WOLVERINE #106 – October 1996

Openings and Closures
Credits: Larry Hama (writer), Val Semeiks (penciler), Chad Hunt w/Al Milgrom (inkers), Comicraft (lettering), Derek Bellman & Malibu (colors)

Summary: Wolverine takes Elektra to Canada, where he makes his yearly visit to Silver Fox’s grave. Elektra responds by inviting Wolverine to visit her childhood home in Greece. Stavros the gardener tells Wolverine of a man he knew in the war, known only as “the Canadian”. The Canadian gave Stavros the dagger he used to avenge his mother’s murder by the Nazis. Stavros has held on to the blade for years. At dinner, Stavros tells Elektra that he’s located Sawyer, the surviving murderer of her father. Elektra tells Stavros that she’s not holding on to revenge, and asks him to spare Sawyer’s life. That night, Stavros goes to the wine cellar and frees Sawyer. He threatens to contact the authorities, but Wolverine intimidates him into keeping quiet. Later, while speaking to Elektra, Wolverine learns that Stavros is illiterate. Unbeknownst to Stavros, the name on his dagger reads “Cpl. Logan”.

Continuity Notes: According to this issue, Elektra’s father had six killers. Two were killed by the mob after turning state’s evidence, two died in prison, and one died of a heroin overdose after his parole. Sawyer is the lone survivor.

Review: We’re still in the “forced Elektra appearance” era of the title. Hama’s been able to make it work in previous issues, but it’s starting to wear thin. Judged on its own, this isn’t so bad, but the title’s gone six months at this point with only editorially mandated crossover and guest star stories. I like Hama’s treatment of Wolverine at Silver Fox’s grave, and revealing that Elektra doesn’t want to kill her father’s remaining murderer is a nice twist (I vaguely recall Bendis ignoring this story and just going the obvious revenge route in her later solo series). There’s barely anything else going on here. Revealing that Wolverine was “behind the scenes” of Stavros’ story in issue #102 doesn’t add anything to the original story, making it another case of Wolverine retroactively being involved in everything. It’s thankfully not a large part of the story, and I’m sure the gimmick hadn’t been done to death at the time, but it’s still slightly annoying.