Wolverine is known for taking on sidekicks, but his newest sidekick has proven to be one of his greatest challenges. The newest Wolverine series has concentrated on a more wild Wolverine, and the book’s second issue had Wolverine face off against a new Wendigo. The Wendigo is a curse, one that afflicts anyone who eats human flesh. Unfortunately, a young teen named Leonard was afflicted with the curse, and Wolverine battled him. After the fight, he decided to try to teach the teen how to deal with the curse of the Wendigo, using his experience during the bone claw years of dealing with his feral mutation. The two have worked together ever since, all of which leads to Wolverine #8, the 400th solo Wolverine comic that promised massive changes to Wolverine’s past. The issue’s second story sees Wolverine wake up from a drugging to find Leonard captured by Arcade, who forces Wolverine to go through his patented death traps in order to free Leonard the curse makes him kill.
Wolverine has helped to train multiple young heroes over the years, starting with Kitty Pryde and Rogue and moving forward into the present day with characters like Jubilee and Quentin Quire. However, he rarely had to deal with anyone as feral as Wendigo as a sidekick. Teaming Wolverine with the Wendigo was one of the better ideas of the current run of Wolverine, but was he able to actually train Leonard? Will he give in to his curse? That’s the premise of the second story, and it leads to a heartbreaking sacrifice.
Arcade Awakens the Curse of the Wendigo
Arcade is a mercenary, one who enjoys using his intellect and genius to create death traps. He comes up with a terrible fate for Leonard. Wolverine has been teaching Leonard to control the bloodlust of the Wendigo, with the bestial youth using Wolverine’s teachings to control himself. However, Arcade creates a machine to get Leonard to kill; he puts him in a chair with vibranium shackles that Leonard can’t get out of, and equips it with all kinds of ways to hurt the teen. The whole point is to put him into a berserker rage, then release him at the end of five minutes to kill the group of humans Arcade’s also kidnapped. Wolverine starts fighting his way through Arcade’s traps, which are also developed to get Wolverine to go berserk and take more than five minutes to get through the traps. Arcade is almost successful at this, but Wolverine controls himself, all the while using a microphone that Arcade put on him — meant to let Leonard hear Wolverine go berserk in battle and drive him further in his own rage — to talk to the young man, trying to calm him.
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Wolverine is able to break into Leonard’s chamber with time to spare, but Arcade has that planned for as well. He drops a glass bubble, made with adamantium dust, that is filling with acid on Wolverine. Wolverine’s claws would be able to break through it, but not in time. Leonard is released, and Wolverine’s training actually pays off, as he stops himself from attacking the humans. However, he does go after Arcade, but once he hears Wolverine calling for his help he disengages from Arcade. This is actually a huge moment for Leonard, as he had already tasted Arcade’s blood, which should have put him into a feeding frenzy. However, he’s able to control himself long enough to let go of Arcade and help break Wolverine out. This admirable action, showing that he has tamed the curse inside of him, leads him to tragedy though, as the acid splashes his body while he protects Wolverine, killing him.
Death Is the Only Cure at Times
The curse of the Wendigo is very hard to break, and sometimes the only cure for it is death. Wolverine was able to successfully teach Leonard how to control the curse, something that as far as readers have known has never happened before. Leonard, instead of eating people as Wendigo, chose to save a life, and that lifted the curse from him. Wolverine mourned at the side of the dead teen, but that wasn’t the end for young Leonard. His body reverted to human for the first time since the curse was put on him. However, the lifting of the curse also brought him back to life. His sacrifice was enough to break the magic of the curse and come back to life.
Wolverine takes Leonard back to his mom for an emotionally manipulative sequence that gets Wolverine thinking about mothers, which leads to the end of the story, where Wolverine gets a letter from his long thought dead mother. Wolverine’s time with Leonard was the best part of Wolverine for the last eight issues, and it’s sad to see him go. Wolverine is a book that can use every bright spot it can get, and losing this one is a tragedy.
Wolverine #8 is on sale now.
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