Wolverine: Infinity Watch #1: Review

Feb 2019
Gerry Duggan, Andy MacDonald

Story Name:

(no title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Wolverine: Infinity Watch #1 Review by (March 8, 2019)
This issue is an attempt to sort out the confusion of Wolverine's recent apps.

In Marvel Legacy Logan's body was discovered missing from his tomb. Various people went looking for the body in the Hunt For Wolverine event, but gradually collected clues that he was now evil and working for some organisation called the Soteira. The Return Of Wolverine mini-series tells us that Persephone, leader of the Soteira, had stolen his body to use as a reanimated corpse. However eventually Logan's healing factor returned him to full life and he turned against them and destroyed the group.

But at the same time in Marvel Legacy Wolvie was seen getting hold of the Space Stone, and then went on to his involvement in Infinity Countdown/Wars. This parallel activity is now explained by future Phoenix-Wolverine impersonating Logan.

This issue follows immediately from Return #5 which ends with Wolverine entering the Xavier School in Central Park to be greeted by an undisclosed (at the time) person. It also follows immediately from IW: Infinity because Hector Bautista has only just escaped from prison as seen in that issue. (There's a slight continuity glitch here as the end of IW:Inf shows P-W picking Loki up to bring him to this issue, as opposed to both arriving independently.)

But then there's lots of other Wolvie apps to fit in. The current This Is Forever story arc starting from Uncanny X-Men #11 can safely be placed later as Logan rejoins the X-Men. As can the just-begun Hulkverines mini-series. He shows up in Fantastic Four #2-4 which must precede this issue as he mentions their return (FF#1-4) here, so maybe it fits before the end of Return #5. The big problem is what to do with all the Where Is Wolverine? backup stories that appeared in various Legacy issues in early 2018? Some of them had direct connections to their parent stories, eg Iron Man #598 which was part of the post-Civil War II rebirth of Tony Stark and so has to be before his involvement in the Hunt For Wolverine event.

Wolverine reasonably doesn't know that the Xavier school in Central Park was destroyed in the recent X-Men Disassembled story arc (UXM#1-10). What's peculiar is that he even knows that's where the school is because it was only moved there in XM Prime (2017), long after Death Of Wolverine.

The photo Logan doesn't recognise is (according to Marvel Wiki) of the time-lost young X-Men in Cyclops' alternative school. This was founded after AvX: Consequences but before he died (but I don't know if Wolvie knew it was based at the old Weapon X facility in Canada). The young X-Men went there in UXM(2013)#22 so the photo could predate his death, but he wouldn't have seen it.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Wolverine: Infinity Watch #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
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).



Andy MacDonald
Andy MacDonald
Jordie Bellaire
Giuseppe Camuncoli (Cover Penciler)
Roberto Poggi (Cover Inker)
Dean White (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Cory Petit.
Editor: Jordan D. White. Editor-in-chief: C. B. Cebulski.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Loki
Loki

(Loki Laufeyson)
Wolverine
Wolverine

(James Howlett)

Plus: Phoenix-Wolverine (Logan), Warbringer.

> Wolverine: Infinity Watch: Book info and issue index

Share This Page


Elektra