Wolverine faces off against Lady Mandarin in a battle of the mind!
Originally Published February 1990
We begin with Wolverine at peace.
Oh, that's nice, he seems like he's very relaxed, very zen right now. I'm sure that this little vacation was exactly what Logan needed. Let's see what happens as Logan calmly works his way through his current issues...
Well, I guess things aren't quite so hunky dory in Wolverine's headspace. In reality, his psyche is under assault from Lady Mandarin -- formerly his teammate Psylocke who has undergone mental conditioning (and physical Asianification) to become a deadly ninja weapon in the hands of the Mandarin.
Matsuo, the bemulletted leader of the Hand, explains to a captive Jubilee that Wolverine is locked in a sensory deprivation tank, cutting him off from the grounding his heightened senses provide, leaving him vulnerable to their attack.
Their intention? Break him down and unlock the beast within.
Matsuo considers it an "act of vengeance" (hey, that's the name of...) since Wolverine single-handedly decimated one of the great houses of the Hand (back in the 1982 Wolverine Mini-Series - Ed.) And for those grammar nerds out there he doesn't mean "reduced by one tenth" but the more common modern colloquial meaning of "utterly destroyed." He's mad about it.
Problem being that Wolverine's psyche is too strong for the Hand's psychic dampers and it's starting to bleed out into the nearby ninjas.
In the chaos, Jubilee is able to mount an escape...
Only to be stopped and brought to heel by the Mandarin himself, thanks to his Mento-Intensifier Ring.
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| As well as his tweed blazer and ascot game. |
Some of the Ninjas, however, are a little hasty in trying to recapture Jubilee, per Matsuo's orders, that they actually attack the Mandarin -- and pay the price for it, guving Big M a chance to show his stuff (which is good since the buzz on him through this whole sfory is that he's a first-class putz.)
Meanwhile on Muir Isle, Banshee and Forge put the finishing touches on the new island security system...
...Whereafter Banshee wonders about everyone's new Hotter and Sexier attitude, including but not limited to Moira and everyone else gallivanting around in their new X-Men outfits that reveal every rippling muscle and dimple of flesh. Everyone seems to be affected except Sean and Lorna Dane, but Lorna's got bigger problems, being locked in the former cell of Mutant X (aka Proteus from oh so many years ago.)
Lorna is visited by a psychic vision of Jack Wayne, the self-proclaimed "bad boy" of Legion's personalities, who has wrested control of the boy's various personae and powers and is now using them to have "some fun" which means conscripting everyone on the island into his own personal horniness army.
Back at the Mandarin's Villa in Hong Kong, Mr. Man crows to Jubilee about how he's going to use mutants to create a Chinese Empire, and to this point he has remade the youngster as a Lotus Flower Stereotype of Chinese Femininity, attempting to strip her of her "like duh whatever" American bubble gum girl ways.
It doesn't take.
In the battlefield of the mind, Lady Mandarin develops a new approach for getting through to Wolverine by presenting him with a hybrid vision of all the women he's loved before.
It doesn't take.
The former Psylocke reveals herself and they fight, with the telepath scoring a big hit with her psychic knife, "the ultimate focus of [her] psi-powers," a weapon as deadly as Wolverine's claws.
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| It takes... all too well. |
Unfortunately, this backfires, creating a psychic shockwave that puts Psylocke and all the ninjas present in touch with the very damaged psyche of Wolverine, unleashing the ghostly images of Carol Danvers and Nick Fury that he's been conversing with ever since his experiences in Australia.
And so because everyone is tapped into Wolverine's delusion, when Ghost Fury (sick band name alert) opens fire with a machine gun, it mows the ninjas down easily.
Finally, it comes down to Wolverine and Lady Mandarin, and it doesn't look good for Logan.
Upon seeing Wolverine's defeated corpse, Jubilee blows her stack.
Jubilee is shocked at her own display of power, and Psylocke decides there's no more point in pretending, joining the battle -- against the Mandarin!
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| Sisqo's favourite panel |
Mandarin dons his armor and uses his rings to tussle with the former Lady Mandarin. He is on the verge of destroying both women, when his hand is stayed -- Psylocke has already been inside of the Mandarin's head.
Now it's down to a battle of wills, but as the Mandarin looks to put his foes away once and for all...
They reach a stalemate. If Wolverine kills Mandarin, he'll use his last thought to obliterate Psylocke and Jubilee. Honestly, with Psylocke's mental hold on the Mandarin I think that would be worth seeing about, but the two "men of honor" decide against fucking around and finding out.
Soon after, the trio of Wolverine, Jubilee and Psylocke find themselves on Wolverine's ship. They recount what happened to free Psylocke of the Mandarin's conditioning, and speculate on the true power of Wolverine's broken psyche, how he took something of a calculated risk letting Psylocke into his mess.
She doesn't know for sure whether she's all better or if there is still some lingering Hand influence, but it was her fault the X-Men marched through the Siege Perilous, it's time to make amends.
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| Hey guys, uh... what happened to Rosie's granddaughter Ruth? Is... is she ok? |
Further Thoughts:
There's plenty to chew on with this issue. One might quibble with the depictions of other cultures, especially the attitudes of the Mandarin towards Jubilee (and even her "no speakee Chinee" defiance to him, which is either hilarious or awful, I'm not entirely sure which.) About Claremontian Feminism which allows for the liberaiton of women but mostly through outside forces hypnotizing women into being their darker, sexier selves (in two unrelated plotlines here! And we didn't even see the Shadow King this week!) and about the direction of Wolverine, whose character is reaching the forefront like even never before but at the cost of boiling down to "he's so crazy, but that crazy is a superpower of its own."
But really, I just want to talk about what great comics this is.
There are moments of singular gorgeousness in this comic, the kind of thing where the art team really has a chance to open up and mess with the formula. It begins with Jim Lee's pencils but Scott Williams' inks and Glynis Oliver's colors really take it above and beyond. But even when it's "just" action, that action is thrilling and frenetic. The art of comics took a huge leap forward when Jim Lee picked up a pencil.
You can find something of significance and academic importance in any given issue of Chris Claremont's run, which is why it's become such a bountiful area of study, but as big a part of the reason why it endures so long after it was published is because, for longer than most comics created by a consistent person, it was fucking fun. There is definitely a lot of comic book craziness in this issue, with a plot that manages to be simultaneously a shakeup to the status quo and also boil down to being a guest villain of the week, a representation of the dual life of the X-Men as a weekly serial and an episodic adventure. It's also a showcase for the characters: Jubilee in her second-generation mallrat girl glory, the new version of Psylocke as the manifestation of the secret aspirations of the previous with a ton more baggage, and of course, Wolverine, whose own baggage is catching up to him.
I really, really enjoyed this one, and that's all there is to it.
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