When Wolvie says "#### space," these two are way ahead of him.

We looked at a Monark Starstalker timetable back in 2009, but I don't think I got around to picking up that Nova #29. I only recently got this one: from 2011, Wolverine: the Best There Is #9, written by Charlie Huston, art by Juan Jose Ryp.

Wolvie finds himself in space this month, onboard a somewhat opulent-seeming ship with a strange crew: Monark Starstalker, and Paradox. Paradox was from Bizarre Adventures #30--no, looking it up, he first appeared in Marvel Preview #24, which looks super Logan's Run-y. I say 'he,' but Paradox was a shape-changer, and it's not entirely sure what, if anything, was his true form. Monark wasn't really himself either, having recently become "a nano-tool," a cloud of nanites in the shape of his old self. This issue was from 2011, as Wolvie tells them; Monark claims to be from a parallel 2022, but both of them may have better guns than Paradox's 2181. Wolvie somewhat dismissively refers to them as "Robot Boy" and "Shape-Shifter Lad," they were bounty hunters of sorts but may have been ditched there by their employers, having both come through "the Fault" that I think was from War of Kings. They also had hooked up, albeit as a cloud of nanites and a woman; since that was probably considered more palatable/comfortable to Wolverine readers than a gay couple.

Wolverine is following a techno-organic virus, but gets delayed here as an alien "general" comes after Paradox and Monark, for the former "misrepresenting" himself and taking the ship as a wedding present. Deep cut: one of the general's goons is a Pheragot, from Hercules #1! Wolvie is mildly annoyed that the guys don't seem to know if they have any spacesuits, and ends up infected with alien bugs during the fight! This series was labeled with a parental advisory, less so because of things like Monark and Paradox's relationship, and more so that crap like this could happen to Wolvie.