Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

346 – Romancing the Gehenna Stone

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which we continue to avoid Onslaught with a jaunt over to the Wolverine solo series; Logan is terrible at both being a loner and secret identities; fake vampires are fundamentally hilarious; and Burt Corrigan is the hero we need.

X-PLAINED

  • Hyperstorm (kinda)
  • Wolverine #11-16
  • A very full week
  • What Wolverine has been up to
  • Madripoor
  • Several supporting cast members
  • “Patch”
  • Archie Corrigan
  • Burt Corrigan
  • Several things to do in San Francisco
  • Vampire humor
  • Ba’al
  • The Gehenna Stone
  • Penis bones
  • The Hand of God
  • Doomsday
  • Mutual fratricide
  • A midair brawl
  • Secret identity problems
  • Claw problems
  • Other metals with which one’s skeleton might be bonded
  • Bisecting Logan
  • Team-ups we’d like to see

NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk!

NEXT EPISODE: Onslaught, honestly, we promise.


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18 comments

  1. This episode makes me wonder how often Logan has filled the role of “prophecised hero”? I seem to recall that was the case in one of his many one-shot adventures, though I may be misremembering.

    I read this story for the first time a couple of months ago and was surprised to find out how much fun it is. It seems to combine a lot of things I love into one story and, somehow, never feels derivative.

    I’ll be honest, I thought you were going to start covering all three of the solo titles in an effort to avoid Onslaught as long as possible. I was only slightly disappointed at the end of the episode to find out that that wasn’t the case.

  2. “cuz it’s about time someone did.”

    There have been X-Pods before this one. The Uncanny X-Cast was the 1st X-Pod. Started in 2006. Just like how the comics say X-Men created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I think all X-Pods should have to start by saying “X-Pods were created by The Uncanny X-Cast.”
    😛

    1. Whaaat?!
      The G-Stone Affair is a garbage arc. So bad. Was shocked to hear praise for it. Oh well, to each his own, onwards with listening to the rest of the episode.

        1. WOLVERINES CLAWS
          another thing that doesn’t make sense about them is……..how would they have any rigidity, in regards to geometry/physics, when fully extended??
          What percentage of the length of the claw is still within his body when the claws are extended? 2″ to 3″ max would only be leftover, logically(from their starting length, that hast to fit between an adult male’s wrist and elbow). 2″ or 3″ leftover inside wouldn’t give a fully extended claw any rigidity.

  3. This was one of the few storylines of Wolverine that I ever bought and not sure why. Maybe it was the noir/fantasy angle, maybe because I liked what Peter David was doing at the time, maybe it was the “Part X of Y” note that meant I wouldn’t have to stick around for long. Or maybe it was Logan’s nifty hat. Regardless, always liked it.

    But I never read the first installment, so I was very unclear why Burt was acting like Indy. So that’s very helpful!

  4. Miles – as far as wanting Wolverine on a supernatural themed superhero team – he is one of the Savage Avengers, teaming up with Illyana Rasputin, Dr. Strange, Ghost Rider, and Conan the Barbarian to fight Kulan Gath.

    (That’s also the comic that has Illyana helping Juggernaut do a diving headbutt from a very high altitude on a dragon that is attacking Bruges while Juggernaut sings the theme to “Greatest American Hero”)

  5. I feel really sorry for the ancient god Ba’al, who does not seems to have been an especially bad sort by the standards of ancient king gods. It wasn’t his fault he happened to be a really popular and important god for peoples who lived right next to ancient Israel. Poor Ba’al. Maybe he will smite Peter David.

    The choice to go with this very religious story with Wolverine winning by praying is interesting, given that Claremont had defined him rather strongly — in a vampire story, too — as a non-believer.

    1. God still believes in him, fortunately. 🙂

      I do remember rolling my eyes at those panels, assuming that it was implying that Wolverine was either reincarnated or actually 3,000 years old and had forgotten he’d fought Ba’al already. But the rotating Hand of God angle (similar to Captain Universe, I suppose) makes more sense.

      This was one of the only Wolverine solo storylines I’d read back then, and it’s either because of the noir/fantasy mashup, the “x of y” structure that made for an easy jump-off point, or Logan’s nifty hat.

      But I never read Part 1 before, so I never figured out what Burt’s deal was. So this was very helpful!

      1. Actually, Wolverine being 3000 years old (or more!) and having once been a hero from ancient Israel— that would be fabulous and much better than Origin’s notion that what Logan really needed as an origin story was a mashup of Wuthering Heights and Lady Chatterley’s Lover that grudgingly allowed itself to be set in Canada.

        1. Somehow I can’t see Kate Bush having sold quite as many records of her melodic Bronte adaption if the chorus had been;

          “Heathcliffe, it’s me, I’m Cathy, eh?”

  6. There was a Go Nagai manga from the 70s where a nude superheroine would send her foes into a dazed stupor by leaping at them crotch-first. I assume Logan was employing the same tactic.

    1. And considering Peter David turned The Punisher into a Kekko Kamen pastiche (another Go Nagai character with a similar concept) in the Marvel Mangaverse, he very likely may be familiar with the character.

      (Fun Fact – Peter David worked on the localization of some of the early volumes of Ken Akamatsu’s Negmia?! at Del Ray)

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