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Friday, July 21, 2017

X-amining Wolverine #70

"Tooth & Nail"
June 1993

In a Nutshell
Wolverine battles Sauron.

Script: Larry Hama
Penciler: Dwayne Turner
Inker: Richard Bennet
Letterer: Steve Buccellato
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Plot
As Wolverine fights Sauron, Jubilee escapes from her captors aboard a pterodactyl. Elsewhere, Rogue escapes from Brainchild's prison, and orders him to tell her who made the fist of iron and meddled with his mind. At Sauron's citadel, Sauron's followers join the fight, pummeling Wolverine with rocks and seemingly burying him alive. Meanwhile, Jubilee fights off one of her captors with her Walkman, knocking him off his pterodactyl, and when she urges her mount to save him, she earns the respect of his fellow riders. who declare she is now one of them. Elsewhere, Rogue spots a stampede of dinosaurs heading towards Sauron's citadel, and inside, Wolverine emerges from the rock pile to discover that he's in the path of the herd of dinosaurs Sauron has summoned.

Firsts and Other Notables
More hints about the return of Magneto are sprinkled throughout this issue, with Brainchild talking about someone pulling the iron from the Earth.


Yet somehow, Rogue hasn't figured it out (or at least wants verbal confirmation of some very obvious hints, so she's not unlike readers at the time).


The Best There is at What He Does
There's another significant upgrade to Wolverine's healing factor here, as he more or less recovers from a sliced hamstring in the space of a few panels, despite also mentioning that his healing factor "ain't what it used to be".


The Grim 'n' Gritty 90s
Remember Walkmans? Jubilee uses hers as a projectile weapon in this issue.


Austin's Analysis
A pretty standard mid-story fight chapter, with the bulk of the issue handed over to Wolverine's fight with Sauron, with some more Magneto resurrection teases thrown in (which seem hilariously obvious now, in a way they didn't when I first read these issues) and a fun bit with Jubilee escaping from and then ingratiating herself to her captors. It's hard to complain about an issue of Wolverine fighting dinosaurs (though Dwayne Turner probably isn't the best artist for the job, as things get kind of cluttered and messy; the full bleed pages do him no favors in that regard), but that's about all there is to this.

Next Issue
The X-Cutioner's debuts in Uncanny X-Men Annual #17.

3 comments:

  1. I guess technically this could have been a red herring and actually teased the return of Zaladane, but in retrospect all this dancing around the M-word is ridiculous.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Weirdly, this issue was solicited as featuring JAVRON- copyright problems with Tolkien's estate?

    ReplyDelete

  3. // or at least wants verbal confirmation of some very obvious hints //

    That, I think. ”Yes! Say it! He… vas… my... boyfriend!”

    ReplyDelete

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