Wolverine and the X-men #8

[sherkahn]

Marvel continues to serve up a fresh hot serving of AWESOME sauce.

The Jean Grey School for Gifted Students continues to shine, as this title focuses more on the kids attending the school than Logan (as it should be).


An excursion for staff and students occurs.


At the end of last issue, a matter transmuter was used on Wolverine's legs, and so he is getting used to the role Charles Xavier had to for much of the X-men's history: Making do with a wheel chair.

In an attempt to get him and his adamantium bones back to normal, Hank McCoy sets out to SWORD to find another alien matter transmuter to reset Wolverine back, and Quentin leads a field trip back into space to the casino for the same reason.

Things get exciting.

Because the Hellfire Club has hired Sabretooth to cut out the heart of the School (Beast, and his paramour Agent Brand) and this time the casino is ready for the kids.

Sabretooth got to the space station first, killing most of the S.W.O.R.D. agents and leaving Beast behind with no space suit while the fight moved out to the vaccuum of space.




In space no one can hear Sabretooth scream.

Meanwhile, the school kids get to the casino heavy hitters to finally come down and face them.




And Angel and Evan (Genesis) have a bonding moment afterwards.

Beast and Brand rekindle their romance with Sabretooth's defeat (although he is in stitches) and Wolverine learns a lesson from the kids... to have faith in them.

Mindless fun! Ahhh, comics.

Comments

[freezer]

Since when is Sabretooth back among the living?

[auggie18]

Yeah, I was about to ask that. Did someone undecapitate him?

[long_silence]

I think he came back in Wolverine's solo title

I assume the Hand brought him back.

[auggie18]

...geez, again? It seems like every Tom, Dick, and Harry gets brought back from the dead by the stupid freaking Hand. (Elektra, Northstar, Mystique, etc, etc.)

[freezer]

They'll get that "Raise the superhuman to be our servant" thing right someday!

[spacebetween]

Give it a few years and I'm sure it will be a major plot in an event where the Hand threatens the world with their army of resurrected warriors.

[darkknightjrk]

Yep. Wolverine #300.

[freezer]

I can also assume he lost his adamantium in the process? (Or did he lose it a while ago? I was never quite sure).

[sinisterlink]

I think he first lost his adamantium when it was ripped out of him and put back into Wolverine. And then he got some again. And then he either lost it again or the writers just kept forgetting that he had it. *shrugs* Oh, comics.

[sinisterlink]

They haven't stated yet how exactly he came back, but the Hand is probably a pretty good option.

[icon_uk]

Since half past "Oh sod it, not THIS boring ass character again"

[darkknightjrk]

I don't know if the character is inherently boring, or if they're just not taking him in any interesting directions. I think the last great Sabretooth appearance was during Morrison's New X-Men where him and Logan meet and have a literal pissing match.

[auggie18]

I didn't really enjoy this issue that much. It seemed like it was mostly fight scenes that were pretty incomprehensible due to Bachalo's art. (I swear, I swing between loving his style and hating it at least two or three times an issue.) Sorta missing Bradshaw.

Don't get me wrong, I still like the book, but this sorta felt like a big skip-over issue.

[greenmask]

Hurray Beast!

I like that little bendy grey boy.

[biod]

Remind me never to badmouth Kansas ever.

[sharky_chan]

My mom is from Kansas, and I can attest to the accuracy of the kid's reaction :Pb.

[protogarrett]

Sabretooth? He was beheaded with a sword that kills immortals. Then Wolverine went to hell and beheaded his SOUL.

How is Sabretooth alive again? O.o

Also, what is happenign to Sabes? I can't really tell...

[darkknightjrk]

Jeph Loeb, as I recall.

[sherkahn]

The Hand, with some bad juju... the how has yet to be revealed.

[jlbarnett]

well obviously when you die in the afterlife you go to Earth.

[protogarrett]

Not super-hell?

[darkknightjrk]

On one hand, it was a pretty enjoyable issue, even if some of Bachalo's art makes the storytelling really confusing.

I will say this, though--this was the second story where you had two plots, and they both ended with the same resolution, making one of them pointless. Last arc it was Logan and Quentin going to the space casino to fund the school being wrapped up by Krakoa growing diamonds; this story it was Beast going to SWORD to get the transmuter thingy to fix Logan's legs, with it being resolved by Angel and the kids going to the space casino to get it themselves. It kinda feels like a cheap way to fill space.

[shadowpsykie]

god.... i still can't get behind this art.... if not for that this would SOOO be on the list....

[darkknightjrk]

It seems like they're doing the rotating artist thing--last three issues or so have been by Nick Bradshaw.

[sinisterlink]

Man, I love Kansas raised little Apocalypse. Please don't turn evil! Also, looks like Batman has a contendor for the "I can breathe in space" award. And I know a lot of people around here don't like Sabretooth, but I'm glad he's back. He's just so good at being a jackass.

[auggie18]

There's only a one in three chance he'll go evil, really. (Evil, forgotten, dead.)

[crabby_lioness]

The trick is that you don't breath in space. You have to expel all the air out of your lungs first, and rely on someone to haul you back in.

I think Larry Niven explained it. I've got the short story somewhere.

[bruinsfan]

I know Charles Sheffield has in one of his stories from Hidden Variables or The Complete McAndrew Chronicles.

[rdfox]

Actually, to be more specific, it's less than that; it's the same thing you do when you're using a submarine's escape trunk. You don't *hold* your breath, and allow the pressure differential between your lungs and the outside to empty them continuously until they match. Do anything to try and hold it back, and they burst like a balloon, but if you just let the air flow out naturally, you won't suffer any direct depressurization damage (except for some of the capillaries in your eyes hemorrhaging, which is minor and can happen in bad car crashes, for example, and possibly ruptured eardrums).

Of course, there's the little issue of then only having 30 seconds of useful consciousness left, and that irreversible brain damage would start kicking in after about three minutes, but that's anoxia damage, not decompression damage...

[icon_uk]

Don't the X-Men know a couple of transmuters they can ask for a favour from? Tom "Alchemy" Jones the British matter-transmuter springs to mind.

[endis_ni]

So a bloke called Tom Jones can reverse the entire bit of that plot?

Ah well, it's not unusual.

[icon_uk]

Baby Terry approves of this comment! :)

Would any of geeks judge me too harshly when I say...

[silverzeo]

Would Supergirl just gut punch Kid Gladiator to shut him up, kinda like the episode of Doug in which Connie knocks the wind out of Roger for taking her hat to hide he haircut..

Re: Would any of geeks judge me too harshly when I say...

[md84]

Isn't that why Kid Gladiator's dad sent him to Earth in the first place? That and because the kid wrecked half the capital.

[vitruvian23]

What happened to Abigail's powers? Sabretooth should have been fricaseed before Hank could rescue her.

[bruinsfan]

Possibly she can't use them without rupturing her space suit? At least I hope it's that and not Sudden Onset Damsel Sydrome.

[lascoden]

Isn't her power fire based? If so, she wouldn't be able to use it in the vacuum of space.

[stolisomancer]

She has to make direct skin contact to use them and she's in a space suit.

[salinea]

I'm starting to get really sick of how female characters are used in this series. Just saying.

[avantre]

Is it just me, or is S.W.O.R.D. woefully bad at its job in this comic? First encounter with aliens (inspection team)= all dead, apparently without any backup. Second encounter (medical team) = all dead again. Third encounter = mass wipe-out by one mutant. How are these guys thinking they're capable of defending the planet against aliens?

[lascoden]

Honestly, they seem to do about as good as any other group of name-less government agents. I mean, what's the point of SHIELD when Nick Fury and his squad do most of the day-saving. SWORD has the X-Men.

[mrstatham]

This. All of the agencies in the Marvel Universe are and have been exceptionally inept. Every last one. But then, the bad guy agencies are similarly inept, so no-one really loses out.

I mean, the whole thing with the Red Skull/Dell Rusk thing from back in Geoff Johns' short run on the Avengers. Did no-one at SHIELD sit there at a table one day and go "Okay, this guy has a name that sounds like a computer and a baby's biscuit, and his name blatantly looks like a bad anagram. And he just paid good money to AIM to have a torture chamber inserted in his offices. Nah, this guy's clearly clean."

[lascoden]

I love that of all people, Evan and Angel are becoming friends. Apocalypse and Archangel; never would of seen that coming.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

So... what were his bones transmuted into?

[terrykun]

The adamantium was destabilized, allowing his legs to be broken. Then the adamantium restabilized, stopping his healing factor from re-setting the bones correctly.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

...wow. That's... pretty good, actually.

[thatnickguy]

I keep hearing about how awesome this series is. And every scan I see, the writing looks like a lot of fun.

But that art. Ugh, that art.