Ultimate Comics Wolverine: Legacies

By Cullen Bunn, David Messina, Gary Erskine & Gaetano Carlucci (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-546-8

The Marvel Ultimates project started in 2000 with a thoroughly contemporary remodelling of major characters and concepts to bring them into line with a generation of potential readers separated by more than three decades from the starry-eyed, idealistic kids who were the primary buyers of â€œthe House that Stan & Jack (and Steve) Builtâ€.

Eventually even this streamlined new universe became as crowded and continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the publishing event â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which wiped out loads of heroes and villains as well as millions of ordinary mortals in a vast Tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist Magneto.

After dramatically rebuilding this darker, grimmer continuum, Armageddon happened again in 2012 as a perilously destabilised world sank into international metahuman anarchy. America succumbed to a mass-secession of states resulting in a second Civil War before the remaining heroes, surviving mutants and a new Spider-Man brought a measure of peace and stability to the planetâ€¦

From this latest aftermath comes a canny thriller (collecting the 4-issue miniseries Ultimate Comics Wolverine from March to May 2013, deftly written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by David Messina, Gary Erskine & Gaetano Carlucci) which simultaneously explores the past and outlines the future of Jimmy Hudson: troubled offspring of the mutant legend who gave his life to end Magnetoâ€¦

But first, a little more background: sixteen year-old Hudson only discovered who his real father was when fugitive Kitty Pride turned up bearing a hologram message from the fabled mutant-hero Wolverine. The device also explained the boy’s incredible healing ability and the claws which keep inconveniently popping out of his knuckles whenever he got stressedâ€¦

Civilisation had been shakily stumbling from crisis to catastrophe since the Deluge. That progress ended when the world learned that the super-powered mutants proliferating around the globe were not a product of inexorable evolution but rather the result of a 50-year old American program of genetic manipulation. Unfortunately, the experiment had slipped from their control when their initial test subject escaped.

Now, as the news spread, humanity went crazy. A wave of prejudice sparked violent protests around the globe and, as atrocities mounted, the attacks threatened the very existence of the feared and despised human lab-rats. In the political furore following the disclosure, the bloodshed grew into planetary panic and a genetic arms-race in Asia (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), resulted in the near-eradication of the homo Superior strain and consequent creation of new superhuman subspecies.

In response the US President unexpectedly sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury in favour of co-operation with Magneto’s son Pietro Lensherr – who had inherited control of the mutant-terrorist group the Brotherhood of Mutants. The super-swift manipulator dubbed Quicksilver struck a Faustian Bargain with the Leader of the Free World, but their plans were subverted by fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker who seized control of the government’s Sentinel technology and used it to attack mutants all over America as part of his genocidal crusade to purify humanityâ€¦

Pietro had intended to co-opt America’s Nimrod Sentinels to his own purposes but Stryker struck first, taking personal control of the program and unleashing every killer robot in the USA’s arsenal to hunt down mutants wherever they might be hiding.

The pogrom turned a large part of the southwest into a killing zone where the unholy freaks were held in camps, just waiting to dieâ€¦

In Mutant Internment Camp Angel, the guards and Sentinels were overthrown by former X-Men Colossus and Storm, and once the younger prisoners discovered what atrocities the humans had been secretly perpetrating against the captives the entire facility erupted into open rebellion.

When WashingtonDC, the President and his Cabinet were wiped out in a nuclear attack, Texas seceded from the Union, provoking a series of similar rebellions by right-wing militias and libertarian hate-groups throughout the nation. Hopelessly out of his depth, Acting President Howard declared martial law and the second American Civil War beganâ€¦

In New York former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) had been secretly furthering Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence, gathering young mutants and hiding them together for safety. When she vanished during the burgeoning Asian conflict her mission had been taken up by Kitty Prydeâ€¦

Jimmy Hudson – whose father Wolverine had been the Military’s â€œMutant Zeroâ€ and reviled or celebrated as progenitor of mutantkind – was one of Pryde’s flock of refugees hiding beneath New York when the war began.

With news seeping in of wholesale mutant-cleansing in the west, Pryde, Jimmy and a number of others travelled across their hostile homeland to Camp Angel to join the Last Stand of their race.

When they arrived the long-undercover Nick Fury resurfaced, training mutants and working with them to establish a separate, safe homeland. As war wracked America the tiny outcast force faced its greatest martial threat to emerge as an independent Mutant Nationâ€¦

Set in the days following that incredible victory, Legacies actually begins with a flashback to earlier times long before The Deluge when S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Wolverine and his support team closed in on an assassin targeting Senator Gregory Lee.

Intel was scarce. All they knew was that something or someone called â€œMothervineâ€ wanted the crusading politician deadâ€¦

When a bystander apparently turned a little girl into a mutant to slaughter the Senator and his Secret Service detail, Wolverine’s frustrated team gave chase only to find the instigator’s freshly killed corpseâ€¦

Back in the present, Jimmy is again watching the recorded messages on his father’s hologram disc when mutant technopath Black Box bursts in. The kid’s uncanny affinity with machines has detected a hidden message underneath the transmission. Soon Hudson and Black Box have left the Mutant Nation far behind and gone in search of Wolverine’s final bequest – a coded message concerning something called Project: Mothervineâ€¦

Meanwhile, across the continent, human agents tasked with monitoring the long-dormant Mothervine are suddenly, sadistically despatched by mutant Machiavelli Quicksilverâ€¦

Years ago Wolverine and his crew had relentlessly tracked the elusive enigma, uncovering a conspiracy to create a means of mass-producing and weaponising mutants. But when they raided the Human Engineering Life Laboratories and ostensibly ended the threat, Wolverine again encountered an old adversary also hunting for the secret: Magda, ex-wife of Magneto and under her codename â€œThe Witchâ€ one of the deadliest freelance secret agents on Earthâ€¦

In the now, before following the old trail of Wolverine and Mothervine, Jimmy and Black Box waste precious time checking on Hudson’s foster parents. Unfortunately this sentimental side trip also brings them to the attention of psychotic freelancer Wildchild â€“ another special services killer hired by an unknown party to clean up all traces of and links to Mothervineâ€¦

As Box’s gifts track down and interrogate old computer records, Wildchild’s gang attack and – despite Jimmy’s best efforts – the mutant kids are overpowered. They would have died if Quicksilver hadn’t turned up to revoltingly end the lives of the filthy humansâ€¦

As another flashback reveals the origins of Jimmy and the reasons his mother and father abandoned him, Pietro admits that he is Hudson’s half-brother, before disclosing the horrific truth about Mothervine and his plans for Jimmy.

Apparently his newly found sibling’s blood is apparently the only surviving source of the mutant-making concoctionâ€¦

The family reunion isn’t a happy one however and, as Quicksilver explains his vision, Jimmy realises exactly what kind of monster his brother is. Pietro wants to build a mutant army to eradicate mankind and he’s perfectly willing to bleed the appalled Hudson dry to accomplish his goalsâ€¦

It is only after their fast, furious final battle to decide the fate of humanity that Jimmy at last accepts his destiny is to be the new Wolverineâ€¦

There is a delicious covers-&-variants gallery by Arthur Adams & Axel Torvenius and no high-tech Marvel Augmented Reality App inclusions here; but frankly you won’t need them for this superbly sinister drama of spooks and monsters which perfectly sets up the replacement Feral Fury as defender of mutants and mankind alike. Moreover, as with all great spy stories, Legacies ends with portentous foreshadowing and the promise of more mayhem to comeâ€¦

This is a craftily wry, cynical yet revelatory shocker and one more breathtakingly effective yarn only possible outside the Marvel Universe: and one which will resonate with readers who love the darkest side of science fiction and superheroes as well as casual readers more au fait with the company’s movies than the comics lore.

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