Spider-Man vs Wolverine (1986)

Spider-Man vs Wolverine (1986); Charlemagne's goodbye to Wolverine.
Topic Started: Jun 9 2009, 04:24 PM (878 Views)
Gabriel Zero	Jun 9 2009, 04:24 PM Post #1
Administrator Posts: 2,835 Group: Admins Member #1 Joined: January 24, 2009	Wow what a great comic. One thing I really enjoyed about this comic is how nicely this fits into each others established continuity at this time. Logan leaves the X-Men while they are dealing with with the "Fall Of the Mutants" events. The story from his perspective is that he wants to save his very close friend named Charlemagne. Supposedly she is one of the few friends he can remember from before the Weapon X experiment, since they go back a long long time ago. A few years ago before Logan left Department H he saved Charlie from from getting back stabbed by the KGB. Apparently they didn't want her walking away knowing their secrets, despite the fact that she worked for them freely. This is one of the few comics that actually focuses on the realism of getting caught up in espionage. If you don't have a healing factor or super powers, there is really nothing that can save you from getting taken out by CIA, Illuminati, or the MI6. Characters like the Punisher should of been dead a long time ago after pissing off the wrong person with the right connections. These professionals pose as town's people, hide in restaurants, and tap all the phone lines that Charlie and Wolverine use. Peter Parker gets caught up in this mess when J. Jonah Jameson hires him to follow up on a lead he got on a recent string of murders. The people murdered are actually former core KGB members who were responsible for the Charlemagne's betrayal years ago. So on Jameson's dime Peter is flown to Berlin where Wolverine has been searching for Charlemagne as well. While digging up clues to Charlemagne's whereabouts both Logan and Peter cross paths, it is at this moment that Logan recognizes Peter as Spider-man for the very first time. Logan confronts Peter and tries to reason with him in more then one way. Unlike Wolverine, Peter doesn't kill his opponents, and using that heroic method will more then likely get you killed. Just like reality we see people tortured, shot at, raped, or murdered to retrieve the necessary information the military wants. That is something Peter is not accustomed toward and he literally goes into shock when he see's one of his friends killed for getting to close to the truth. Wolverine realizes this before Peter does, so he tells him to go back to New York and fight crime the way he is already accustomed to. You really feel sympathetic for Spider-man in this book. While we are familiar with the fact that Logan is already hardened to this way of life. We as a reader can most likely sympathize with Peter as he faces the dillema of "what is right" and "what is wrong". Because of his upbringing and ideals he refuses to accept the truth that this is how the world works, and he literally is terrified out of his mind. He can't understand how Wolverine adapts to it and he is lost among the confusion of bloodshed and death. This is more the him simply being outside of his "surroundings", this is Peter Parker being forced to embrace the cold hard truth of how Governments of this world operate. I won't ruin how everything ends in case you decide to track down a copy for yourself. More likely then not you already know how this whole story plays out. I will throw in that those who think Wolverine can't hold his own against Spider-man definitely ignore everything that happened in this book. Spider-man unleashes full force punches capable of destroying cars into Logan's skull, and Wolverine just smiles and gets back up to continue fighting. This is one of the most bad ass moments I've ever seen Wolverine in. And he doesn't need to go berserk to accomplish it. Logan's beautiful redhead friend Charlemagne As I said before, I really like this comic and it shows how one of the reasons I am such a big fan of the Wolverine "back then." During the 80's he made several similar appearances in various annuals, crossovers, and one shots like this book. He usually was connected to each story through is old intelligence agent connections, however I have to say that Spider-Man vs Wolverine is by far the best of the best. We get the dark world that forged Logan over the years, a world that even Spider-man couldn't adapt to. It is brilliantly portrayed in these pages, spelling out for the reader that there is no good or bad when you get involved with something like this. And if you pull your punches with the CIA and KGB you will end up dead before your know it. The ideal of "morals" and "Justice" doesn't exist in war and that is a point Logan tries to prove. Does this make Logan a killer or a madman? No. He is a soldier and he does what it takes to survive, which is a clear and bold difference that a lot of other comic book readers don't understand. This is not the same as killing people and justifying your actions. I wouldn't be surprised if it is later revealed that old Charlemagne is a mutant of some sort. I mean they went back and mentioned Janet in the old issues of Origins. Since recently this story was mentioned again last year and it is a old favorite to many fans, I can imagine some sort of back story being told in the second annual of Origins. I personally wouldn't mind seeing how far back Charlie and Logan's friendship goes. Depending on the dedication of the writer, we could see them meeting for the first time in WW2. Excellent writing that leaves you breathless. Definitely one of the best. A sequel was released in a What If book, that detailed a alternate scenario where Logan and Spider-Man dedicated their lives to protecting Charlemagne's sister Alex.



Gorvar	Jun 9 2009, 04:52 PM Post #2
Self claimed fanfic critic. Posts: 4,043 Group: Members Member #38 Joined: February 8, 2009	I own that what if issue, and it's pretty good, though as someone who didnt know much of the storyline, i did like the issue and brought a spidey to us that we haven't seen before. There is a comic book convention coming soon where i life, i'll try to track down the dutch version of this story arc. Edited by Gorvar, Jun 9 2009, 04:55 PM.



Gorvar	Sep 2 2009, 04:12 AM Post #3
Self claimed fanfic critic. Posts: 4,043 Group: Members Member #38 Joined: February 8, 2009	Guess what?! I found it! I own the dutch version of this issue and like you said, it's a very, very good story. Allthough i have no idea where to place this in Spidey's history, because in NY he's wearing his non-black suit and his relationship with MJ didn't kick off yet. However i did like the events of this comic really (wall)crawled (-slaps myself-) into the Spider-man stories. Ned Leeds died, Peter was close to depression and thanks to Mary Jane he came out of it stronger then before. Spidey however allways fights like this in every Wolverine team up. Spider-man doesn't kill, wolverine does. Makes me wonder if they would mention this into a New avengers brawl, though i'm certain both would rather keep the Germany adventure a secret from theirs peers since face it, both lost a lot that day.



Deleted User	Sep 7 2009, 08:33 PM Post #4
Deleted User	One of my favorite stories! All of Parker's confidence, all of his skill, all of it meant nothing in the face of a killer who can't be killed. "I'm hitting him hard enough to wreck cars... I can't even get him to stop smiling." A classic.
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