WOLVERINE # 72 – August 1993

Sleeping Giant

Credits: Larry Hama (writer), Dwayne Turner (pencils), Joe Rubinstein (inks), Pat Brosseau (lettering), Kevin Somers (coloring)

Summary

While investigating the Reavers’ destroyed headquarters, Wolverine and Jubilee turn off the power. After being bathed in Spiral’s electrolyte bath and cyber-synthesizers, a damaged Sentinel turns on its internal power source. While looking for Gateway, Jubilee sees a warp he created in time and space. She passes through and relives the day her parents were killed. Wolverine pulls her out and warns her against changing the past. The damaged Sentinel, now with his own consciousness, decides to use Gateway’s vortex to benefit the other Sentinels. When Wolverine tries to stop him, he threatens to break Jubilee’s neck.

Continuity Notes

A lot of Jubilee’s background is given in this issue. She comes from a wealthy, very Americanized, Beverly Hills family. Her immigrant neighbors have the same last name. Two hitmen, looking for a Dr. Lee, come to her house and take her parents away, faking their deaths in a car accident. Jubilee finally figures out that they were after their neighbors. Her neighbors try to take her in, but Jubilee prefers to live in the mall. In one scene, Jubilee’s mother comments that the closest the family’s been to China is “Graumann’s Theater”. I seem to recall that in one of her first appearances, Jubilee says that her parents named her “Jubilation” because they were so thrilled to actually be in America. I think that a lot of the Jubilee continuity in this issue is later contradicted by a Generation X annual. And with that, I conclude the longest paragraph about Jubilee continuity ever written.

Review

This is another Wolverine issue that pulls the series closer to the continuity of the main titles. After the Reavers were killed off in Uncanny X-Men, they were quickly forgotten about, so it’s surprising to see a story published two years later pick up on that plot thread. It’s interesting that there’s no attempt to explain why exactly the Reavers died, or who Spiral, Gateway, and Trevor Fitzroy are. It certainly seems as if Marvel assumed that anyone reading Wolverine must already be an Uncanny X-Men reader, too. Hama uses the Uncanny X-Men storylines as the starting point for two plot threads, one focusing on Jubilee and the other on a Sentinel’s attempts to gain consciousness. Neither story goes very far in this issue, but both have potential to be interesting. Much of this issue is hampered by Turner’s artwork, which is still looking rushed and shoddy.