UNCANNY X-MEN #173: To Have and Have Not

Wolverine and Rogue: Alone... together!

Originally Published October 1983

We begin with Wolverine and Rogue hitting the Tokyo underworld - hard, throwing thugs through windows and wrecking up the places and whatnot.

They have come in search of the Oyabun (head crime boss guy) Nabatone Yokuse, whom they suspect has something to do with Viper, the Silver Samurai, and the attempt on Mariko's life.

Obviously this is Wolverine's element, but Rogue, relying on the invulnerability, strength and flight she stole from Carol Danvers, seems to be having a good lighthearted fun time, while proving her worth.

Speaking of lighthearted fun times, Yukio and Storm are stuck out in the cold, looking for a place to hide out after their row with Samurai and Viper at the fireworks warehouse. They're stuck on the opposite side of town from the hospital where the X-Men have been taken, in a dangerous neighborhood where they get cornered by some muggers.

Wolverine and Rogue arrive at Yokuse's manor, breezing past any security with her flight power. Once inside, Woverine senses an automated defense laser blaster that Rogue may or may not be able to survive, but he might need her later.

In gratitude, Rogue offers Wolverine a kiss, which as we all know would lead to her absorbing his powers and memories/persona. Wolverine is patently not in the mood for such a joke, reflecting on what Rogue did to his friend Carol.

They enter Nabotone's chamber, only to find the Oyabun has been dead for some time, sitting there rotting away, getting all stanky and whatnot.

But... but we just saw the guy in the meeting with Silver Samurai and Viper... what could this mean?

Storm and Yukio dispatch the muggers with ease, and Ororo demonstrates how she's starting to embrace whatever wild side of herself has started to come out lately.

Viper and her ninjas arrive at the hospital intent on leaving no survivors, but they find a different sort of quarry from what they expected...

Now just think - if Wolverine and Rogue had never gone out in search of Yokuse, they would still be there to protect their friends and Mariko anyway. But why would Viper have thought that they would go anywhere? If they are even in league with the fake Yokuse, we haven't gotten any true indication.

I know I'm a classic analytical, pulling at threads here. Part of me is happy to turn that off and enjoy the story, but I do have to call it out when it seems to me that things have been arranged in-story just for maximum drama, without a really solid basis.

Rogue takes the ninja-fight outside, leaving Wolverine in the hospital corridor to battle the Silver Samurai in a throwdown that ably emulates Frank Miller's work from the Wolverine limited series, with its airy silence.

Samurai actually gets Wolverine on the ropes, running him through with his energy sword for a seeming killing blow, but Wolvie battles back and stands tall, readying a deathblow of his own, only to be stopped by Mariko who is, quite honestly, sick of all the killing around here.

With Harada down for the count, Viper arrives and takes aim at the wounded Wolverine and Mariko, only for a last-minute rescue...

Rogue takes a full-force attack from Viper's blaster for some time until the weapon  literally overloads and explodes in her hands.

Viper, deciding this really isn't her fight but Harada's, teleports away, laving Rogue seemingly at death's door, with only an injured, battered Wolverine to cradle her.

Deciding that, when the chips were down, Rogue made the choice to put herself in harm's way to save Mariko, Wolverine decides to return the favour...

Studio audience: Wooooooooooooo!

A week later, we are back in the Yashida Clan's ancestral home in Miyago prefecture, some 300 KM north of Tokyo. As Mariko is thinking to herself about how excited she is, and yet worried she has forgotten something, she receives a visit from a mysterious well-wisher.

There's something very familiar about that waistcoat...

The X-Men gather for the wedding, and Lorna, Alex, Corsair arrive, as does Scott with his new GF, whose appearance... ruffles a few feathers, you might say.

See, the joke here is that the Shi'ar are bird people. Those things on their heads are feathers. I know it's not very obvious.

It would have been a lot kinder for Scott to phone ahead and be like "Hey, my plus-one is an exact doppelganger of my dead ex-fiancée who went mad with power and ate a sun, please be cool about it. She's her own person."

Anyway, Maddie is not the only person whose appearance raises an eyebrow here, as Storm - whom we might have noted, had her hair fried in the explosive lightning burst at the warehouse - debuts a new look of her own.

Yes, taking her cues from Callisto, Yukio, and Mr. T, storm has shed her runway-chic bathing-suit-and-cape look for some punk leather momma realness. Kitty does not take it well.

As the wedding nears, we have a few more cute moments with the X-Men, including Kitty (who is dressed in traditional Shinto garb to act as the equivalent of Mariko's maid of honour) asking Madelyne to look after Lockheed.

It would have been much kinder for Scott to say "Hey, so being that I'm a mutant, a lot of the people you're about to meet are really weird, but generally good people. Try to be cool about it."

As Wolverine follows Mariko to the altar in accordance with tradition, thinking all the while about how nice it is to settle down, the bride abruptly halts and puts a stop to the proceedings.

Man, didn't we just have a whole four-part limited series addressing this worthiness stuff? Well, whatever, it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.

As Mariko leaves the ceremony space, we see a familiar set of mutton chops lingering by the exit.

The guests file out, and Wolverine is truly left... alone.

Further Thoughts:

As I pointed out, there are some stray threads to this one that don't quite add up to me, and given I have declared myself the Chief X-Cerptor, that's not ideal. If you feel like I've missed the mark, feel free to sound off in the comments. It makes more sense if Viper and Samurai are in fact in league with Wyngarde, who was playing as Nabatone, and not merely being used by him, but if so the story could establish that better, as well as include a beat about what inspires Wolverine to go looking for the Oyabun to begin with.

It's also unclear, at this time, exactly what Wyngarde could have done to change Mariko's mind about marrying Wolverine. Obviously it needs to come to us readers as a surprise but as presented it comes a bit too far out of left field. It reads to me as "Obviously we can't have Wolverine get married, and a villain needs to be involved somehow."

That said, it's remarkable how rarely so far, I have felt the book has missed something in telling a story.

I also feel like the individual moments of this issue are very good, with particular emphasis on the build to Wolverine accepting Rogue and making a sacrifice for her, as it calls back to her little joke in the Oyabun's house and everything.

Seeing Wolverime shed a tear was also something.

With that all said, perhaps the most significant part of this issue is actually the debut of the Punk Storm look. It was controversial at the time, to say the least, with readers being very attached to Storm's classic Earth Goddess look with the flowing hair and the swimsuit and headdress. It reflected that persona well, looked "heroic" and, let's face it, was conventionally sexy. Iconic heroes didn't change their looks very often at the time, despite Wolverine switching costumes and Beast becoming well, beastly. You didn't "do" that to someone like Storm though.

Check out Brian Cronin's rundown on the inspiration for the change here.

It's shocking to a mostly white, mostly-male readership to see a black woman with an extreme look that isn't quite as geared towards male gaze aesthetics, even moreso in 1983 than it would be now. I love it for the reasons fans hated it (and would probably never admit deep down) because it's so challenging. It gives Storm a strong, confident look, a commanding presence, reflects her change in attitude, and is instantly iconic in its own way. It lasts a very long time, surprisingly enough, so that a lot of readers grew up with that as one of many memorable looks for this character.

Nowadays, when redesigns are common, you might think very few people would look back at it with a thought any more negative than "Well, that wasn't my favourite look for her." But it wasn't that long ago that Carol Danvers herself was designed with a modern, but less fanservicey, hairdo and costume, and fans, who liked seeing her a blonde bombshell in a revealing outfit, had fits. The less things change, the more they stay the same.