Saturday, April 8, 2023

Wolverine #1-4: 1980s American Interpretations of Japan

Wolverine is taking a vacation in the Canadian Rockies when Mariko starts dodging his calls. So he heads to Japan to find out that Mariko is now married to an abusive asshole because her father (Shingen) showed back up and is now in charge of the family because "tradition and honor". Cause you know. Japan. Wolverine then gets into it with her dad in a duel, but her dad is a cheating asshole and beats him. Then Wolvy gets attacked some more, cause her dad is in league with the Hand. He is saved by Yukio, who is secretly an assassin working for Shingen, it is unnecessarily complicated.

It's all some convoluted scheme to get Wolverine to help Shingen consolidate his power over the Japanese underworld. Anyway, it all goes back and forth, Logan decides to take down Shingen's empire, learns Yukio was a spy, but also that she turned on her employer and they become friends (after briefly being a bit more after he was sad about Mariko and before he realized she was working for Shingen).

He dismantles Shingen's plans, and eventually ends up killing him. And also Yukio killed Mariko's asshole husband, so you know, she's free now. At the end, the X-Mansion receives an invitation to Logan and Mariko's wedding.

X-Tra Notes: This is a good read, but man, the overly ridiculous 80s pop culture view of Japan is layered on thick. (And of course, we are no where close to done with that, it will be back in the future, cause Ninjas).

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