X-Lapsed, Episode 170 – Wolverine #10 (2021)
X-Lapsed, Episode One Hundred Seventy
Wolverine (vol.7) #10 (April, 2021) [LGY#352]
“Mercenaries”
Writer – Benjamin Percy
Art – Adam Kubert
Colors – Frank Martin
Letters – VC’s Cory Petit
Design – Tom Muller
Head of X – Hickman
Edits – Amaro, Basso, White, Cebulski
Cover Price: $3.99
On-Sale: February 24, 2021
Wolverine and Maverick flee Madripoor (it’s a lawless place, donchaknow!) and try to talk each other into leaving their way of life. Wolverine would dig it if Mav came to live on Krakoa… while Mav thinks it would be cool if they teamed up as Mercs again.
Today they’re going to go on one “last” caper together…
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@acecomics / @cosmictmill / weirdcomicshistory@gmail.com
There is so much about Wolverine that I like but it never really lands. The art is phenomenal and is full of lots of little Easter eggs and you know that must be coming from Percy as Kubert couldn't even get Kitty's look right at the beginning of the series. I don't think this is a case of the artist sneaking stuff in. This arc has felt like a classic Wolverine story. It could almost come from the Hama run. Having said that we also get the Government as villains which feels tired and played out by now and Percy gets the opportunity to write the real CIA to go with his mutant CIA in X-Force. Talking of Dolores and the CIA, I get the feeling that the Director from her call on the text page is going to end up being significant. Knowing Percy's ability to disappoint it'll probably turn out to be Romulus or Dracula.
There remains no way that it can be claimed that this Dolores is the same one who wrote the memos in the early issues of Marauders. She must be a clone or a shape shifter or an evil twin. They cannot be reconciled.
I don't know if you've heard but Madripoor is a lawless place. Seriously, though, enough already. You're right that we are spending far too much time in Madripoor and Otherworld. I wonder if this comes down to the simple expediency of them being locations under the control of the X-office. If they set their stories in New York they have to grapple with whatever is going on in the rest of the Marvel Universe (see King in Black) whereas with their unique locations they have full control. It's a possibility.
It is good to have other characters reference the cultish elements of Krakoan society even if he made the classic Kool-Aid error. The part of the Jonestown tragedy that always stands out for me is that most of the people who drank the poison were forced to at gunpoint so it doesn't work as most people intend as they didn't choose death.
Anyway until Marvel publish Frank Miller's Kool-Aid Man, Make Mine X-Lapsed!