Fixing Wolverine

Last week, I wrote a piece about Logan’s seemingly contradictory motivations in the Marvel mega-crossover Avengers vs. X-Men.  A good portion of the problems I discussed previously stem from Logan’s treatment of Hope in AvX #4, written by Jonathan Hickman.

I should have known to wait until I’d read Wolverine and the X-Men #11, which came out a week later, before writing that post.  Jason Aaron, the writer on WatXM and a one-man Wolverine brain trust, used the issue to fill in some of the gaps that weren’t addressed in the main AvX book and offered a pretty revealing glimpse into Wolverine’s thoughts regarding Hope and the Phoenix Force.  However, even armed with these new insights into Logan’s motives, I’m still not quite convinced that I buy this characterization.

Basically, there’s one central question at the heart of my concerns with how AvX is treating Logan:  If he’s so convinced that the only way to deal with the Phoenix crisis is to kill Hope (as we see in AvX issues 2 and 3), why didn’t he try to take her out while he was alone with her on the airplane in issue #4?  WatXM #11 offers some extended scenes between Logan and Hope during that airplane ride in which it’s revealed that Logan does indeed consider attacking Hope, especially when it looks for a moment as if she’s losing control of her Phoenix powers.  But, in the end, Logan blinks.  He can’t bring himself to kill a child.  He’s reached the limit as to how far he’s willing to go – even if the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

On its own terms, it’s a compelling development that likely will create fertile storytelling ground for Logan’s inevitable confrontation with Kade Kilgore and cast new light on Fantomex’s actions in the first arc of Uncanny X-Force.  But, while I appreciate Aaron’s attempt to square Logan’s actions with his stated motivations, it still feels too much like papering over weak characterization in AvX.  Perhaps if we’d seen some sign that Logan was this conflicted in the pages of the main crossover, I could accept this.  But Logan never seems to question his own plan for an instant anywhere else but in this one issue of WatXM.  Which is too bad because I think this is a pretty strong direction to take Wolverine.

Adding another layer of interest to this situation, Jonathan Hickman, the guy who wrote the problematic AvX #4 issue, seems oblivious to Logan’s conflicted conscience in an interview on Comicbookresources.com.  Here’s the question CBR asked Mr. Hickman, followed by his response:

CBR Question:  Here it's revealed that Wolverine contacted the Avengers to help him deal with Hope. Last issue Logan had a knock down drag out fight with Captain America over how best to handle her, so why is he siding with the Avengers here? Has Logan changed his mind? Does he no longer believe that the best way to stop the Phoenix is to kill Hope?


Hickman: I don't think he's changed his mind at all. Even though Cap feels Wolverine is uncontrollable, Wolverine is still certainly on the Avengers side in all of this. So as soon as this thing looked like it could turn into a containment scenario or a situation where it could be handled off planet he started biding his time to find out what was going to happen and he let the Avengers know. I think it would be wrong to assume that Wolverine is no longer willing or able to do what he needs to do. I know it is.

This leads me to think either Logan will indeed try to kill whomever the Phoenix bonds with in a future issue of AvX (which would require yet another change of heart for the character) or Hickman was oblivious to what Aaron was planning in WatXM.  If the latter scenario is true, I think this is another example of how dangerous these crossovers can be when they’re written by committee.  Would we be having these consistency problems if AvX had been the product of one writer? 

Obviously, no one can know with certainty the answer to that question.  I just hope someone among Marvel’s stable of “architects” makes sense of Wolverine’s character when all the dust settles.