UNCANNY X-MEN #252: WHERE'S WOLVERINE?!?

Wolverine Dies Hard with a Vengeance

Originally Published November 1989

Donald Pierce is a little miffed.

You see, he very specifically left Wolverine right there on that cross X-symbol last night, so he would know exactly where to find him in the morning, only for the mutant to have gone missing. Personally, I'm the same way when I can't find my wallet, or my keys, or my enemy whom I've been torturing for a day and night. It's maddening.

The rest of Pierce's team of cybernetic mercenaries who are currently occupying the X-Men's recently-vacated home -- who, incidentally are known as... 

...quake in their boots, but Lady Deathstrike -- who some would say is something of a girlboss herself -- is unconcerned, serving up some grade-A sass to her bewildered leader. Pierce responds like all powerful men when confronted by a strong-willed woman: by getting extremely horny.

As he admires Deathstrike's advanced machinery, which is far beyond even what Pierce could have designed, he issues an edict to the Reavers: Find Wolverine, or I'll dismantle the lot of you and sell you for scrap.

So Cole, Macon and Reese prowl through the abandoned house in search of their prey, jabbering and kibitzing all the while, whilst Jubilee watches from the shadows, offering her own commentary.

"Bro, you don't know about the Siege Perilous? Whattaya, stupid 'er som'thin?"

Jubilee grabs some food from behind the baddies' backs and heads back via the rafters in a rather tense scene that very much  wants you to know that Chris Claremont has seen Die Hard, thanks for asking.

Jubilation evades discovery and returns to the Jube-cave, where a convalescent Wolverine's visions continue.

Of course, when he awakens and sees Jubilee there he's not sure if she's friend or foe, which leads to a slightly awkward encounter.

But luckily, Jubilee is able to diffuse the situation, while Wolvie gets lectured by his friends Carol Danvers and Nick Fury about learning to trust people.

Elsewhere, Bonebreaker notes to Pierce that an X-Man like Wolverine is invisible to electronic sensors (which most of the Reavers have instead of eyes) but are not invisible to the camera inside the complex, which Pierce suggests routing into the Reaver's bionic implants so that they can see Wolverine and wait, wait, wait, wait, I need to stop for a second here.

So as we know, the X-Men died, and were brought back to life by Roma, relocated to Australia and made invisible to all forms of technology -- except the security cameras in their new dwelling.

Here we learn the Reavers have bionic eyes -- and specifically, Pierce is interested in adapting the security cameras into their bionic systems so that they can find Wolverine.

So you're telling me that when Pierce was doing this:

He was seeing this:

I'm tearing my hair out over here. Are the X-Men invisible to the Reavers or not??! Do these bad guys have human eyes or cyborg eyes? If they have cyborg eyes and can't see Wolverine at all, why are they even bothering to look? If they have human eyes, why ask the question??!

What are we doing here?? 

I'm really thinking about a larger issue here: literally every single time it has come up, the X-Men's "invisibility" has failed them. The geniuses in Genosha were able to see where they were "not there." Mastermold was able to see them because Nimrod -- who was also technically a robot -- became somewhat "humanized" -- whatever that means -- and could detect them. This has never come up with the Reavers before, who have clearly been observing the X-Men for weeks, and it's never even been an advantage to the heroes. I hate it, I hate this plot point so much, and it doesn't help that Chris Claremont has specifically written it to underscore how dumb and pointless it is and make it worse than it needed to be, and I think we're about two seconds away from jettisoning it altogether, which is for the best, and that's not even getting into the fact that Jubilee is also seemingly invisible to everyone including all the video scanners and the telepath that lived there. Does she even exist??! Is that going to be the big twist, that we just imagined Jubilee all along and she was some kind of late-80s mallrat Tyler Durden?? (Spoiler: no, she's real.) I'm so mad. I'm mad at these comics for raising questions it doesn't need to be asking and answering, and I'm mad at myself for putting myself in the position to be mad about comics being dumb, because usually they're better than this.

And I just know someone's going to pop up on Twitter and tell me there's some complex relationship between the tech of the Reavers and the nature of techno-organic upgrades and whatnot, and I love you guys, but you can save it, okay? I'm trying to enjoy these comics without a PhD in fictional bio-engineering. Either their eyes are cameras, or they're not.

I'm going to pretend I didn't just read that and move forward. All evidence suggests Wolverine is not, in fact, invisible, he's just very hard to find. Let's fucking go.

Elsewhere in the compleX, Lady Deathstrike catches Prettyboy playing with his sword.

That is to say, the Ancestral Blade of Clan Yashida, of which Wolverine still has possession. Prettyboy decides to do a little horsing around with it, which is offensive to Lady Deathstrike, because of Japanese honor and sacred-ness and whatnot.

Yashida Clan ain't nothing to fuck with

In all this, Deathstrike also shrugs off Prettyboy's gross mind-control powers because if there's one thing our dear scribe loves more than mind control powers, it's a woman strong enough to overcome them.

Back downstairs, Bonebreaker comes to the realization that the security software has been patched with a new homebrew configuration that is basically like a living organism, meaning he's unable to do anything with it to locate Wolverine. My best guess is that this is somehow related to Madelyne Pryor and the Inferno techno-organic demons, but I can't actually say at this time. The point is, it gives Pierce an excuse to bring out his robot puppers.

Meanwhile, Wolverine has snuck out for some light meditation, much to Jubilation's consternation.

In fact, this all was just a vision as Wolverine communes with the ancient and wise wisdom of ancient wise Gateway. They are, in fact, still in the bunker, trying to stay one step ahead of the baddies and their metal sniffy-boys.

The group splits up, which genre-savvy Cole, Macon and Reese lament, since they know that lways leads to choppy-choppy time for them. Deathstrike heads off on her own.

Wolverine tricks those geniuses, Bonebreaker and Skullbuster, into shooting up the ceiling in the underground catacombs beneath the lake (you know, the one Psylocke loved to swim in.)

Deathstrike however, finds her way to Jubilee's sardines spot, only to fine it vacant. She leaves the Yashida sword safely there for Wolverine to claim upon her death... or she upon his.

But it's Pierce who manages to find Wolverine, who makes sort work of his pets.

This comic was monitored by the Society For Prevention of Cruelty to Robotic Animals

But luckily he hasn't come alone...

It turns out the robo-dingoes were keyed into Wolverine's scent and -- hold on, hold on, can they smell him but not see him? What is-- what are we doing here-- why-- ugh, forget it, it happened, it's over, the good guys won and walk out of the house more or less under their own power.

Further Thoughts:

Despite my objections -- which are just magnified versions of issues I've had and registered all along -- this was actually a good comic that I enjoyed. It was a stylish and interesting outing from Clarmeont and guest-artist Rick Leonardi, whose work always lends that jagged, harsh aesthetic to the proceedings. I think it's an acquired taste -- I've had to acquire it -- and maybe it isn't well-served by the translation to digital the way other artists are, but here I liked it quite well.

The whole vibe of Wolverine and Jubilee being trapped in the house trying to evade capture is a good one, and I like the dysfunctional dynamic of the Reavers, being that they're patched together from a few different squads. The masochism-tango between Lady Deathstrike and Pierce is a little gaudy, but I actually liked that too as it adds flair to their alliance.

The Reavers tow that line between being fearsome foes who might actually kill Wolverine and being utter clownshoes.

As I have made abundantly clear, I think it's nuts that our writer included this bit about the X-Men being invisible to sensors, and then spend a whole year stretching to explain how their foes might overcome this. Don't include a bit like that if you're just going to give yourself an obstacle you have to write around -- commit to it. This while there's literally someone living literally under the X-Men's noses in their heavily fortified and secured complex, with its vaunted (even invasive) camera technology. And I like Jubilee and her whole phrogger deal.

With Wolverine as the "last X-Man" and the book itself at a crossroads, there's some freedom and leeway to explore and expand exactly what happens in this book, which is promising even if, like may decisions the creative team has made over the years, it may end up cumbersome as much as it was liberating.