Synopsis
Hunt For Wolverine: Dead Ends #1 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
All over the world 'special' teens are abducted.
Tony Stark drives by motorbike to Central Park to attend a meeting at the Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach. On the way he sees Daredevil swooping in via billy-cable. They meet at the door and we learn it's a gathering of folks who have been looking for Wolverine since his grave was found empty.
Kitty Pryde greets them by phasing her head through the door. Inside they pass Colossus and some students I don't think have been seen before. Tony spots Psylocke who's been rverted to her original Betsy Braddock body, and isn't happy about it (see Hunt For Wolverine: Mystery In Madripoor #4). Kitty takes the pair to a lecture theatre, but before they start DD asks about Cypher's Internet addiction (see the HFW: Weapon Lost mini). She says Jean Grey is helping him (which is strange because I thought *DD* was).
Pryde clicks up some images:- a space shuttle, a DNA helix, Wolverine and a zombie. Kitty tells them her X-team went to Madripoor (HFW:MIM mini) and discovered 1 particular company has been launching a lot of stuff into space from there, but she can't discover what they're doing up there. Stark describes how his team of ex-New Avengers (HFW: Adamantium Agenda mini) found and destroyed a DNA database collated by Mr Sinister - but someone else copied it before they got there. Daredevil's detective team (including Cypher) tracked down a corporation (in HFW:WL) with records of Logan's activities *after* his death - and he appears to now be a bad guy. Kitty completes the quartet (HFW: Claws Of A Killer) by mentioning that Lady Deathstrike took Daken and Sabretooth looking for Wolverine so *they* could kill him. But instead they found a town of zombies (and Daken was killed).
Pryde then brings up a slide which shows how all these things are connected (and to lots of other things from Wolverine/X-Men's past) And linking them all is the name Soteira, the name of the company Daredevil investigated and whose logo was on the uniforms of the people who copied Sinister's database. They were also the company launching the space flights, and behind the zombie town. Cypher dug out all the other connections (sounds like a *very* good way to cure his Internet addiction).
Daredevil's acute hearing detects the wind-whistle of incoming large falling objects - just before an alarm goes off to evacuate the building for the same reason. A screen shows them to be 4 large solid objects dropped from high orbit. Pryde sends flying mutants up to intercept while Nightcrawler starts teleporting students away. Tony goes out to his motorcycle which creates a version of his Iron Man armour with heavy weapons - and IM joins Storm and Firestar in the air. Meanwhile DD uses his senses to help locate the last remaining students.
The Golden Avenger identifies the bolides as solid tungsten aimed precisely at the school, now travelling at terminal velocity. The 3 flyers will take 1 each, and the 1st person to be successful will chase down the last object. Storm stops hers with wind. Firestar uses microwaves (to melt 1?). Shellhead attaches inertial dampeners and leaves AI Friday to control the descent while he chases the 4th weapon - but he's not going to make it.
The school is now empty except for Kitty Pryde who stayed behind. She uses her phasing power to make the ground intangible all the way to the magma layer. The 4th rod disappears into the ground, resulting only in a minor earthquake.
Daredevil senses someone on the far side of the Mansion. They find a man in white with 10 covered-over corpses (as DD confirms). Then a hologram of woman in white, with her face obscured, appears. She names herself Persephone. She graciously thanks them all for saving the world many times over. She is the person behind Soteira, and she confirms that Logan is currently working for her.
Then she introduces the 10 bodies as the teens kidnapped at the beginning of the issue. Sinister's DNA database identified them as mutants whose powers had not yet manifested. Persephone says she knows the identities of thousands of such teens, and she will kill them if they move against her. Then the hologram fades and her aide collapses dead.
Tony Stark proposes a plan - they use Cerebro to identify the kids and protect them. But Storm points out that Cerebro can only locate active mutants. The group sags in defeat.
In her base Soteira confronts Wolverine, held in energy chains, and promises him it will soon be over.