Battle at Utopia! It’s the demonic Logan up against the demon-fightin’ Russian, Colossus. Who is going to prove their… metal? Listen, I’m sorry about that pun but you’re the one who chose to read this website. It’s Wolverine Goes to Hell #4!
By Steve Morris
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artists: Renato Guedes, Jose Wilson Magalhaes, Oclair Albert
Colours: Matthew Wilson
Letters: Cory Petit
Published by Marvel Comics
Wolverine’s opening monologue comes whilst he’s offering some more fight to the Purple Devil, and this time round it’s on the theme of faith. One thing that Jason Aaron seeded through his time with Logan was this idea that Nightcrawler’s death slowly brought about a change in perspective, which ultimately helped Logan gain a little faith. And that faith offers him a little comfort from, well, his entire backstory and lifestyle. As he recounts his current status of “I don’t believe in religion but on the other hand I am in hell currently”, he thinks about his dad. Dads. Looks like he killed his real dad, thinking he was someone else. Then he killed the person he thought was his dad. Or something.
I’m guessing Wolverine Origins is pretty full of “so then Wolverine killed them” conclusions.
Wolverine says that he believes in Hell because he can feel the pain of it – and that makes it real to him. It’s like how he never believed in the Tooth Fairy until he first needed to get a root canal. As he goes on the offensive with Purple Devil, it’s nice to note that Renato Guedes has remembered that Wolverine’s ear was cut off last issue. He takes several other blows from the sword which look like they should explode him like they exploded Silver Samurai, but maybe they’re all just meant to be glancing blows instead.
Purple Devil is pissed off now, and says “do you have any idea why you’re here?” which…. No, Wolverine doesn’t, because you haven’t TOLD him yet? You also haven’t told him what’s happening to all his friends, and you’ve only brought one of the dead ones out to prove it to Logan. So yeah, you haven’t really done much to properly provide context to Wolverine, mate, so maybe you should cut down on the underwhelming monologues and try something that’ll actually upset and unbalance Wolverine?
Phwoof, I got worked up there.
Purple Devil was so pleased with his latest rant that he hasn’t noticed that Wolverine’s attack was successful: the Canadian has drawn green blood from his enemy. He starts freaking out like he’s got a zit, and looks round all panicked-like at his fellow demons, who all start sizing him up a bit more. Wolverine, pretty pleased with himself, calls Purple Devil “hoss” (which is maybe my favourite thing in this whole story) before leaping back for another attack.
In one of the little caves, Puck and the guy who is blatantly Wolverine’s dad (they’re wearing the SAME HAT, this is not a mystery!) are chatting again. They’re sort of taking the credit for Wolverine’s uprising, which is a bit rich considering all Puck did was say hello to Wolverine once and then patter away They’re fully prepared to take advantage of the unbalanced situation in Hell, though, and Puck races off to go pretend to do some more heroic things he doesn’t actually intend to try at any point.
Back on Earth, it’s time for an actual hoss fight: Dlogan Vs Colossus. Strangely, Colossus’s first move is to stand and let Wolverine get a free shot at him, although even more strangely the adamantium bounces straight off his chest. Which: is that something which we’ve ever seen before? I didn’t think anything could be left unsliced by adamantium. Colossus follows up by backhanding Dlogan across the room, but – just like Kitty – states that he’s holding back from hurting Logan properly. You’ve got a history with this, Piotr!
Dlogan has done his research though, as he immediately brings up Illyana as a way of getting Piotr angry. He says some… really filthy stuff about his plans for Colossus’s little sister, and so as a result Colossus properly wangs him out the roof and the building. Fastball special! Kitty gets involved, which distracts Colossus for when Dlogan smashes back through the roof, and is now on fire for no apparent reason. This time his slash draws blood from Colossus, and they crash through the floor to where Angel and Iceman were hanging out.
Bad luck, Colossus. Any other time and you’d find someone awesome like Polaris down there – but you’ve ended up with literally the two worst back-up fighters on the island. Dlogan vomits fire on Iceman, and does… something… which makes Angel bleed from the eyes. Ew. For good measure he telepathically chokes Kitty and throws her into the ceiling. It is anything but a hard battle. You know who would’ve ended this in like a minute? Emma Frost. Shame she isn’t here, but I can’t blame her for keeping out the social lounge if Bobby and Warren are in it.
The issue starts cross-cutting between Dlogan winning the fight against Colossus and Purple Devil beating Wolverine in hell. For good measure, he cuts all Logan’s claws in half. Although they do look a lot more aerodynamic when they’re filed down, I have to imagine that somewhere Marc Silverstri is crying out at the thought of Wolverine not having metre-long claws. Purple Devil finally names himself as “Morningstar” and “The Great Red Dragon”, outing himself as a fan of Hannibal in the process. He also calls Wolverine “King of all Jackasses”, which is just… sad.
And the rest of Hell, aware that their leader is totally rubbish, attack him. WHile he’s distracted by the skirmish, Wolverine is able to retrieve his broken claws, sneak up behind Purple Devil, and use the claws to nail him into the wall. He then walks off, doing that slow-motion walk that is usually reserved for Denzel Washington when something is about to explode in the background.
Colossus is struggling to stay standing in the face of repeated cuts across the chest, and is about to take what might be a fatal last hit when… okay, take a deep breath. Look out the window, watch the birds fly past and enjoy your life. Because this next sentence is going to change everything in your world forever. Mystique flings a hook into Wolverine’s back and drives off, dragging him out the room on Ghost Rider’s motorbike. Mystique JUST DID THAT. Do not ever think twice when someone asks you “who is the best?” The answer is Mystique.
One of the all-time greatest Cyclops moments happens next. As Mystique and Ghost Rider drive over the surface of the water surrounding Utopia (don’t gloss over that!), we see Kitty caring for a bleeding-out Colossus, Karma helping Angel to recover from the eye-bleeding thing, and Cece Reyes putting a blanket on Iceman. And then we cut to Cyclops, completely blank background behind him, just staring at everything with no expression whatsoever. I don’t care what anyone else says, but I love this era of Cyclops. He’s brilliant.
With Purple Devil nailed to the wall, a bunch of mini-devils run off with his sword, which is pretty funny. He yells for Sabretooth to help him out, which shows a basic misunderstanding of Sabretooth. He gets slashed round the face for his troubles. As the demons fight over who gets to wield the big sword and thusly take over Hell, Puck finally shows up and lobs a big rock at the winning demon’s head. He then leads a charge of hellbound humans against the demons.
Wolverine is almost about to join in when his dad finally shows up, and tells him that, y’know, he’s his dad. Yeah, we all guessed that a very long time ago. He wants to have a chat, father to son.
Last Call
Written by Jason Aaron
Pencils by Jamie McKelvie
Colours by John Rauch
Letters by Cory Petit
Oh lord, it’s six pages of the Mongrels. I’m going to make this quick because nobody cares about this lot. They break into the Princess Bar in Madripoor, which serves as a chance to introduce each one and what they do. Gunhawk seems to be the leader, with two guns that have knives on them. Then there’s Thunderfoot, who puts a cannonball on his foot and flicks it through people. Sawfist has… a saw on his fist, whilst Shadowstalker seems to have some kind of poison situation going on. Fire Knives has, well, guess.
They’re looking for a storage room at the back of the building, which brings out radiant goddess Tyger Tiger to defend it. She sticks a gun at Gunhawk and warns him about what he’s doing, but he ignores her entirely and she just… accepts it. In this moment I feel personally betrayed by a comic. Gunhawk finds the room, which is filled with Logan’s private, most treasured possessions. He burns it to the ground and walks off. That’s it. Six pages of fairly generic supervillains and an unforgivable portrayal of Tyger Tiger, who is the best of all of us. Bah!
Steve Morris runs this site! Having previously written for sites including The Beat, ComicsAlliance, CBR and The MNT, he can be found on Twitter here. He’s a bunny.
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