UNCANNY X-MEN #205: Wounded Wolf

Wolverine and that adorable scamp Katie Power team up once again to take on some bloodthirsty cyborg mercenaries! In a blizzard!

Originally Published May 1986

We begin in the Body Shop -- and I don't mean the place you get fancy hand creams.

This is the domain of Spiral - late of the Freedom Force but really an otherworldly body-modifying witch from Mojoworld (more on that another time.) Busy bee she is, she has been hired by one Yuriko Oyama to enhance her body's killing capabilities to be on par with Wolverine. For Spiral, this involves bequeathing Yuriko long, seemingly unusuable knifelike talons instead of fingers.

Hey, she said she wanted to kill Wolverine, not be able to eat hot dogs.

(Before any of you out there start heckling me mercilessly, yes, the talons are shown to be retractable, but that's not very funny is it?)

Yuriko - now christened Lady Deathstrike - is joined by our other favourite borgs - Cole, Reese and Macon - the three former Hellfire goons who were mutilated by Wolverine way, way back in Uncanny #133. These guys have quite some dedication to the cause, having struck out on their own just for the sole purpose of hunting and killing the man who stripped them of their human dignity just because they wanted to kill and/or help subjugate him. Regular hard working guys like these just can't catch a break.

As Deathstrike narrates about how Wolverine - with mysterious secret locked in his gaijin brain - holds the key to redeeming her family honor, and that either he, or she, must die in the name of that debt, our scene shifts to the southern tip of Manhattan...

Where, on a picturesque snowy evening, that incorrigible moppet Katie Power - known as Energizer of the Power Pack - is getting ready to do some caroling with her classmates and teacher Miss Randolph. Unfortunately, as the snow picks up, she gets separated from the group, but luckily happens upon a familiar face...

Ta-da! The credits!

That's right, we are joining the fight in medias res, as Wolverine has already been taken seemingly to his limit by the mercenaries and their newly enhanced team leader Lady Deathstrike. Logan has been stripped not only of his famous tan costume, but also his humanity. The fight has exhausted him so much that he has devolved to a subverbal, animalistic state of mind, acting erratically and even lashing out at his little pal Katie.

Undeterred, Katie works to guide Logan away from the mercenaries who are closing in on him, while trying to cope with his whole "lack of ability to speak."

Katie ushers Wolverine to a cab but before they can go anywhere, the running-on-instinct X-Man pushes both Katie and the driver to safety -- as the mercs blast the cab full of lead.

As they tumble from the wreckage into a construction site, Logan's head starts to clear up as he regains the ability to speak... Japanese.

Nani?

Letting out a howl of anguish, Wolverine's humanity slowly returns. He instructs Katie to stay in a safe place while he takes out the attackers one...

By one...

Until it comes down to him and Deathstrike.

Yuriko is very excited to unsheathe her skewers on Wolverine, monologuing all the while about how once she has exacted revenge in the name of her father she can escape his shadow and begin her own life. 

She boasts that she is faster, stronger, and with sharper claws. She declares that this is where his life ends, but the ole man still has some moves left in him.

As Wolverine slices heedlessly at his foe's flesh, he uncovers the circuits and pistons that now make up her inner workings. She weakly says that it was necessary to become like Wolverine to defeat him, but he chides her, saying that she willingly gave up a humanity that he wishes he had.

She begs for death, but Wolverine - warrior-poet he is - reflects that he is no longer an animal, and neither an animal's reasons for killing, nor a man's, applies here. Coldly, he retracts his claws and walks away.

With that, as the storm starts to lift, he collects Katie to take her home.

Further Thoughts:

This issue provides a helpful milestone in the development of comics history. Wolverine can now take a rifle shot directly to the chest and it barely makes him sneeze. It's the logical extent of his much-vaunted healing factor, which has improved by inches and yards over the years. Realistically, once he was able to use it to fend off the Brood Egg, it was only a matter of time before mere mortals and their trifling weapons were no concern to him. Now, for all intents and purposes he is the unstoppable comic book war machine he was always meant to be. God help us all.

Leaving that aside, there's a brilliant elegance to this issue. It has the simplest plot ever - Wolverine fights some bad guys - but it is loaded. To begin with, any issue drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith is going to be elevated that much higher than a similar story drawn by someone else. The man utterly struts, depicting all this complex techno gobbeldy-gook, a tensely-paced hunter-prey story, a pitched one on one battle at the climax, and a story utterly bursting at the seams with raw emotion... all set during a claustrophobic blizzard where snow is constantly flying all over every panel. I know it's just lines on a page, but this is everything.

The final showdown recalls the battle between Wolverine and Shingen back in the Wolverine Mini-Series (which had similar themes of man vs. the beast within) but where that was based on the crisp minimalism of 1982 Frank Miller, the artistic style at work here almost seems to be total maximalism, and while that would presage some of the most popular artists of the next decade, rarely did their talents, or the stories they got to work on, reach these heights. 

Chris Claremont is no slouch here either. Though were are not told exactly what the shared background is between Wolverine and Deathstrike, we know it concerns her father and his adamantium claws and was dire enough to require a blood debt be paid. Add in Cole, Reese and Macon, who also have a score to settle with Wolverine, and you've got a party. The genius part is how we come into the story part way, with Wolverine already on the run, near death and barely clinging to his psyche. We don't need to see what got us here, the aftermath is striking enough. (Now, as to how Wolverine got back to the East Coast already... forget it, I won't ask.)

This entire package is as pitch-perfect as it gets, with dialogue that elucidates the themes and context for the story we are getting, and a sumptuous visual feast unfolding the whole way.