"The End" Week: Wolverine #13!

Starting "The End" week this year with a lucky number thirteen! Although I suspect the 'legacy' numbering was around three hundred; and there was an ad for his next series on the inside front cover! From 2014, Wolverine #13, "Killable, conclusion" Written by Paul Cornell, pencils by Alan Davis, inks by Mark Farmer.

This was the finale of the traditional make-the-hero-run-the-gauntlet story, except that Logan has failed pretty much across the board. Without his healing factor, Wolverine has been led by the nose to a mall in Alberta, Canada--a mall built over what had been his childhood home--by Sabretooth and Mystique. Kitty Pryde had come with him, but there were several hostages there; one of which presses an injured Wolvie until he takes a swipe at him, chopping off his arm! Or, her arm: it had really been Mystique, who was unhurt, but proved a point: Wolverine's vaunted morals were "tissue paper." Kitty argues he must've known, on some level, that had been Mystique and that he wouldn't have attacked an innocent: it's up to you if Kitty believes in him that much, or if she's trying to convince them both.

With Wolverine suitably softened up, Sabretooth comes out the denouement, calling out his many, many contradictions and hypocrisies. And he's right on a lot of them! But mostly, Creed just wants his "peer" and "confidante" back: his point is, everything Logan did to build himself up as different than Creed, was lie after lie. "Logan" wasn't even his real name! 

Meanwhile, Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. are making a desperate last stand, against the mind-controlling virus from the Microverse: they were trying to power up bioterrorist the Host to stop it from taking over the world, but were running out of time. The Host manages to dial up the infecteds' sensitivity to pain, forcing the virus out of humanity the world over.

Creed asks Logan, if he wants him to end it for him, but has no intention of doing so. Better to watch him age, getting more and more inferior as time goes by. Maybe he'll kill Logan when he's in a nursing home. Creed leaves with Mystique, Silver Samurai, and his ninjas; leaving behind Logan's sword, which Mystique had taken as bait. (The sword had been offered to him when he was in Japan post-war, but after a failure in training and his wife's death, the old man who offered it never told him the sword's story or name: Logan had no one to give it to, but never felt worthy of it.) Kitty hesitates going to Logan, since this mess had gotten people killed; but one of the hostages does go to him: she's possessed by the Microverse virus, who has an offer for him. Let the virus live inside of him, and he could have his healing factor back, be like he used to be. Sure, the virus would eventually try to take over the world again, but so what? He could be himself again.

Logan says no, and the virus is destroyed by the Host. He gets up, and snaps the sword over his knee. He looks up, to see he's being watched, by the Watcher, but is more concerned with Kitty's gaze; that maybe she's seeing him for what he is. They return to the Jean Grey School, and Storm runs to Wolverine, who shrugs her off: "The Wolverine is dead now." Coming up next, Wolverine #1! Feels like a mixed signal, there. But that would be another short series, leading to Logan being dead for a couple years. I wonder if Cornell gave him any redemption in the next series: this seemed like a return to Logan feeling like he was an animal, not a man.