X Deaths Of Wolverine #5
The Wolverines clash for the future of Krakoa in X Deaths Of Wolverine #5, by writer Benjamin Percy, artist Federico Vicentini, colorist Dijjo Lima, and letterer Cory Petit. This issue follows the same formula as X Lives #5 and ends on a big moment.
The meat of this issue is the Wolverines fighting the Phalanx Wolverine, who is trying to get to the Cradle and inject the Phalanx into Krakoa. At the Pointe, Sage reprograms the Cerebro Sword as Logan shows up and takes over the battle against his future self. Sage shows up and gives him the sword, which destroys the Phalanx. Krakoa absorbs the body, and everyone goes to the Green Lagoon to celebrate. Meanwhile, a new enemy with a familiar face awakens, ready for revenge.
X Lives/X Deaths has been an exciting ride. While both of them pivoted on Wolverine, X Lives was more about him as a character, taking readers through his life as he did what he always did- save the day for the X-Men. On the other hand, X Deaths cleaned up plot threads left behind by Hickman in HoX/PoX. It was a bit more high concept and dealt with the alternate futures that could happen because of Moira turning against Krakoa. Percy did an excellent job with both, but X Deaths is the one that is more important to the X-Men line as a whole and had some of the cooler moments for fans of the overall line. In fact, X Lives is basically just a Wolverine book. X Deaths was mostly a Moira MacTaggert book.
Until the last issue, much like X Lives #5, this issue comes down to Wolverine against Phalanx Wolverine. It’s a good fight, but it doesn’t have the emotional charge that Wolverine versus Omega Red did, mostly because readers were kind of on the side of Phalanx Wolverine for most of the rest of the book. His twist into the bad guy was pretty cool, but it probably would have been better if Wolverine himself wasn’t involved in this last fight, even though his name is on the cover. As far as it goes, this issue is a pretty good ending to this event, if a little predictable, down to the big reveal at the end. However, that ending could lead to some great things down the line for the X-Men, so this whole event fits in with HoX/PoX and Inferno, event books that actually matter.
Vicentini’s style works pretty well for this issue. The first couple of pages look really good; Vicentini is great at drawing every character in the issue, and his character acting works very well. If anything is disappointing about it, it’s the Phalanx Wolverine, which is pretty much just a shiny Wolverine skeleton and not the cool techno-organic monstrosity it could have been.
X Deaths Of Wolverine #5 is a good, if predictable, ending. Percy and Vicentini do a good job on this issue, and it looks like the ending will play well into the future. X Deaths has been the more important book of this event, and while the ending is a little formulaic, it still works and bodes well for the future.
