor, but if the idea is her reinventing herself to be someone who protects, then maybe the focus could have been on non-super powered characters that were being saved by her?

I know, that's silly. All supporting cast members must be supers themselves now.

As far as the artists go, I'm always partial to Lopez's art. He's got that clean linework with expressive body language and faces I enjoy. It works with Taylor's tendency to do 3-panel sequences of "action-silent panel-reaction." Laura tells Angel not to hug her until her ribs heal. He pats her head instead. She asks if he did that, he freezes, then acknowledges the obvious. Or Taskmaster catches Laura's kick, talks shit, she extends the claw in her foot through his hand, he screams in pain.

Takara's work is a lot rougher, the characters more blocky, but the art captures Squirrel Girl's cheerful and earnest personality, as well as Gabby's excitement and Laura's resignation that she needs to make things right. Kirk, I think is like Rick Leonardi: He needs a strong inker or his figures get a little like a wax figure left in the sun. Things kind of stretch and elongate abnormally. There are four different inkers in that story, including Kirk himself, and sometimes the details start to slip, but mostly it works. The Guardians of the Galaxy look appropriately alien, if there's slippage, it's when Laura gets emaciated because her healing factor is overworked by the alien plague. Deadpool and Gabby hit it off and are all smiles with each other.

Cabal's work is a little stiff in the fights, but he's good with emotion and he's the only artist I've seen that leans even a little into the fact part of Laura's DNA comes from a stocky, burly man. Laura's traditionally drawn as sort of a waif. Partially (OK, mostly) because it's usually guys drawing the comics for guys and they want the girls to look the traditional sort of cute or hot. But also somewhat so she looks like this unsuspecting girl, who turns into a tornado of murder. It's not as though Cabal gives Laura body hair, or a square head, or hair swooped into little wings, but he does give her more musculature, especially in the shoulders and back, than I can recall most artists doing.

Logan came back eventually, somehow. Laura went back to being X-23. Then she was Wolverine again, at the same time as Logan. Now she's back to X-23, but still dressing like Wolverine? I don't think they've ever given her a brown-and-orange costume like Logan had. It's only ever the yellow-and-blue, or sometimes black-and-red when she's in X-Force mode. I'm not sure what that means, if anything. The artists want to use colors that are more sharply distinct? 

What I Bought 5/27/2026

I finished Trigun today on my anime re-watch project. I forgot how exhausting all Vash's hemming and hawing about not shooting Legato gets. He wants to die, just do it already!

Sorry, reflex. Tomorrow is Trigun: Badlands Rumble, and that's the end of it, minus the first half of a series I bought a few weeks ago. But I haven't watched Ghost Hound yet, so it's not a re-watch.

Generation X-23 #4, by Jody Houser (writer), Marco Renna (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - I'm very curious why they gave the robots hair, but otherwise left them looking entirely mechanical.

Laura, X-Infinite and X-92 (the portal-making kid) are following the guys who took everyone else, courtesy of a trail of blood Gabby is leaving for them. It's kind of funny that she's apparently so used to having a healing factor that she didn't consider that it's a bad thing if she just keeps bleeding indefinitely. 

Although that raises a question. They all got stuck with collars that neutralize their powers, meaning no healing factor, which is what Gabby's counting on for the bleeding. So does that mean the collar has entirely blocked her ability to heal, rather than simply knocking it down to a "normal" level? Because I sure don't have a healing factor like a Wolverine, but any cuts or scrapes I get do stop bleeding eventually.

Laura and X-Infinite get inside the facility, courtesy of X-92's portals and start looking around. But Infinite's more interested in reprogramming those knockoff X-23-bots to kill all the staff of the facility, so he can have it for himself. And then having them overwhelm Laura, so he can have access to all of her blood he wants. Well, he seemed pretty suspect, but I did not see that level of backstabbing coming.

Laura also has a 3-page fight with the weird crab/centipede lady, who we're told has part of the face of Kimura, the woman who used to torture Laura when she was a kid (and who I thought Laura drowned in Tom Taylor's All-New Wolverine.) Granted, all that's organic is her face and half her hair, so there wasn't much to go on, but I would not have figured that to be Kimura in a million years.

Houser tends to script the fights, or Renna's drawing them, to emphasize Laura's speed. Lots of short, broad panels that show the distance she covers, lots of flips and dodges and acrobatics. She's definitely not just charging into the fights and tanking hits (and then complaining about how much healing hurts) like she was in her previous ongoing.

Houser switches the caption boxes between Laura and a mystery person through the issue. Laura's focused mostly on what she can scent, or who she's fighting at that moment. The mystery person talks about paths and outcomes, and reveals themselves at the end of the issue as the time-traveler Laura saw die in issue 1. So I guess she went forward to this point, then back to that point later. 

What I Bought 5/4/2026 - Part 2

I got through Read or Die: The TV Series back in April on my anime rewatch. It was pretty good. I appreciate the silly sibling stuff between the Paper Sisters more than I remember in the past. Then Mr. Joker showed his face around episode 15, and it was ten episodes of me groaning, "Just shoot the fucker, stop listening to his bullshit!" But they never listen.

Generation X-23 #3, by Jody Houser (writer), Jacopo Camagni and Marco Renna (artists), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - So that foul-up where Laura got resurrected during the Krakoa era with a full adamantium skeleton, instead of just her claws, never got undone? Poor quality control.

The whole thing where the previous issue ended with X-Infinite saying Laura must be held responsible for two deaths is not really followed up on. Laura's alone in the infirmary, until some of those weird time shards show up, then vanish. So now Laura's got questions, and X-92's got a lead on answers. Which, predictably, point to X-Infinite, who is experimenting with some of Laura's skin that got scorched off.

As it turns out the kid's attempts to file reports that everything in the facility didn't work as well as they thought, Laura, Infinite and 92, escape. Infinite admits that, once the scientists figured out he was smarter than them, they made him help with their work. So all the other kids having multiple powers is his doing, and it's the old, a "Wolverine's healing factor could save them," bit. Well, at this point it's more like Laura's propensity for stabbing could save them. 

With the apparently abrupt passing of Jacopo Camagni, I don't know if Renna's going to be the regular artist on the book going forward. If so, I don't know if this issue is representative of their work. I would figure they were working under a time crunch, since they probably weren't expecting to draw 13 pages of this particular comic. Here, at least, Renna's style seems a little simpler than Camagni's. Faces and bodies are more basic shapes, fewer little details. Might simply not had enough time for as much shading, because I feel like that's a big difference between the two. There's more gradation and depth to Camagni's pages.

That said, Renna's art works perfectly well. The fight between Laura and X-Infinite is easy enough to follow. I'm not sure why one of the soldiers who attacked the facility is a giant, robotic crab-centipede-person, but it was a pretty impressive reveal. Got me to stop, blink, and wonder where the heck that thing came from.

Touched by a Demon #3, by Kristen Gudsnuk - As the city burns, one man tries to hide his eyes behind some strange wrapping paper.

Having concluded demons giving humans advice is not helpful, Frons takes the priest's recommendation of providing tools literally. So this week's client, Max, was given a chimp's paw, granting 5 wishes. Not a monkey's paw, mind you. No ironic comeuppance! But do I get a free frogurt with it? If you wish for one, I guess.

So after wishing for $10 million in an offshore account (the password to which he forgot), and an endless bag of weed and Adderall (which might have something to do with forgetting the password), Max starts messing around with people's free will. Making the girl he likes love him, making her kinks conform to his, for him to feel fulfilled. Stuff like that. But, as long as he doesn't try to make a sixth wish, he's fine.

Then he casually wished for them to not have to go into work and an earthquake knocked their office building - among other structures - down. I feel like Gudsnuk missed an easy joke there. When Max makes that wish, one of the chimp's fingers uncurls, and it isn't the middle one.

Despondent over another failure, Frons comes to the priest's church to aid in their relief efforts with a big sack of cash he. . .summoned from Hell, I think. Then he confronts Father Angelo, who he blames for giving him bad advice. Angelo either hasn't twigged to Frons being a demon, or is just jerking him around, but he claims to have found something that suggested fallen angels could be redeemed, and seems to be semi-related to Frons' idea of shattering souls to create something of pure evil. Except, you know, the flip side. Frankly, the idea of the soul as something you can chip pieces off of like some oversized ice cream cookie cake is maybe the part I'm having the most trouble with.

Oh, and the cop showed up at their office, looking into the disappearance of Wendy's family. And right as Frons' boss (Mammon) shows up. If somebody burned a roast I'm going to think I fell into an '80s sitcom. But no, in all seriousness, I'm really interested to see how Gudsnuk pulls this together with one issue to go. Interested and worried, since I actually like all these goofballs and I'm worried it's going to end badly for them. Especially Wendy, who did, you know, kill her asshole parents and her perpetually terminally ill older sister.

What I Bought 3/25/2026

It was 90 here yesterday, but I will not turn on my air conditioning. Not yet. Plus, it's barely into the 50s today. Lousy Smarch weather. Here's two comics from this week.

Fantastic Four #9, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - 

The FF get their tails kicked by Evil Sue and run with their tails between their legs. Galactus gets left behind. Ha! Regular Sue tries to reason with Evil Sue, since fighting her isn't working. Talking doesn't work either. In fact, Evil Sue decides she ought to make another just like her, and Johnny barely manages to cut in before his sister gets the same brain surgery.

Oh, and Earth is being attacked by aliens of some sort. I don't know what they're supposed to be; Ramos just draws them as big purple things with sort-of grasshopper legs. Don't really think that should be such a serious problem just because the FF aren't around. The Avengers and the X-Men deal with aliens, too!

I have to wonder at Evil Sue's motives for wanting to make Regular Sue just like her. If she can do everything, if the rest of the FF are useless, if Galactus is no match for her, what does she need a duplicate for? I kind of hope this isn't a Killing Joke, where she wants to prove anyone that goes through this will end up acting like she does.

I'm toying with the possibility she wants to die, and figures another Sue like her is the only thing strong enough to do it. A death wish wouldn't really track with her notion that she no longer feels guilt, but unless Evil Sue has a very different educational background from Regular Sue, she's not a brain surgeon. How could she be sure she burned out the right part of her brain? She admits she's holding back, that she lets Sue hit her with some attacks to see if she'll go for the kill. She's playing with the rest of the team, just throwing things at them to keep them busy while she tests Regular Sue.

I guess that could just be villain ego. Get to the end and find out Evil Sue is just like Doom, she like monologue and show off too much.

Generation X-23 #2, by Jody Houser (writer), Jacopo Camagni (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Laura is this how you make friends?

All the teenagers with powers were kids being experimented on in the facility where they currently live. But, as the apparent leader, who calls himself X-Infinite, tells us, one of the test subjects got loose and released some kind of vapor that killed everyone. And X-Infinite is the only witness. Not suspect at all! 

The handful who didn't die stuck around and call it home. They tend to have several powers, as a result of being experimented on, and they all refer to themselves by their experiment numbers. X-73, X-92, and so on. More concerning, X-Infinite insists on referring to Laura as "X-23", despite her repeatedly saying her name is "Laura." Not concerning!

Scout participates in a little training exercise with the others - just enough to give us some general sense what their powers are - until X-73 suddenly starts generating heat. Or fire. Either way, he's not immune and despite Laura's encouragement - to the extent, 'You have to control it!' qualifies - he blows up. And when she wakes up, X-Infinite says she has to answer for his friend's death.

I don't feel like Houser is being particularly subtle that something isn't on the up-and-up with X-Infinite. On the other hand, he isn't wrong that maybe they're safer in this secure facility than accepting Laura's offer to join whatever mutant school is currently available. If they don't think of themselves as mutants, or even if they do but don't particularly want to get missed up in X-Men nonsense, that's their business. Laura doesn't need to be proselytizing. 

What I Bought 2/18/2026 - Part 2

The anime re-watch wrapped up Gundam Wing over the weekend. That was fun, since I hadn't watched it in at least 15 years. I forgot how quickly things would change. Maybe one episode spent letting us think Heero died after self-destructing his Gundam, a half-dozen episodes on Relena trying to run a pacifist nation she only learned she was the inheritor of like 15 episodes earlier. She surrenders to avoid more deaths, an episode later she's a figurehead queen. An episode or two after that, she's running things for real, only to lose that one episode after. Gundam creators got no time for decompression, clearly (consecutive recap episodes in the middle of the series aside.)

It's Jeff! Meets Daredevil, by Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru - Those might be the most pronounced horns I've ever seen on Daredevil.

It's another collection of brief Jeff stories by Thompson and Gurihiru. Contrary to my expectations, they aren't focused on Jeff working with Daredevil. Their interactions are limited to the first comic, appropriately titled "Daredevil did it," where DD knocks over a statue while pursuing some thief (complete with a big sack with a $ symbol on it, so you know they respect tradition.) Jeff was sitting on a bench eating lunch in front of it, so the cop that comes along arrests Jeff.

Fortunately, Gwenpool and Kate Bishop hire Matt Murdock, and Jeff is acquitted, while Daredevil is sentenced to the community service of picking up all those pieces of statue that have just been lying scattered around the park ever since? So if you always wanted to see Daredevil doing in that a reflective vest. . .you'll have to by the comic because I scanned a different image. Hah!

The remainder of the comic is Jeff in his usual hijinks, most of which involve food. Although he does get mad when he keeps losing a fighting game and hurls the TV through the Hulk's kitchen window, which I can both relate to and think is an unwise choice. There are consecutive strips where Gwen is trying to make Jeff take medicine for some skin rash he's got, but Jeff proves extremely capable at not swallowing the pills. Although all that could have been avoided if Gurihiru simply drew a picture of Jeff's stomach, allowing Gwen to slip through the gutters to drop the pills in there.

It's cute fluff, but that's fine with me.

Generation X-23 #1, by Jody Houser (writer), Jacopo Camagni (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Maybe it's the angle, but Gabby;s lower body looks majorly elongated relative to her upper body.

Laura and Gabby are protecting a random mutant girl from a bigoted mob. Bigoted, idiot mob, given at least one of them shouts, "Just little girls!" at two girls with very long, very sharp claws extending from the backs of their hands. I'm once again amazed every citizen of the Marvel Universe hasn't managed to accidentally kill themselves trying to gargle bleach instead of mouthwash.

In the middle of the fight, something weird starts happening. Something like stained glass pieces appear from thin air, and as they pass through people, they get switched to, I'm not sure. Gabby thinks she smelled a friend of hers from her days as a sex worker, Kiden, who had time manipulation powers. Except seeing Laura at one point as young girl in a frilly dress, while Gabby looked like some Rob Liefeld creation for a second (sleek, elongated helmet with glowing visor) seems like more of an "unlocking alternate realities," power.

But I never read NYX, so maybe this is how the power worked. Laura follows the scent, finds more of the stained glass, plus a machine with the same claw set-up and hair as her. Beyond that, someone who isn't Kiden, who was looking for Laura, because people are dying from experiments involving mutant DNA. The girl speaks in fragmented and cryptic sentences before aging like she drank from the wrong Grail. Laura tracks her scent to a too-normal looking building, she and Gabby break in, there are more of the robots, and then a bunch of teenagers who are very happy to see Laura.

It feels like Laura is going to assume the teens are victims, while I suspect they're the ones conducting the experiments in order to make themselves more powerful. Maybe Gabby will be more suspicious, maybe not. Houser keeps Gabby as very eager and chatty, while Laura looks after her but plays along in trading jabs occasionally. The way the relationship was written felt right, which is a good sign.

Camagni plays into the characters' personalities by having Gabby be very expressive with her body language and facial expressions, where Laura is more reserved. So Laura will study a "too-normal" building, and all we get are narrowed eyes, while Gabby will stand there with one finger tapping at her lip in a "thoughtful" posture. When Laura tracks the girl's scent back to said "too-normal" building, in a page of her riding a motorcycle through the city, Camagni layers on panels showing the girl's progress as Laura's following the trail to its source. 

What I Bought 2/21/2025

The snow last week was not considerate. It waited until the long weekend was over and I had to go to work. I ended up taking Wednesday off just because the roads were getting worse all day Tuesday and I did not feel like messing with that.

And now it's 60 degrees outside. February, everybody!

Laura Kinney: Wolverine #3, by Erica Schultz (writer), Giada Belviso (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - What did those poor pallbearers ever do to you, Laura?

Laura survived the explosion, though it blew the flesh off her hands and part of her face. Not sure how she's lifting and manipulating her hands given there's no muscle of circulatory system visible, but whatever. Bomb's been taken to a hospital, under O*N*E supervision, but Laura, still healing, sneaks in with Elektra to speak to him.

They get just enough information to track down the guy that sent the kid off to explode, but by the time they find him, he's holding a dead man's switch and threatening to blow up half a block. I'm not clear on if he wants them to let him go, or if he's just planning to go suicide bomber. Either way, Elektra keeps him from releasing the switch, Laura stabs him, he's arrested, the heroes go their separate ways. Then Bucky (looking a lot like Sebastian Stan) shows up at Laura's apartment. Sorry, I'm not calling him "The Revolution" unless he shows up with Prince (who hopefully is still alive in the Marvel Universe.)

This book is not working for me. It feels like it's just going through the motions. If Laura is so concerned about Bomb, why does she quietly accept he's been taken somewhere by O*N*E when she returns to the hospital? Shouldn't she be rushing recklessly after him, to rescue him from being locked up somewhere after he was abducted and used to stage a terrorist attack? That was how she handled the missing kid in issue 1, and everything else so far. If the point is she's trying to exercise patience, because rushing in like a lunatic hasn't worked very well, give us something in the writing that reflects that character beat. Because as it's presented, Laura just decided, "eh, good enough," and went home to eat Chinese takeout.

For that matter, why is Esger drawn looking regretful as he sends Bomb off to explode on page 1, but by the end of the issue he's yelling about how he was the only true believer in his group, and he's willing to die to kill two mutants (one of whom isn't a mutant, because it's Elektra?) He goes from, 'Now, I know you don't wanna. . .' to 'Mutants will be wiped from the earth!' in the span of 15 pages.

Hell, why does Bomb go along with the plan at all? Esger takes the power dampening collar off and just sends him into the crowd by himself. Even if Bomb can't control his power so an explosion was inevitable, and I don't know if that's the case, no one made him walk into the protest. There's no indication he thought, "well, if I got to explode, I might as well kill this particular bunch of assholes." He seemingly just did it because the plot demanded it.

Maybe this is all something Schultz intends to loop back to later. I'm half convinced the lady in the first issue that runs the sanctuary for mutants is actually the front for, essentially, a trap. Mutants come in expecting safety and get sold off to whoever has a need. (Not unlike how Genosha was presented in the '90s cartoon.) But that's me guessing, because there's, at best, vague hints in the book so far. And that's something that might play out. Eventually. At some point. In the here and now, there's really nothing in the comic - writing or art - that makes me feel like I've gotta know what happens next.

What I Bought 1/15/2025

Diamond filed for bankruptcy apparently. I know that doesn't automatically mean death in business, but it doesn't seem like a good sign. It isn't the worst thing for the distributors to have competition, rather than a monopoly. But I did like being able to go to one place and check out all the comic publishers and what they were offering. Found a lot of books I probably wouldn't have otherwise. Oh well, it's out of my control, unless I get stinking rich and suddenly decide I want to be a businessman (the latter is far more improbable than the former.)

Laura Kinney: Wolverine #2, by Erica Schultz (writer), Giada Belviso (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I guess the back of the claw can't cut.

Elektra asks Laura to let her handle the transfer of a mutant kid. Laura declines. The buyer escapes with the kid, who has the mutant ability to explode, so that's not good. Elektra and Laura alert Mayor Luke Cage (that's weird to type, but preferable to Mayor Wilson Fisk or Jonah Jameson) that the kid is going to be used in the middle of a protest against Cage repealing Fisk's anti-vigilante laws. Cage asks Laura not to get involved. Laura declines. Then she nearly starts a fight with a bunch of protestors, and the kid blows up. Great hustle, Laura.

So, in a continuation of last issue, Laura's very angry and taking it out and everyone. Especially anyone advising her to exhibit patience, caution, good judgement, you name it. It's funny to watch her complain that people think she heals instantly, but gunshots take time to heal (and still hurt), without considering that maybe the way she's fighting is why her healing factor is having so much trouble keeping up. Laura knows how to be silent and sneaky, I've seen it in other stories. She's the one choosing to leap into every fight yelling and hacking away like she's in a particularly lucid berserker fury. She jumps on top the getaway car instead of maybe slashing through the tires to slow it down.

And now it's literally blown up in her face - assuming that last page wasn't some sort of fakeout - so we'll see if that prompts some sort of reflection or adjustment. Or maybe she'll just keep barging ahead, trying to help people to escape her frustration with how Krakoa fell apart. Either/or.

Avengers Assemble #5, by Steve Orlando (writer), Jose Luis (penciler), Oren Junior (inker), Sonia Oback (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Cap-Snake, he's gonna get you! Cap-Snake, he's. . .I don't know where I was going with that.

It's the Avengers against the Serpent Society (plus Cap-Snake.) That's it, that's the issue. The key seems to be the Avengers do demonstrate teamwork and cooperation, where each member of the Society fights on their own. Anaconda's clearly not going to be able to hold Hercules, but no one leaps in to try and blind him or poison him for the time he is caught. Meanwhile, because Hawkeye's holding back against Cap-Snake, Night Thrasher steps in to get Cap-Snake off his back. Which frees up Hawkeye to give She-Hulk some back-up against Titanoboa.

This feels like a place where the mini-series needed more space, because as unfamiliar as some of these characters ought to be with each other, you'd expect teamwork not to come so easily without practice. Also, speaking of Titanoboa, I kept expecting a surprise reveal on that guy's identity. He's strong and large, and able to shrug off punches from She-Hulk and attacks from the Wasp and Photon. But he also keeps boasting about how well he knows the Avengers and their tendencies. Which made me think it was some typically more cerebral villain who ganked Pym Particles or something. But if it's supposed to be anyone we've ever heard of, Orlando's not telling.

Wonder Man deals with the Serpent's Tears by. . .inhaling the lot of it, reasoning that he's not really flesh and blood, so it might not affect him. Given Pit Viper claimed it would affect the soul as well, the fact Simon's gamble works out would seem to imply certain things about his existence. I guess all the dying and returning has to have some drawbacks, depending on how critical you think a soul is.

Maybe Pit Viper can expound on it, if he's in any state after the one-two punch of feeling shocked that Mephisto might have sold him a bill of goods (shocked Pikachu face), and getting his body crushed by Lightspeed's rainbow trail. I though that trail was just light, immaterial, not solid like the trails that follow the bikes in TRON. Learn something everyday, too bad so much of it is of little use.

What I Bought 1/11/2025 - Part 2

Last Friday, once I got through a nerve-wracking drive to work in the snow that had me (not for the first time) questioning my life choices, I took a break for a walk at mid-morning. I got about two steps out the back door before being reminded that the frozen precip the previous weekend never melted back there. Slipped on the ice beneath the fresh snow and got to test the structural integrity of the back of my skull against the ice. Results: inconclusive.

In the meantime, here it is: The last comic from 2024. A first issue, no less. Oooh-la-la. We'll start up the Year in Review posts next Monday.

Laura Kinney: Wolverine #1, by Erica Schultz (writer), Giada Belviso (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - If you're not going to kick too, why even bother extending the toe claws?

Laura is not really settling into life after Krakoa. When she finds a place in the tree base the X-Men had in New York where people have been leaving letters asking for help, she decides to focus on that. So, that's the basic plot: have Laura try to help mutants now that there's no safe island nation. In this case, she's looking for a boy with the ability to give people different emotions, who was taken away from his sister. 

Laura finds the boy, but also finds the ones controlling him are mutants, too, which really pisses her off. I had pictured her as too jaded to be surprised by the notion of mutants exploiting each other for personal gain. But I wasn't keeping track of what she got up to on Krakoa, so maybe she really bought into the notion of mutant solidarity and is angry to see that fall apart.

Angry enough she's just bulling ahead into everything like the Juggernaut. She gets torn up and tossed around a fair bit, because she's fighting stupid. She didn't make any attempt to figure out what she was up against, just charged in and started slashing. She accuses a mutant who created a small safe space for mutants in Dubai of doing so out of guilty conscience. Guilty over not moving to Krakoa? Probably worked out all right for her. Laura does apologize later, though the vague way Polly uses the term "benefactor" makes me think that's going to be a big reveal at some point. By the end of the issue Laura's pursing another letter right into a fight with Elektra.

It all makes it look like Laura's just trying to keep moving so she doesn't have to deal with what losing Krakoa meant to her. Keep busy, do concrete things like helping specific people. Don't think about the people she couldn't protect from ORCHIS. (I'm honestly afraid to ask about Gabby/Honey Badger/Scout's current status.)

Belviso's art reminds of Humberto Ramos'. Mostly in the elongated faces (especially the mouths), and the elongated and angular limbs. The people Belviso draws aren't nearly as oddly proportioned as Ramos' would get, but it has that same sort of feel. I'm not sure if that's a good thing; I was never a Ramos fan (going from Mark Buckingham to him on Peter Parker: Spider-Man gave me whiplash worse than cracking my head on the ice did.) But he clearly has his fans, and Belviso's can handle the quieter moments fine from what I saw here. I'm less sure about the action sequences, which could be a problem if Schultz is going to keep having Laura pick fights.

Random Back Issues #103 - Wolverine #51

Well, the graphics still beat what you'd get in the Metaverse, and Xavier's less morally compromised than Zuckerberg. Barely.

We are just past the big 50th issue showdown with Shiva, the killer robot, which is presumably trying to track down and kill Sabretooth. In the meantime, the X-Men are trying to get a handle on what the revelation that many of Logan's memories were faked on a bunch of movie sets had on him.

Results are either troubling, or totally rad, depending on your perspective. Wolverine hacks through the highest settings the Danger Room's got with barely any change in his vitals. Logan knows it, too, so Xavier offers him a new challenge, 'virtual reality visualizer and sensors.' Because putting Logan in a big metal helmet with a red eyescreen never ends badly.

Logan's confronted with, as he puts it, 'refugees from a Dire Straits video' forms of Ogun and Shigen, and the helmet supplies dialogue based on his own mind. The longer it goes, the more Kubert shifts from a cubic, 80s computer graphics look to his normal style, as Xavier and Forge add Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike to the mix.

Not that it matters, Logan takes the quartet out in 4.839 seconds. Forge notes his emotional pattern has regressed to that of a berserker, while retaining more sophisticated combat skills, using the comparison of doing a gold medal gymnast routine while beating four chess computers.

It's only after the "fight" is over and Logan's just howling that Storm and Cyclops decide this is something they don't want to be a part of and leave the control room. As though that would stop Charles Xavier when he's got a bad idea! But really, Xavier thinks this gruff, more hostile Logan, may be the real Logan, reasserting itself with the memory blocks removed.

Or maybe Logan's just an asshole. He gives Jubilee the brush-off to go to a nearby dive bar, where he meets a blonde woman in a tight mini-skirt. He correctly notes she's not there to shoot pool with, 'no hoi-polloi'. After some quick discussion of the selection on the jukebox (and the tendency of musicians to die in plane crashes), and some dancing, they retire to her motel.

Jubilee, meanwhile, can't sleep and goes rollerblading into town, finding Logan's motorcycle parked outside the Cloud 9 motel. Against her judgment, she investigates, and who emerges from a motel room but Jean Grey! Hey, timeline-wise, we're about 25 issues from Logan getting his Admantium torn out, which means we aren't too far ahead of that whole thing where Psylocke (for some reason) tried to seduce Cyclops. Jean's just getting pre-emptive revenge, for that or the messing around with Emma Frost thing.

Logan's motorcycle mysteriously falls over seconds later (and Logan refers to it as his, 'scoot', which is the same term Jubilee used when he brushed her off, but looks damn weird coming from Wolverine's voice bubble), by which time we know the blonde/Jean Grey is actually Mystique! Jubilee figures something's up about the time she reaches the Mansion and finds Jean Grey heading out on a morning jog.

As for Mystique, she's acting a little odd. Logan claims to have known it was her in the bar, due to her scent, and Mystique mocks the notion he accepted her offer strictly for business. It also turns out she impersonated Silver Fox at some point during their fucking, which is mostly confusing to me in terms of how Mystique knows about Logan's old girlfriend. Did he go to the trouble of describing her? "No, the hair needs to be silkier. The headband is darker red. Damn, Raven, are you even trying?"

Anyway, Logan claims he played along because he could smell fear and wanted to know what's happening. Mystique keeps speaking in vague terms about someone having gone off the deep end, and she can't use the person's name, because they'll know and track her down. Logan finds it unlikely the person in question could pick out their name among all the everyday uses. It's not that common a word, is it? Spiral?

Oh. Well. Never mind then.There's also a subplot about the Wolverine robot Albert and Elsie-Dee repairing their stealth ship and going to do. . .something, with a big white werewolf in tow. No clue what that was about.

[12th longbox, 160th comic. Wolverine (vol. 1) #51, by Larry Hama (writer), Andy Kubert (penciler), Dan Green (inker), Steve Buccellato (colorist), Pat Brosseau (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #265

 

"Out of the Mouths of Smelly Canadians," in Iron Fist/Wolverine #3, by Jay Faerber and Jamal Igle (storytellers), Rich Perrotta (inker), Liquid (colorist), Starky and Comicraft's Troy (letterer)

Like an unexpected rain that brings on a sharp freeze, killing all your flowers, Iron Spring is here to upend your day with a very early-2000s mini-series meant to tie up some loose ends from both Ostrander's Heroes for Hire and Faerber's New Warriors, with Wolverine along in the attempt to goose sales.

The chi of Shou-Lao was stolen from Danny (see what I mean about that being a recurring theme?) by the snot-nosed punk doing the DragonBall Z homage on the far right. Then Junzo and his sorcerer mentor were able to bring K'un-Lun onto Earth, so it began to overlap and override Tokyo.

Iron Fist and Luke Cage show up to try and fix things, though Danny mostly succeeds in getting his ass repeatedly kicked by the kid. Captain America shows up with SHIELD, because an ancient-looking city with dragons appearing from thin air is a big deal. Stark's company was Stark-Fujikawa at this time, so he gets involved. Wolverine shows up because the Hand are working for the kid, and we know how Wolverine likes stabbing ninjas. Logan brings Psylocke because she hates the Hand for stuff they did to her previously.

Everyone has a reasonably viable excuse to show up, but it still feels overstuffed when you throw in the ninjas, dragons, the kid and his sorcerer buddy, Danny's uncle Yu-Ti. Jamal Igle manages to keep the many, many fight scenes broken up so that the reader can have a general idea of who is doing what in relation to everyone else.

This being set in Japan, Sunfire is contractually obligated to show up. He agrees to work with everyone, for about five minutes. Once he learns this is somewhat Danny's fault, he reverts to, "Begone outsiders! Sunfire will protect his homeland without your help!" As he does. Captain America smacks him in the puss with his shield. As he does.

The fusion of K'un-Lun with Tokyo can be undone if Danny or Junzo die. Danny appears to make the sacrifice, but there's some deus ex machina that brings him back. K'un-Lun also doesn't entirely disappear, and the kid still has the chi of Shou-Lao. Neither of those two points will ever be mentioned again, to my knowledge. You'd think Junzo might be a loose end for Danny to pursue, or someone who could show up trying to claim Danny's legacy, but everybody always reverts to Davos for that.

Danny, Misty and Luke decide to stick around in Tokyo to look after the dragons and handle any other residual problems. Again, never referenced. There's a six-issue mini-series in 2004 and Danny's roaming on his own with the Iron Fist back in his possession.

The next thing after that was Immortal Iron Fist, which really should have rendered all the, "Danny loses the Iron Fist" nonsense moot. If he and Orson Randall could use it simultaneously, because just a small bit of the chi flows into each of them, rather than residing solely in one, then you can't very well steal it away, can you?