X Deaths Of Wolverine #1
Moira MacTaggert is being hunted by everyone in X Deaths Of Wolverine #1, by writer Benjamin Percy, artist Federico Vicenti, colorists Dijjo Lima and Frank Martin, and letterer Cory Petit. While X Lives Of Wolverine focused on the titular character, this focuses on Moira MacTaggert, making it all the more interesting.
Basically, the comic follows Moira as she runs from Mystique. She finds out she has cancer, going to Jane Foster as her doctor, but Mystique catches up to her. Valkyrie fights off Mystique, but the CIA X-Desk watched and sent folks after her, and she kept running. Meanwhile, on Krakoa, Black Tom feels something is wrong with the island as earthquakes start. Something bursts from the ground, and he’s attacked by someone with claws. Later, Jean Grey senses someone familiar as she and Xavier are working with Wolverine the reveal is a doozy.
Focusing on Moira is this comic’s biggest strength. Percy picks up where Inferno lets off. Moira is understandably angry about her old situation as well as rightfully scared. Moira is one of the most interesting characters of the Krakoa era that no one but Hickman got to play with, and even then, it was sparingly. Putting such a spotlight on now, after her depowering and with everyone hunting for her, is a great idea, and adding in her cancer diagnosis opens up some intriguing story ideas, especially with the reveal of who attacked Black Tom. It all has one thinking about Powers Of X.
In Powers Of X, in Moira life six and nine, she was never very far from Wolverine. In fact, in life six, it was revealed that Moira and Wolverine’s shared blood type meant that she could take blood transfusions from him and his healing factor would work in her. Is Percy going to play with all of that? There are some definite life six vibes going on in this comic, and that’s one of the reasons this first issue is so good. Percy has a lot of balls in the air with this one, and where it all goes makes this series a lot of fun. X Lives feels very cut and dry but still great. This one is delightfully opaque, and that’s even better.
Vicenti’s art is perfect for this comic. There’s a bit of a Larraz feel to it at times, which is excellent, but his style is all his own. His interpretations of the characters are great, and he does a wonderful job with everything that Percy puts in the script. It’ll be great to see what he does next in this comic.
X Deaths Of Wolverine #1 takes an entirely different approach to things than X Lives, and it’s stronger for it. Much like HoX/PoX, it’ll be interesting to see how the two books play off each other. Percy is doing a bang-up job, and Vicenti’s art is killer. This one is something special.
