"State of Grace"

Wow, I've got nothing prepared for today. This is going to be the blog equivalent of attempting to make a three-course meal out of cornmeal, worchester sauce, and a labelless can you found in the pantry...

The Oldest is getting excited for Wolverine: Origins: his birthday falls around Free Comic Book Day, and there's usually some movie coming out then as well. But sadly, I think I've lost or given away more Wolverine comics than I currently have. Still, the ones I have left, I'm a little more attached to, so we'll take a quick look at Wolverine #65, "State of Grace" Written by Larry Hama, art by Mark Texiera, art assist by Steve Biasi.

Set just prior to X-Cutioner's Song, Logan is foregoing the usual Danger Room workout for a more intense virtual reality throwdown. In it's own way, Hama's Wolverine dialog is just as bombastic as if Stan Lee wrote it: "Gotta extrude adamantium and go to claw-city." Eh, it's not the worst narration Wolvie's ever had.

Although Professor X looks down at Wolvie's "childish revenge fantasies" and Jubilee defends him, the simulation starts at ten and builds up from there: from Logan's fractured memories, they pulled up a classic, Sabretooth, standing over the body of Silver Fox. Commence stabbity time, until Sabretooth calls Wolverine out for an assassination mission he was sent on, Terry Adams. Wolverine denies it, saying the mission was scrubbed, and Professor X ends the sim.

Later, Logan hits a bar in Salem Center, to chug boilermakers (hell yeah!) and hustle pool. A local (that Texiera decides to make look like Steroid Jesus, an artistic choice that I won't fault him for) doesn't take kindly to it, leading up to about my favorite Wolverine scene, ever.

Luckily for the local, Jean Grey shows up to end the fun. As she tries to clean Logan up--and it's gonna take a lot more than a napkin dipped in a bar glass--she asks if that's how he wants to deal with his pain: by getting hurt and taking his anger out on strangers. Logan admits he's feeling worse than usual, but with recent events involving Silver Fox and her death, he isn't sure if any of his good memories are real, which somehow makes the bad ones even worse. (And even without memory implants, I think a lot of us have been there, which is why readers still identify with Wolverine.)

Jean is surprisingly tough-love with Logan: "I suppose life isn't rough for anybody else but Logan, huh?" Logan points out that he's seen the death of everyone he's ever loved. Including Jean.

The next day, Silver Fox's burial service is postponed and moved, by two of Wolverine's friends: Nick Fury, and Wraith. I think I've seen more commercials with him than I have comics with Wraith, but he called in a favor, to get Silver Fox buried back at the cabin where she and Logan had lived. Logan has to be blindfolded for the trip, since the cabin's location is still classified, but Wraith thanks him "for Terry Adams." Logan can't remember, but Wraith says he can't forget.

On the door of the cabin, he finds "Logan & Silver Fox" carved in the wood. Wolvie is overjoyed to realize, maybe some of his good memories really did happen. (Or, whatever mysterious puppet-masters that were behind Weapon X this week, were really, really good at their set-dressing.)

I can't say exactly why I still like this issue so much: the dialog can be a bit much, and it's tied in with a lot of the memory-implant fakeout stuff that was why I stopped reading Wolverine in the first place. But there's something to it: the sense that Wolverine can heal up from just about everything, except his feelings...sappy, maybe. But I still have this issue, so it must have worked. Oh, and I'm a sucker for Texiera art. Maybe that's it.