WOLVERINE #115 – August 1997

In the Face of It
Credits: Larry Hama (writer), Lenil Francis Yu (penciler), Edgar Tadeo (inker), Comicraft (lettering), Joe Rosas (colors)

Summary: In New Mexico, Bastion shows Jubilee a hologram of Storm, Cyclops, Cannonball, Phoenix, and Wolverine arriving in custody. After protecting Phoenix’s body from their crash, Wolverine is near death. He’s brought down to an incinerator to be disposed of, but he begins to regain consciousness. He defeats the guards and steals one of their uniforms. He frees the X-Men from their cells, but Bastion soon learns of their escape. Phoenix sends mental projections of Bastion to confuse the guards, enabling the team to reach the blast doors. Unable to open them with physical force, the team is trapped. Jubilee watches the events from Bastion’s control room, where she manages to press the button that opens the doors. The X-Men escape in one of Bastion’s aircrafts, determined to stop Zero Tolerance.

Review: And now, OZT invades Wolverine. This mainly serves to recap the storyline so far and move the X-Men out of Bastion’s custody, and it accomplishes that much at least. Hama tries to add a few character moments to the story, such as Wolverine reaching out to Phoenix when he’s near death (which is what convinces Jubilee that the hologram is real), but the crossover is obviously an intrusion on this title’s ongoing storylines. Bastion receives an interesting portrayal here, as he actually apologizes to Jubilee for what he’s doing, and later questions why he hates mutants so much. It’s a not-so-subtle clue that he’s programmed to feel that way, but playing it so that Bastion himself doesn’t know that adds some depth to the character. Outside of these moments, though, the story’s rather bland. Yu’s art helps to keep things from getting too boring, since the story enables him to draw lots of intricate machinery and costume designs. He’s also able to draw a larger cast of characters without sacrificing the quality of his previous issues.