Synopsis
Wolverine: Infinity Watch #1 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Wolverine reflects on his many deaths (since his defeat of Lazaer in WWI gave him a way of recovering from such). We see him dressed Japanese-style having his throat slashed with a sword (I don't know which death this refers to.) We see his 'spiritual' death when he was given the adamantium skeleton by the Weapon X Program. We see his latest death smothered in adamantium (in the appropriately-name Death Of Wolverine mini-series), and his recovery from that.
Now he arrives on a motorbike at the Xavier school in Central Park. Jean Grey opens the door before he can knock. They embrace. But Logan's senses recognise her as a fake so he stabs her with his claws. And she turns into laughing Loki, and the school is revealed as a ruin. Loki denies responsibility for *that*. And Wolvie finds a photo of the time-displaced young X-Men from an alternate reality and doesn't recognise the incident from when *he* was in charge of the school.
Loki doesn't care about all that. He's here to berate Wolverine for not listening to his warnings about the Infinity Stones. Logan doesn't know what he's talking about. Loki says he *knows* it was him because he cut him to make sure (Infinity Countdown Prime when Loki came to persuade Wolvie to give him the Space Stone). He also says that Wolverine came to *him* to warn him about "the Stone-people" (I don't recall what this refers to).
Then the future Phoenix-Wolverine pops in (literally). This is total news to normal-Wolvie, but he notices future-Wolvie has a bandoleer of bottles of beer so he snags 1. Loki realises that it must have been Phoenix-Logan who ran him over with a beer wagon in the Marvel Legacy 1-shot. (Loki's memory must be shot too because he's got it wrong. The beer wagon ran over a Frost Giant who had stolen the Space Stone for Loki, and a Wolverine then took it off *him*.) P-W admits it and says that Loki himself asked him to do it!
P-W cracks a brew too and then tells them a story. In an alternate version of Marvel Legacy Loki got the Space Stone and used it to collect all the other Infinity Stones. Then he donned the Requiem uniform, stuck the Power Stone in the hilt of an Asgardian sword and used it to behead Thanos (Gamora did all this in the current timeline). Then he broke through the Quarry Of Creation, but whatever happened on the other side Loki didn't like so he contacted P-W and asked him to go back in time and stop him from doing all that. Along the way Loki had apparently caused a lot of deaths so P-W agreed.
So P-W went back in time, hid his Phoenix-flames so he could pass as current Wolverine, took the Space Stone (M/Legacy), refused to give it to Loki (IC Prime), and gave it to Black Widow instead (IC#1). But as we saw in IC and Infinity Wars Loki eventually got the Stones anyway and got through the Quarry. And we *still* don't know what he saw apart from some Celestial-like beings.
P-W tells Wolvie that Loki will fill him in on the rest. He leaves him with the Time Bat, an oak baseball bat studded with blue (diamond?) chips, and advice to "Protect Hector". P-W then goes back to the future saying he's got to go and die.
Loki reviews IW and beyond. Loki stopped Gamora rewriting the universe with the Stones. Warp World, which she created to hold merged versions of Earthfolk, lives on in Soul World inside the Soul Stone, and will doubtless be seen again. Warlock then took the Stones, gave them all their own souls and released them into the universe. The Time Stone stayed on Earth and chose to merge with Hector Bautista, who was awaiting execution in Texas for a murder (which he didn't commit), and helped him escape prison (IW: Infinity).
Loki tries to persuade Logan to help him guard the Infinity Stones. Wolverine suggests they leave it to the Guardians Of The Galaxy (Loki says IW was their fault in the 1st place) or the Fantastic Four (who he's heard are back). Loki says all the power-seekers in the galaxy will come looking for the Stones ...
... and a spaceship lands in Chicago. The Chitauri Warbringer steps out carrying a dying Nova Corpsman who's told him about the Stone that remained on Earth. He hears a TV News report about Hector Bautista who can apparently stop time. And Warbringer does Hulk-leaps towards Texas. He wants to go back in time and save the Chitauri from ruin. Ie stop them from being enslaved by Thanos (Thanos (2017) #13).